Go to the Vet

Human Husbandry Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of Human Husbandry! In case you missed the introduction last month, you can read more about what human husbandry is here, but here’s the short of it: if animal husbandry is the care and keeping of the creatures around us, then human husbandry is the care and keeping of ourselves.

Over the next several weeks, we’re going to focus on how to take care of ourselves in gentle, compassionate, and healthy ways, particularly when that care-giving is hard. If you haven’t yet, make sure to check out Part 1: Go Play!

Today we’re talking about going to the human vet, otherwise known as doctors and dentists.

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Pants, like many dogs, is not a fan of the vet. It takes a lot of coaxing and treats to get her through the door. Once in the lobby, she sits between my legs or on my lap (reader, she is not a small dog), sometimes shaking or panting, always with whale eyes.

In the exam room, plotting her revenge.

Even though I’m convinced our veterinarian is an actual cinnamon roll, I can’t blame Pants for her reaction. The office smells weird, there are a lot of scary noises, and something painful almost always happens. Sure, Pants gets canned cheese, scratches, and praise, but it’s still a frightening sensory overload.

But the vet saved Pants life.

Pants is one of the thousands of dogs who was transported from Texas to the Pacific Northwest by a rescue. You may be aware that heartworm (a parasite that is in fact as bad as the name sounds) runs rampant in the South. Pants reportedly tested negative for it when she was picked up.

When my vet said we should check again at Pants’ one-year follow-up, I almost said no. We’d had her on a preventative from the moment we got her, and she’d been negative before—what was the point? But the vet said, “Sometimes things get missed.” So we ran the test.

She was positive.

It’s been two years, and even now writing those words brings tears to my eyes. When I got the news, I thought my dog was going to die. I thought the cost of treatment would be in the tens of thousands of dollars. I knew the treatment was horribly painful and long, so even if I could afford it, it would be torture for my pup. I went home that day, held onto Pants, and sobbed.

That moment encapsulated all the things that people are afraid of when it comes to the doctor: catastrophic news, pain and suffering, bills you can’t pay, and incomprehensible results. These are all contributing factors to why nearly half of Americans feel anxious before a doctor’s appointment, and 36% are afraid of the dentist.

But it’s also sometimes just hard to get yourself there. It can feel overwhelming to navigate health insurance, find a doctor, get time off work and arrange childcare—all to do something you don’t actually want to do. Not super motivating.

For other people, the act of carving out time to take care of yourself may feel selfish, especially when you have a lot of other people relying on you for care. Or maybe you’ve had a bad experience with a provider or system that was unempathic, shaming, or prejudiced.

Getting medical care, in short, is hard.

Cliffhangers Aren’t Conclusions

The thing is, our brains tend to stop the story at the worst possible moment. It’s like a TV show cliff hanger, leaving your beloved characters right on the edge of catastrophe with no way out:

- If I get these headaches checked out, I’m going to find out I have a tumor.

- If I go to the dentist, they’ll drill in my teeth.

- There’s no point in making an appointment about my fatigue. They’ll just say it’s in my head again.

The story your brain tells you ends with cancer, pain, or defeat. Sort of like how I paused Pants’ story above with Pants sick and me sobbing. That’s not the end of the story.

Good news: Pants is fine now.

“Fine” is relative.

Because of the screening test, we caught the heartworm before it even caused symptoms. It cost a fraction of what I thought it was going to, so we could afford it. I’m not going to lie, the treatment sucked. It was painful for Pants, and she had to stay still for six months, which involved a lot of sedatives. It was hard, but she got better. That’s the end of the story.

Sometimes your brain needs a little help pushing past the awful cliffhanger to the actual ending of the story. You may need to remind your brain that going to the doctor for those headaches might mean you find out you have a tumor, but because you went early, now you can treat it. It’s also more likely that they’re caused by stress, which is way more treatable and less scary. And yes, you might have to get your teeth drilled by a dentist…and then it will be over. Your medical provider may dismiss your symptoms, and you get to seek out a second opinion, or express to your provider that you feel dismissed, and ask them to explain a little more clearly why they’re not concerned about your fatigue. The story can end a lot of different ways, but you have to remind your brain of this.

Find Your Why

Pants is scared of the vet now because she’s associated it with suffering. When we have scary, uncomfortable, or otherwise undesirable experiences, our brains do a great job of learning to avoid that suffering in the future.

This happened to me at the dentist. I didn’t used to be afraid of the dentist. But one day while getting a filling, I swallowed a little lidocaine, and my throat went numb. My brain (bless her confused little heart) said, YOU CAN’T BREATHE!

I. Flipped. OUT. Full blown panic attack—the messy kind. Hyperventilating, shivering, crying, dizziness, all that fun stuff. From that moment on, I was afraid of the dentist, which was not great because I also had a lot of cavities.

This is where your why comes in. Your why is the reason the suffering feels endurable. It’s the thing you keep reminding yourself of when you’re freaked out, the thing that makes you say, “This is worth it,” and keeps your butt in the chair.

For a little while, every dental appointment came with a panic attack, but I kept making them because I had a clear why: I’d never had dental insurance before, so now that I did, I was going to take great care of my teeth. I had to work hard to make myself go to each appointment, and when I did, I used all my skills to stay in the chair. But I went. I did it scared because there was something more important to me than avoiding my fear: keeping my teeth healthy. In the same way, even though I knew the heartworm treatment was scary and painful for Pants, I also knew that it was saving her life. It was worth it.

Comfort Your Inner Pants

That part of your brain that recognizes fear and tries to avoid it is doing its best to keep you safe. But it can’t see the whole picture. It’s like Pants—scared of the vet and wholly invested in protecting herself from it because she doesn’t know that the scary thing is also what’s saving her life.

But I knew that, and so do you. You know that going to the doctor is important and necessary. It’s also scary, and that little Pants part of your brain needs comfort and compassion and maybe also a little bit of cheese out of a can.

Let that Pants part of your brain be there, but don’t let Pants make the decisions.

Imagine a world where she got to make the decisions.

She doesn’t see the whole picture, doesn’t know that the dental work or imaging or blood test will keep her safe or healthy. But you do, and your job is to take care of her, even when it’s scary. So find your why and do it scared. Do it with love, compassion, and gentleness. And then have some Cheeze Wiz.