As I blinked my eyes open, I thought “It seems to early for the alarm to be going off.” The numbers on the alarm clock read 10:45. That’s when it registered it wasn’t the alarm, I’d just barely fallen asleep, and my phone was ringing again.
The lady on the other end had a heifer in labor, that had been going for about 4 hours and didn’t seem to be making any progress. As I hung up the phone, I dreaded getting out of my nice warm bed. I could see out the window that a late spring snow storm had hit. This job would be not only wet and sloppy, but cold as well. Sometimes life as a Veterinarian doesn’t seem fair.
I slipped out of bed, and got dressed in the dark as quietly as I could. I was sure the phone had already woken up my wife, but I didn’t want to disturb her sleep anymore than I had too. I already felt guilty for ruining her birthday.
With the cold, wet weather yesterday. I thought maybe it would be a quiet afternoon. I planned to go home, do the dishes, clean the house, and cook the hamburgers she had requested for her birthday dinner. Two horse lacerations, a milk fever cow at one dairy, and a bloated calf at another later, and it was obvious that I would get none of the things done for my wife that I’d planned. I didn’t even have time to pick up burgers for her and the kids, before dinner time. She got to fix her own birthday dinner.
I flashed back to her first birthday dinner as the wife of a Veterinarian. We’d gone out for her birthday hamburger. The phone had pulled us out of dinner, and across town to the site of an accident, where a cattle truck had collided with a little car. The drivers of both vehicles were dead, and there were dead or injured and dying cattle all over the road.
It’s funny what seems important sometimes in the face of a tragedy. In the face of all this tragedy, my wife was worried I was going to ruin my clean shirt I’d put on for her birthday dinner. She offered to trade with me, as hers was an older shirt that she wouldn’t mind getting ruined.
I looked around at the streets lined with curious onlookers, and news crews with cameras, and quickly decided I didn’t want to be on the front page of the paper wearing a ladies shirt. I elected to keep my own on. I believe, I got that shirt bloodied and ruined. Along with my wife’s birthday burger dinner, in what seems to have become a yearly tradition.
As I pull of the main snow covered road, onto the last stretch of dirt road. I begin to wonder if I’ll even make it through the mud and slop the last 4 miles to the farm. It is extremely slick, and sloppy, and even in 4 wheel drive it’s tough to stay on the road. In my head I’m silently cussing at having to be out in this.
Finally at the farm I climb out of the truck, and assemble all my equipment. With the cow in the chute, and my arms inside her I run into the calf’s tail. It’s a breach. Engulfed in the work required to straighten out the breach calf, I quickly forget all about the cold and the snow.
Finally I get the calf out of the cow, and on the ground. It’s still alive. As I stand there in the now gently falling snow, visiting with the farmer, watching the mother clean off the calf, while it struggles to find it’s feet. I am overcome again, at the beauty of the scene. This sort of a payoff makes it all feel worth it.
The drive home feels shorter, and my attitude has changed. I slip back into the house, and into the shower as quietly as possible. Hoping to not wake my wife once again.
As I climb into bed, the clock now reads after midnight. My wife rolls over and cuddles up next to me. Nothing in the world feels better after coming in from the cold, than being warmed backup in her loving embrace. “I was worried about you out on those roads.” She whispers in my ear.
It strikes me how lucky I am. Thanks to her love, and patience, and long suffering, I get to witness beautiful moments like I just had. While she gets to enjoy things like making her own birthday dinner, being woken up in the middle of the night, a frozen husband, putting his cold feet on her to warm back up, and she completely misses all of the beautiful payoff moments. Sometimes (or more accurately most of the time) being the spouse of a Veterinarian just isn’t fair. Thank you Stacie for all you do. I couldn’t do it without you. I love you!