I Know I'm Weird

OK, I like gross things. It started again tonight. We went out to some friends house in the country to grill some burgers. When we got there they said, " Girl are you going to like this!" They drug me out back where this stray dog had been trying all day to deliver puppies. She had been thrown out in their driveway all big and pregnant several weeks before. She was actually an ugly old mutt but they are my weakness. She obviously had been abused because she had all kinds of scars and marks on her. Now, here she was totally panicked in labor. She had no maternal skills and had delivered 4 pups walking through the yard wondering what in the world was happening to her just dropping puppies right and left. 1 was dead and the other 3 were just rooting around looking for what nature told them would be there....their mother. She obviously was not going to be their mother unless something miraculous happens. I finally got her to lie down and put the pups to her but they were cold and acted like they didn't know what to do. She was still in obvious pain trying to have more pups...... but was obviously in distress. I could actually feel more pups moving around inside her when I felt her belly. All the men kept saying things like, "Just let nature take her course" or " She'll be ok..." All the big old tough farm boys. The vets are out of town and no one would listen to my pleas to take her somewhere. But, I sat there next to her for 3 hours. Never did she deliver another pup or try to nurse the ones she had. I finally got her moved to the garage out of the wind and dampness so hopefully in the privacy of that place she can finish with God's help. I love animals. But, I wanted to help her so much. I wanted to know what was wrong. I like to know details. I guess that makes me have a morbid personality. That, I admit, is the morbid curiousity part of my personality.

I like to think it started in the 7th grade when Debbie, my girlfriend, was killed in a car wreck. I had NO idea that a child could die. I thought, like all my other friends that you got old, around 140, and then you just went to sleep and died. I had not been around sick people or anyone that was ever in an accident. When we all went to the funeral home together and looked at her in that casket with her blonde hair perfect and the dress on that she wore to the football banquet, I was shocked. That's when the swirl of my curiousity began. Then our teen group used to sing at funerals and we had to go through the casket room to get to the singing room. John used to try and push me in a casket everytime. I haven't been the same since! Now, that I know the world is riddled with sickness, suffering, and despair it's almost more than I can bear. When I get in bed at night I always think how fortunate I am because somewhere...someone is suffering or lost or trying to have a puppy.


I am normally a pretty big scaredy cat. I used to be worse. I still will NOT watch a scary movie like SAW or Chainsaw but I like thrillers, law shows and medical dramas. I love shows like Cold Case Files , Snapped and True Crime like shows. I used to love Life In The ER and there was even one show about a life inside the lab of a medical examiner. But, I have always been fascinated with gruesomeness and gory details. A good friend of mine is pretty high up in the Police Department in a big city close to me. He has been trying to get me to go to a homicide scene with him sometime. He said he'd take me in and use me as a crime photographer.

I was the one at the slumber party ready to scare everyone with a ghost story. I could tell a good one too. I remember one summer, while visiting my grandmother, some kids from town took me out to this bridge where supposedly this child was murdered and her spirit walks the bridge and if you listen you can hear her cry. Oh whatever! But, I love that kind of stuff.



Guess it was natural for me then to love my job at the Emergency Room and especially the trauma room. Death just intrigues me. Broken bones, fingers in jars, blood, vomit, and on and on.....don't initially get to me. I have seen it. After it's all over sometimes I gag. But at the time, no. Suffering I don' t like even though I have watched it. But, I want to be on the front line. I don' t like the not knowing what is going to happen at all. I draw the line with children and animals suffering though. I can't take it. But, I got so good at the trauma stuff that they used to have me to talk to families after their loved ones died before Victim's Services arrived. Especially after an accident. Victim's Services tried at that time to get me volunteer there. I really think I might like that sometime. But, there is a huge adrenalin rush in the Emergency world. It happens so quickly and is all about speed and perfection and no mistakes and then it is over and cleaned up and another one comes in. A whole new scenario. Each one different than the one before. I have the utmost respect and admiration for people in the medical profession. I really think that when I grow up I am going to be a nurse. But, only if they take the math part out. I think I"d rather just be the one running around like I know what I'm doing.