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Transcriber: Eunice Tan
Reviewer: Tanya Cushman
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The best part of being a veterinarian
is when you get to send a patient home.
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And I don't mean the ones that come in
for a spay or a neuter or a vaccine.
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I mean the ones that are carried in,
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the ones that don't respond
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when they are taken from safe
and loving arms of their family
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by a stranger.
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I mean the ones that when you see them,
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you are not confident
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that you're going to be able
to fix that patient and send them home.
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So when they do go home,
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it's like watching magic happen.
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The dogs go up front
to see their families,
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and they are so excited.
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They bark,
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and they cry,
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and they wag not just their tail
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but their whole back end.
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And cats -
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the cool kids of the animal world -
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lose their minds.
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They're purring
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and they're rubbing against the carrier
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because they're so happy
and they get to go home.
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It's literally watching magic happen.
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And every single time you see that,
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and every time you think of it,
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it makes you happy.
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Because it doesn't always happen.
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I don't get to do spays
and neuters and vaccines.
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I am an emergency veterinarian.
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I don't work at a clinic;
I work at a hospital.
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That means good news doesn't come see me.
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I perform euthanasia daily,
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and sometimes multiple times a day.
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Euthanasia is a kindness
we are afforded in veterinary medicine.
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I love my job
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because whether I am saving a life
or I am ending suffering,
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I am making a difference.
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"Euthanasia" -
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the word literally means "good death."
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Euthanasia is a kindness.
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"Euthanasia is a kindness"
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has been broadcast far and wide.
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If it is a kindness,
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why doesn't it always feel like one?
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It doesn't feel like one,
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because it is a kindness
that comes with an emotional cost.
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There are emotional fees
to making that decision.
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One of the most common fees that I see
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is the hindsight fee,
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where, after the fact,
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people look back and say,
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"Did I do the right thing?"
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The answer is, "Yes,
you did the right thing
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because you put your pet's needs for peace
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above your own needs to hold on."
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A similar fee that I see
is the crystal ball fee,
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where people look back
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at a hospitalization or a surgery
that they had authorized
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that didn't have the hoped-for outcome.
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And then they beat themselves up,
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and they lament that decision,
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and they say,
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"I shouldn't have put him through that."
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What a treatment failure means -
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what it really means -
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is that you know in your heart,
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you know to your core,
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that you did every single thing you could
for someone you loved.
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And sometimes,
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injuries are too severe to overcome
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and little bodies wear out.
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And if you had had a crystal ball
and could have foreseen the outcome,
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would you have made a different decision?
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Yeah, of course you would have.
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But nobody has a crystal ball.
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You made the best decision you could
at the time with the information you had,
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and nobody can do more than that
for someone they love.
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The hardest fee that I see
is the betrayal fee,
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where people feel
like the decision to euthanize
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is a betrayal to all the love and kindness
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their animal has showed them
throughout their lifetime.
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And I hear them saying goodbye,
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and they say,
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"I am so sorry, baby."
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When your pet is in pain,
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when they are struggling to move,
struggling to breathe,
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when there is nothing more
that can be done,
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giving them a soft goodbye
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and sending them peacefully to heaven
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is a kindness,
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not a betrayal.
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I learned firsthand
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that these emotional fees
cannot be separated from euthanasia
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when I had to send my own dog
to heaven last year.
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Cooper was my 15-year-old beagle.
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He would leave a trail of carnage
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as he trampled the chihuahuas
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to be the first one
in the kitchen for bacon.
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(Laughs)
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And he had always been like that.
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Until one day he wasn't,
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and I knew something was wrong.
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So I took him to the hospital,
and we did the ultrasound.
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And there on the screen,
in black and white,
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I could see everything
I didn't want to find.
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There was cancer everywhere.
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Surgery wasn't an option,
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and he was so far gone,
chemo wouldn't have been fair.
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So my choice was pretty clear.
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So I told him goodbye.
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And my amazing technicians
made him a sundae:
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McDonald's cheeseburger,
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vanilla ice cream,
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chocolate syrup,
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bacon bits,
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and a Snickers bar.
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(Laughter)
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(Laughs)
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So they brought it to him,
and his eyes lit up.
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And even as sick as he was,
he savored every bite.
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And he was eating the Snickers bar,
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looking at me like
"Did you know this was a thing?"
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(Laughter)
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And so I took the opportunity to tell him
everything I needed to tell him.
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"Cooper, honey, I love you.
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And remember the poem I read you
about the Rainbow Bridge?
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The one that connects
dog heaven and people heaven?
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I'm going to be on Rainbow Bridge for you.
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I'll find you there.
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I'm going to be on the green stripe -
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on the green stripe, okay?
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Yes, I get it.
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You're a dog; you're colorblind.
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I - the - the - the -
the grass-looking stripe,
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the - the - the cold stuff you roll on,
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that's - that's where I'll be."
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(Exhales)
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So I told him goodbye,
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and I sent him softly to heaven
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(Sniffs)
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with breath that smelled
like chocolate and bacon.
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(Laughter)
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And I thought that was the end.
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But for three days,
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this little voice in my head kept saying,
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"Are you sure you made the right decision?
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Are you sure you did the right thing?"
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And it drove me crazy
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because it went against
every single thing I knew.
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I didn't need a crystal ball.
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I had done the ultrasound.
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I had seen everything
right there in black and white,
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and my mind accepted it.
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And that was when I realized
it wasn't my mind asking the question -
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it was my heart.
