Doctor Feelgood

A couple of weeks ago, I received a text from my friend at the shelter that said "wanna save a life?". My response? "Oh shit". I was afraid that it would involve something like fostering a litter of baby opossums or performing surgery in my garage because there wasn't money available to do it in a real clinic.

Her request was simple: perform physical examinations on 2 cats. A woman had just moved to an assisted living facility and needed a veterinarian to sign off that her cats were healthy. The problem was that this woman did not have the money to pay for a trip to the vet's office. And she was panicked that she would have to find a new home for her little friends.

That's it?!?!? No bottle feeding baby rodents in the middle of the night? No trying to keep spiders out of my incision? Just a couple of PEs? Well I could do that. So I packed my stethoscope and my two fine assistants kids into the car and headed out. Nancy was so nice and incredibly grateful. And her cats? Adorable. Especially Lil' Guy, who likes to eat ice cream out of a bowl. With his paw. But shhhhhhhh, don't tell the vet.

In exchange for my professional service, I asked one favor: to photograph Nancy with one of her cats. As it turns out, my friends at The Chester Foundation were looking to update their website and needed a new photo. And since this foundation aims to help people like Nancy, I thought it would be perfect. Nancy was so gracious and said yes. So here she is with her adorable ice-cream-eating Lil' Guy:

I donate a portion of every Pet Session to The Chester Foundation because I feel very strongly that no animal should be denied emergency veterinary care for the sole reason that there is no money to pay for it. And that is exactly the idea that The Chester Foundation was founded upon. You can read more here and I'm sure you will agree that it is quite an amazing thing they are doing.

Nancy thanked me countless times for my help. But I'm not sure that I thanked her back. Because what she gave me in return was priceless. For the first time in a very long time, I remembered why I loved being a veterinarian. And it felt really, really good.