@scout86, the dog's paws seem to be the only thing affected - the dr put him on ketaconozole on his first ever vet visit and he reacted almost immediately, so I went to vinegar/water/peroxide dips for his feet (terrifies him!). Two weeks later on his next vet visit she just took a fleeting look at his feet and said, "Yeah, he looks fine now." - no repeat cytology! I actually didn't notice much of a difference!? He was licking them less but his hair was still pink from licking, and they were less stinky but in my opinion not enough time had passed for such a drastic change to take place in her diagnosis. Uggh, it just blew me away and made me very suspicious of her motives. His paw pads look fine, they don't look swollen or show evidence of pruritus, it's just the smell and his licking that are any indication that anything is wrong. I can't afford a sick dog - financially.
@gizmo, yes, I'm being very active, I'm doing things only because I'm afraid if I stop doing things I will die. I have days where I don't want to leave the house but I make myself do it because I know if I just stay around the house I'll get lost in the depression and grief. I feel right now like I'm running for my life more or less. I want to die, but at the same time, I don't want to die. Thank you for the hugs.
So today was a community garden day. There are only a few weeks left of this garden, we still have cabbages and leeks to harvest in a few weeks but other than that, the garden is essentially done and we're just doing clean up. Anyway, one woman who had only showed up two or three times all season came today. She is one of those people who loves to be in control of things and loves to talk. I on the other hand love to work quietly and share the occasional bit of small talk. I'm there to do my tasks and get out of the house, not make friends. Anyway, this lady decided to work beside me this morning and of course, the question comes up, are you married? I said no. She said, "Oh, single?" I said, "Yeah, well, widowed." I should have just said yeah because I just invited more questioning. Why can't people just take that and leave it alone? Why do you have to ask, how the person died? Does it matter in any way to anything we do at the garden or the person I am?
She asked, "Was he ill?" I said no, so she says, "Sudden?" I said yes. I left it at that. Sudden can be anything. She says, "Oh, you're so young, was it a heart attack?" I said no. So she just kept going!! "Accident?" Oh my God, I thought, Just Drop It Lady, Who Cares!? Of course, I'm in a mood now, right, so, hoping to just hit her with it and shut her up, I say, "He was a paramedic and it was suicide." She says, "Oh, I'm sorry. That's a pretty tough profession, it really takes a certain type of person to do it." and I think to myself, duh, yeah, I'm standing here. She continues, "Well, not everyone is cut out for that job. They really should screen people better for those jobs! I mean, if you can't hack it, you can't hack it."
She says to a woman who had PTSD because of her "job" as a paramedic!!!? So i defended myself, I said, "Yeah, I was in the profession for 20 years. My husband was a 25 year veteran. It is NOT an easy job. Not just anyone can do it. And yeah, we see a lot of BAD stuff that you wouldn't be able to handle." But, no she goes on..."Well, some people are just too soft, y'know? You shouldn't be in that job if you're soft. My daughters husband was like that, he was in the army and he went to Iraq, and when he came home he wasn't the same person anymore. The war got to him, messed up his head. They got divorced and he committed suicide. I knew he was too soft for the military." Umm, that was her SON IN LAW !! He's dead and all she has to say is that "he was too soft to be a soldier!?" Holy F! I almost threw a metal stake at her (and the stakes are about 6 feet long!) What a callous b*tch!
It's just so ridiculous how closed minded some people are! You're too "soft" and "weak" to do the job!? I'd love to toss a dead kid in front of her and see how she reacts, see how she sleeps that night and see if she doesn't just develop PTSD from that ONE incident! 50 year old MORON!! Bet she's never given a day in her life in service of anyone else! Oh, why is she in the garden? She "suffers" from anxiety and can't work at her past profession - guess some people can't handle the stress of a desk job, huh? Holy mother F! I wanted to kill her. I was so glad the supervisor pulled me to do an equipment delivery otherwise I would have been burying a moron seed in the garden.
I was so upset but I kept my mouth shut, I knew if I opened it bad stuff would spill out and I would have been hysterical and in tears defending my poor husband and MYSELF! I was still upset when I got home. She insinuated that my husband (and I) weren't cut out for the job, that we are soft!? No way in hell. My husband was the ONLY person I would have ever trusted with my life, he knew his sh*t like the back of his hand, he knew more than his share, he did more than his share, he gave up his days off to help people, he fought tooth and nail for his patients, he mentored half of our service and if he wasn't socially anxious, he would have made a great teacher! He was never one to back down or walk away. And not to glorify it, but how f'ing brave do you have to be to kill yourself? I'm gutless compared to him.
He was my hero. He was my strength. He was my everything. I would have given my life to save his. He was worth so much more than me.
A former coworker commented on my fb rant that I owe no one any explanations about his death, nor do I need to tell them how he died, suffice it to say that "he didn't recover from a work related injury." My first thought was, why can't I say he committed suicide!? It's what happened. It is a fact. If you cannot use the word, you add further shame and stigma to the act. There is nothing shameful or cowardly or selfish in suicide. I added that 8 years ago people called me "mentally ill"and treated me with fear if I volunteered that I have PTSD, now they know its a work injury and they understand because our job is hell. If you can't say suicide and own it, you cannot heal from it. It's a lesson for that service and all of those medics who still think they're above being human, if you can't own suicide as a consequence of the job, you can't move on, adapt or ask for help. Suicide is not a reflection of the person's character, it is a reflection of their humanity.
Go figure, all of the work people supported him in his comments. Heaven forbid they be human and admit their "hero" committed suicide, suicide is still a shameful thing to them - morons.
PTSD is not a badge you wear proudly, it just exists and it needs to be accepted that it exists. If you look to the emergency services, there are many wannabe heroes who think that it somehow makes them more deserving of honor, so they fake it or they flaunt it to people - "I had a bit of that once." Like it's a sweater you try on for a while.
Suicide is not a badge people as survivors wear to garner attention. It is an act arising from great pain and speaking about it is VERY painful but in order to heal you have to own it. You have to say the word. You have to use the word as any other word and give it the respect it deserves - it exists, it is not a figment or a made up thing and it happens at an alarming rate! But no, no; far too many people would rather hush it up and paint it over with a "mentally ill" brush. Suicide is the ultimate consequence of being human. Death is the natural antithesis to life. By being alive, with free will and higher order thinking, it is natural to want to end one's life when in the face of a challenge that seems unwinnable. To want to die is human. Suicide is an act, it is not a person. The person is all that matters in the face of suicide.
My husband was a strong man, he was strong until he could no longer be that and then he was braver than anyone I've ever personally known before. He's not a hero because of the way he died, he's a hero because of the way he lived. He is a hero because his manner of death is helping hammer home to some people that they actually are humans, they're not "cut from a special cloth" or harder than other people because of the job they do. Nope, in the end, we're all just humans.
Not everyone knows this. Not every wants to know this. No one wants to accept that suicide exists...especially in the emergency services. It exists. In just as alarming rates as the rest of the world.
I miss my husband. He's not here to talk this out with. He's not here to make me feel better about the whole thing. He's not here to still be my hero and protector. I needed him.
