Suzi18
Crossing the Road
Keep writing Stacey.....I'd buy your bookGood morning peeps.
So sorry to hear the kitty passed but also glad it didn't suffer all night long either.
My background,
Jack of all trades, master of none.
Hospital admin turned lab technician/ ER tech/ arterial blood gas-phlebotomy responder to codes in all critical care areas including ICU's , OR, cath lab, neonatal intensive care, open heart unit.
A few year side job as a medical assistant in an ob/gyn office for a group of docs who had priveledges in the hospital.
Then extreme burnout.
Hard to have two jobs and a small child, lost my dad suddenly and take care of my mom who lived nearby and had cancer that year.
Took my cat to the vet one day because she was showing all the signs of diabetes. Got to talking to the vet at this 24 Hr animal hospital about my "career path" and he convinced me to apply for a job.
He said all of my skills would cross over , and the change might do me good.
I loved that job and got a lot of satisfaction from the continuous learning environment.
Fast forward/skip around:
My husband's job has made us move so many times.
Went on to have 4 kids and couldn't afford to pay a babysitter on what my salary brought in so I became a stay at home mom/ avid school volunteer.
Other things I've done:
Certified therapy dog partner.
Show dog handler
Dog training instructor
Pet / farm sitter
"Dog doula" -I still travel for these gigs occasionally. I have a few breeder clients and I love them.
I've worked as a bakery supervisor and also as a demonstration chef for a few years to cover the family with health insurance while my DH worked as an independent contractor.
(Thank god that only lasted a few years)
And a writer. Other than animal lover, it's the only unbroken strand throughout my life. Lol
Although the only thing that has ever been published was a piece about the aftermath of our son's death of an overdose of over the counter medicines (later ruled a suicide by the state medical examiner).
This account coincided with when I was working in the WF bakery and is titled
BAKED GOODS. (Bellevue Literary Review, New York University, Langone School of Medicine, Required Reading).
The title was a metaphoric homage to his cremation.
I have half a middle grade novel in verse in a drawer.
Countless rejected picture book manuscripts too.
And a 6000 word piece of adult creative nonfiction I'm still hammering away at based on an experience last year where I was driving to the grocery store and hung a U-turn because I'm nosy AF, and saw a commotion going on in a parking lot and just wanted to see what was going on.
Turned out it was a young pregnant girl who had overdosed on heroine.
She was "a goner" deep blue from not breathing, no detectable cardiac activity.
It was a chaotic scene since nobody in the growing crowd knew how to do CPR. Of course, I had to jump in.
What was I going to do? Drive away and let some other mom spend the rest of HER life living MINE? Ohhelltothenah
Nine and a half minutes later the pro's arrived, administered 2 doses of narcan, and reversed her! That kid got up and walked like the story of Lazarus in the Bible .
I work on that story like a snake handler since it triggers a lot of PTSD-like thoughts associated with the loss of my son-yet I think it's a story that needs to be told. Maybe one of these days it will.