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Because it wasn't ready to let go
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and it wasn't ready to say goodbye.
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And it did the only thing it could,
and that was question.
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And that was when I had to recognize
that this time, I wasn't just the doctor -
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I was the family.
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And I had to sit down,
and I had to tell myself,
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"Yes, it was the hardest decision,
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but it was also the kindest decision.
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(Exhales)
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And I'm going to miss him too."
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And with that, I was able
to give myself peace.
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Grief is the natural price
we pay for loving.
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It is always worth loving.
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When you are watching
your cat trying to bathe
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and they're doing their bathing yoga
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and they're trying to lick the spot
between their shoulder blades
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and they fall off the couch
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and then pop up really quickly
like nobody saw that?
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That's hilarious.
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(Laughter)
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When you're eating salad
and a piece falls on the floor
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and your dog grabs it and chews it
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and then - bleah - spits it back out
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and glares at you like,
"That is not food!"
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(Laughter)
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(Laughs)
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Those moments make your life rich.
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It is always worth loving.
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But the grief is hard.
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The hindsight fee,
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the crystal ball fee,
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the betrayal fee
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can't be separated from euthanasia.
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And what they mean is that you are normal
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and you are grieving,
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not that you made a mistake.
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Those are the fees that the family pays.
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But euthanasia takes a toll
on the doctor and the staff as well.
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Unfortunately,
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the suicide rate of veterinarians
is about twice the national average.
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Those are the doctor's fees of euthanasia.
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To deal with those,
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I've developed three techniques
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to keep myself out of those statistics.
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The first one is I will not do
convenience or revenge euthanasia.
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If somebody's living
arrangements have changed,
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if somebody finds it no longer convenient
to have a dog or a cat
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and they bring that healthy animal to me
and want me to put it to sleep,
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I refuse.
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If somebody brings me a dog
that has chewed up the Jimmy Choo heels
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and looked at the owner
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with the high heel
hanging from his mouth -
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"These are delicious" -
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(Laughter)
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and they want it euthanized,
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I refuse.
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The cat that vomited
on the Oriental carpet
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maybe thought it was ugly.
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(Laughter)
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They want it put to sleep?
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I refuse.
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Euthanasia is too big of a responsibility
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to be handled lightly
for human convenience or human anger.
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I advise those families
to take their pet to the shelter
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and get him a second chance.
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(Chuckles)
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Another technique I use
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is I give myself permission to feel
everything I need to feel in that moment.
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When a professional Santa Claus
came in to me carrying a dying kitten -
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Santa Claus: red suit,
white trim, beard, famous -
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(Laughter)
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and I had to tell him
I couldn't fix his kitten,
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it was sad.
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You want to challenge your karma?
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Tell a weeping Santa Claus
you cannot save his kitten.
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When I watched a police officer
in his dress blues
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lay on the floor and cradle the body
of his canine partner
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that I had just euthanized
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because he lost his battle
not to a criminal but to cancer,
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it was sad
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and it was hard.
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Yes, I do cry.
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And sometimes I cry a lot.
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But it is better to cry,
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to shed some tears
and spend that grief currency,
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than holding onto it
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and stuffing it down
inside me like a deposit
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and pretend it wasn't really hard.
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My grief vault
is intentionally kept empty.
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The final technique I use came to me
as an epiphany early in my career.
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One night, a woman brought in
a gigantic dog to me for euthanasia.
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He had very advanced cancer,
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and there was just nothing more to do.
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He was in pain.
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And she told me that the night
that she adopted him from the shelter,
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he had saved her life.
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She went into that shelter that day,
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not with a plan,
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just looking,
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just seeing who she fell in love with.
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And she saw this giant goofy face
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(Laughs)
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and knew he was the one.
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So she took home
a hundred pounds of fluffy love.
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And that night,
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she was awakened by the sounds
of a dog snarling and a man screaming.
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You see, she was
a law enforcement officer.
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And someone that she had put away
discovered her address,
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and he broke in that night
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with every intention
of doing something unspeakable to her.
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And that was when he met her new addition.
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(Laughter)
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She got out of bed
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to find a terrified man
pinned on the floor.
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And the giant fluffy face
that she had fallen in love with
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was curled into a snarl that said,
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"Oh, no.
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Not my new mom, and not my new house."
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So he saved her life.
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And we gave him a soft goodbye.
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The very next night,
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a woman came in with a little terrier
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with very severe congestive heart failure.
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He was old; it was advanced;
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they had done everything.
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His little heart had just worn out.
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Even in oxygen,
he was struggling to breathe.
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There was nothing more I could do.
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She tearfully told me
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that he had saved her life
and her family's life years before.
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One Christmas Eve,
they left the lights on -
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the Christmas lights on -
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and the tree caught fire.
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And he barked and barked and barked
until everyone woke up,
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and they safely evacuated the house.
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She said the paper the next day,
the headline, read,
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"Pepper saves family for Christmas!"
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(Laughter)
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So here I was again,
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being tasked with sending
a bona fide canine hero to heaven.
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And that was when it came to me
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that if I was going to send lives
lived with this much purity
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and this much sincerity and love,
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I had better live my life
up to their standards.
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So that's when I decided
I'm going to live my life like a dog.
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(Laughter)
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I don't just tell people that I love them,
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I show them that I love them.
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And when I go to the beach,
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I chase the waves.
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(Laughter)
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And whether it is offered to me
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as a gesture of affection
or as a reward for a job well done,
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I never ever refuse a cookie.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
