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I'm back after a week on a beautiful island off of the Maine Coast.
The weather was perfect. We watched sunrises and sunsets. My major problem solving was determining the line between a broken bottle and seaglass. Really good seaglass is kind of hard to come by.
There was no TV. No internet. Mary's cell phone only worked if you stood in the backyard overlooking the ocean. On the first day we found an apple tree that overlooked the tidal cove and parked our chairs there. For the first 24 hours I did nothing but sit on the lounge chair, under the apple tree, listening to the birds and reading. The tide came in, then it went out. The birds came in to pick at the tidal buffet. I did my best to mimic them by eating vegetables and dip. Dead crabs, not so much. Every day I had a popsicle. The kind with two popsicle sticks that made my mouth red.
I've been concerned since the beginning of my career about how to keep the part of me that responds with empathy and compassion bubbling to the surface. I had the (fortunate in retrospect) experience early in my career of seeing many vets and vet techs burned out. It's common in veterinary practices to begin to see the client as the problem. Please don't take that personally....I'm sure it happens if you are dentist, or grocer, a public servant or (especially) a customer service representative. In our daily practice, I always want everyone on the team to get that the humans are 50% of the relationship, and with each worried, anxious or brusque person has a little kid inside that's just really worried about their pet. So we've talked about it regularly. Just before I went away though, I noticed you guys were all getting really unreasonable. (Kidding)
But seriously, I worked for a vet while I was going to vet school that would complain endlessly about how all disease and injury of pets was the owner's fault. If they hadn't let the cat out, or if they had fed them decent food, or if they had the dog on a leash....bad things wouldn't happen. I'm guessing he was in his early sixties, and in retrospect I'm sure his burnout was from being a sole practioner, in rural Virginia, on call 24 hours, for 40 years. Unfortunately, his emotional volatility also was focused on the pets. I left that practice after a weekend where just he and I were working on a lab. It was a goofy, spirited lab that was hospitalized for vomiting. He was to get Pepto two times daily and the vet had this huge syringe. The lab looked at him quizzically as he in short, irritated motions opened this poor creature's mouth and attempted to get in the pink goo. The dog bucked, Pepto went everywhere and this vet screamed at the dog. He threw the syringe across the room and unleashed a stream of profanity.
I told him the next week that my job at a Pizza delivery place needed me to work more. Looking back I wish I had the guts to tell him what I really thought. I remember thinking then that Pizza delivery was a hell of a lot easier than veterinary medicine. But I also promised myself that if I was ever like that, I'd go back to delivering pies.
OK, the good news is that I'm not writing you guys to tell you that I'm changing my career. I love what I do more than ever. I love that I don't deliver pizza anymore, but I do give the pizza delivery guy a big tip because he is working his butt off.
But I'm coming back with a game plan. I want to do this until I'm an old man and you guys make me retire.
I'm going to take off more often. Not once a year for a week, but every three months or so for a few days.
I'm taking a yoga class
I'm incorporating the staff in handling my emails...I came back to 156 in my inbox. Know that your questions will still be answered by me or the staff. The one thing I did that was work related was make a decision tree about handling email issues. Of course I did it under the apple tree. Keep sending the emails...we all love them.
Here's my deal. Kindred Spirits makes a difference. Not me, all of us. I have the best staff on the planet and the clients who understand what a special relationship they have stumbled into. You all get to know each other in the waiting room, in the community, and at our events. What you see is other people who feel like you do.
In that spirit, the place we went to is on Islesboro, and was offered to us to rent for the week from a client of the clinic. The client, Michael lived on Islesboro for years. His house is beautiful and on the ocean. I met Michael because he brought his dog Watson, who has a severe congenital malformation of his spine in once a month for acupuncture. He would take his dogs, once a month from the island on the ferry, drive to the clinic to have acupuncture for Watson. His devotion and gentle spirit has made him one of many of you that I love to see. That's Michael I'm talking about...Watson would just assume bite me if I place the needles in a sensitive spot. Anyway, as I was thanking Michael at the end of the week I mentioned that I had 900 or so really close friends who would probably enjoy renting a place like this to de-stress.
He said he'd be glad to have you. I was his first rent-ee and it went well. I can vouch for you guys (ok, some of you are a little sketchy) and there is still a bit of summer left. The property is currently for sale and can be seen at
But if you need a place to get away, email Michael at
This is more affordable than you might think, but you gotta leave at as you found it.
There are several miles of beach and extremely few people. But unfortunately there is no sea glass left. We took it all.
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