Pepperoni and I are getting some nice chill time here, hanging out at the clinic and staring off into the eastern sky of the Rez. It's pretty gorgeous out, and it's honestly the first time I've sat and thought about... whatever I want... for about 3 weeks. It's nice!
Some changes are on the horizen and I'm looking ahead with mostly eagerness at this point. I turned in my official resignation letter today, with a statement that if a part time position out here became available I would strongly consider taking it. Yes indeed, I decided it was time to go at the end of my contract period, end of this month. Or at least half-go. I'm off to Flagstaff, AZ, there the surroundings will be more homey, friends who seem like family are there, and a pretty kick ass small animal hospital has decided to give the Funk a go on urgent care shifts. Given that today's 6-day old very facially messed up suspect snake bite pup MADE MY DAY (and will likely be just fine if we get through 8-week-pup surgery on Monday), I'm pretty excited to all get out at the things I will see, learn and do there. A pretty cool Godsend job may have just shown up to occupy my non-urgent care time as well, so the future looks pretty interesting.
I was feeling rather morose these last couple of weeks as I gave my unofficial notice a while back and seemed to not even ripple the boats around here, but things aren't always as they seem. The students and my precious staff and boss surprised me Wednesday morning with a totally decked out clinic, food, a banner, and a whole mess of NTC faculty, etc appearing to send me off with some of the kindest words in the history of kind words. The people I have come to love will miss me, after all, and it makes me smile and tear up. Or tear overflow, as defined most of Wednesday. I'm entertained and sad that the night before HAPPENED to be a night where I decided to work at the clinic until around 10 PM on paperwork, and Sharie was circling the premises with decorating materials wondering when the heck Dr. Funk was going to leave, lol. Bless her heart, she's as fabulous as they come and I'm going to take her with me. Kidnapped in my car. Royce too. How can I be a vet without Royce?
I'd say all sorts of things have happened since the last blog, because it's like that out here, but I'll start with today and see how far I get. Oh... already mentioned snake-bite pup. Maybe snake bite. Sweetest owner in the world, but chose an incredibly bad dogsitter. This apparently happened last Saturday. Holy cow? I know. But also this week I euthanized one of my long term patients because he was left with someone who let him hop around with a broken femur for 3 weeks. Surgery wasn't an option for the sad family. Almost all circumstances out here are out of the ordinary and I sometimes get mad, often get sad, and just focus on helping the animal when it finally gets to me.
Along that out of the ordinary note, I failed to mention that my chill time is due to having locked myself out of the clinic without my phone or keys. Yay Janel. So with only a laptop and wireless near the door, I found my sister's sister-in-law online and she called the Crownpoint PD, who eventually picked up and sent someone to NTC to ask them to unlock the front gate so I can at least drive out. Many, many minutes elapsed, and nothing happened, so now another call was made. After a couple tries, someone picked up, and it turns out that NTC was apparently notified, however the Secretary of Education is visiting at the moment and noone can come down and unlock the gate. A connection I never though I would have with the Secretary of Education. He has made my butt hurt. Butt not designed for hourly sit session up against the clinic front door.
Ooh I hear my phone! My dear friend Jessica has texted me. She has a special text tone.
So tomorrow is the Crownpoint graduation, and I will decorate two students. One was mine, one finished up most of her classes before I got here. The rest of my students will graduate next year after completing some more of their other class requirements. I will miss each one of them so much. Eight made it through the first semester weed-out, and they are all very unique, fabulous people who have learned so much and have such bright futures. This summer some of them will be exploring Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa on USDA internships. I think they're gonna rock them.
Well I think Joy should be coming along soon here to give me a ride to main campus and look for people with keys. That's good because I'm SO HUNGRY. I'm about to start on these weeds out front and I don't really know based on my extensive retention of toxicology whether or not "Into the Wild: Reservation Starvation" would be the follow up of that adventure.
