Snow + Dough

We’ve gotten our first big snow here, which I look forward to from the moment all the auburn, crisped leaves start dropping off the trees and they’re more bare than they are full. You go from looking up at all the colors to looking down at all the shapes underfoot, which is a different kind of fascination with the world, but I’m always still eager for the first dusting of snow that sticks.

This year’s first big snowfall was especially fun, because it happened on the day we cut down our Christmas tree - which is always ASAP after Thanksgiving. We were out walking around the tree farm at 8AM, full of peppermint mocha, catching snowflakes in our eyelashes and watching as the trees became dressed in white. As a Californian, that was pure movie moment magic.

Our tree is now all lit up in warm gold light and ornamented inside. I have been crocheting a garland to look like popcorn and cranberries to adorn it - wrapping the tree as I go and placing the yarn in its branches during breaks.

Not much cooking went on in the start of December, as we still had a fridge-full of Thanksgiving leftovers as to be expected when you make 9 dishes for your household of two. Since then, any time in the kitchen has been mostly spent making tea, coffee, or cocoa as we indulge in Netflix’s Christmas movies and shows. We’ve already watched Dash and Lily, That Christmas, Last Christmas, and Hot Frosty. Klaus is next on the list. We’ll skip the ones taking place in L.A. and other sunny regions; I’ve had enough of surfing Santa for my lifetime.

With the excessive leftovers and limited fridge space, the anxiety pit these last few weeks has been filled with hot drinks and hand crafts instead of new recipes. It’s been a lot of garland and paper chains, setting out the nativity scene and snow globes, and getting out for walks in the snow. I think snow walks have been the most helpful; there is something about the freezing air that shocks your system. Even when your not feeling jolly, your left with red cheeks and you see all these clues to the quiet living that’s happening all around you (field mice running for cover, rabbit snow-prints just off the trail, bare trees completely wrapped in strings of light by a caring homeowner, and the crunching of a partner’s footsteps on the snow beside you).

It’s taken a bit of extra willpower to keep up with the pit these last few weeks. I’m working to fight off the discouragement with the same wherewithal in which I embrace the cold (in fact, Gregory noted I was much like Jack in Hot Frosty in terms of my cold-tolerance/endearment). I’m trying to soak in the warmth of the holidays at home while returning to a job that can wreak emotional turmoil. If only leaving the day’s work behind was as easy as turning off the tree lights on my way out the door.

But I’m on the better end of managing a post-operative surgical complication and grateful for several of the team members who remained calm, productive, and optimistic through it. I’m at the point where I can think about the learning and experience that’s come from it. It’s been a lot of working in the “grey zone”, as vet med so often is. The reality that this more complicated surgery needed to be performed for quality of life reasons for the pet, but referral to a board-certified surgeon wasn't an option financially. So, you either do something and try, or you refuse care and let the owners watch their pet decline. Not an uncommon situation to be in, but one that ‘s heavy. What’s really tough is that when you do the nerve-wracking thing and try your best and things aren’t a complete success (even when a complete success isn’t the promised or anticipated outcome), you put yourself in a position to face such severe scrutiny from those around you, including your own team. What made the pit extra-large this month wasn’t the post-op complication alone (though that’s devastating enough, despite the fact that it has been manageable for all involved fortunately), but the variable response from the people in clinic who work in vet med. There are those who check in and say it’s nothing they haven’t seen before and express their sorrow that you’re in the thick of it despite knowing the attentive care you gave the patient. But then there are other comments that break your resolve further than the negative outcome, such as a coworker saying the owner will be traumatized or those passing by with horrified looks and whispering about the case. And unfortunately it’s the latter examples that have the power to wake you up in the night or lead to an onset of tears when you shut yourself into the privacy of your car after work. And as the veterinarian, you just have to face the follow-up and manage it, even as tears are filling your eyes. And you don’t really leave the case behind when you go home end of day.

It takes such brief comments to harm notions of longevity in this career.

So instead of shivering when I’m out in the twenty degree weather, I sometimes find myself trembling when I’m inside with the furnace on. But, like I said we’re all on the up-and-up and gosh have I become more confident with a lot of skills this last month. Plus, I’ve got good fellow-veterinarian friends who put a reality check on my perspective about what really qualifies as a disastrous outcome.

And I’ve had the opportunity to give myself a reality check, too. One of my coworkers is newer to the field and asked me shortly after I started work about veterinary school versus real life working and how prepared you are for it. It ended with a “Gosh, so what are you confident in?” I absolutely know it wasn’t intended how it sounded but thank goodness the conversation got interrupted at that point, because I’m not sure I had an answer. Fast forward a few months to the other day when I was showing that same person a fungal organism from a lymph node aspirate under the microscope. They looked up the organism on Google Images and said it didn’t look exactly like the pictures, and it was a reminder of how hard it is to learn the nuance of medicine (let alone become confident!). I told them that nothing in real life is ever going to look like your textbook picture, and that is part of why it is so hard to make calls and practice medicine. To me, those Google Images were the most similar I’ve had for any case so far and completely reassuring (thank you, Google). So, I guess I do know some things and I am still learning other things and today that feels OK.

And for the days where things feel a little less than OK, enjoying some gingerbread cookies helps.

Gingerbread Cookies:

Ingredients:

• Butter - 1/2 cup softened

• Brown sugar - 3/4 cup

• Egg - 1

• Molasses - 1/2 cup

• Vanilla - 1 tsp

• Flour - 2.5 cups

• Baking soda - 1 tsp

• Salt - 1/2 tsp

• Cinnamon - 2 tsp

• Ground Ginger - 1/2 tsp

• Ground Cloves - 1/8 tsp

Directions:

1. Cream together the softened butter, brown sugar, and molasses. Then, add in the egg and vanilla.

2. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, spices).

3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.

4. Form 2 disc of dough, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for a few hours.

5. Preheat the oven to 350F.

6. Then, roll out the dough to ~1/4inch thickness, shape as desired (preferably using canine cookie cutters for a set of gingerbread dogs), and bake for 11 minutes.

7. After baking, let sit on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.