You can only do so much

A friend said this to me on Sunday. I was talking about how stressed/exhausted I am. I've been medicating an injured horse since early November. My dog had to have a tumor removed last week. Then he pulled out the stitches over the weekend.

Add to that my job is stressful enough as it is. (I counsel at risk kids) Last week one of my cases went sideways, gobbling up huge amounts of my time. I still had to see all my other kids. Then there's the pressure from senior management to open more cases. We are contracted with the state to open a certain number of cases each year. They are concerned we are not going to make our numbers. There's talk of laying people off if numbers don't improve.

I never understood "you can only do what you can do." If life keeps piling the poo on, what am I supposed to do? Let the horse go blind? Let the dog's incision go untreated? Not see my kids? Not scrabble to open cases?

I'm exhausted and stressed. Then I got home tonight after another pressure cooker day at work and collecting the dog from the vet - again to discover the horse hurt his other eye! So now when I'm ready to keel over from exhaustion I'm facing medicating the horse every two hours around the clock. Someone please just shoot me!

OMG liz that’s a lot of stress. I sympathize when it comes to treating eye injuries in the horse. It’s hard enough when it’s one eye but both is not only stressful but emotional too and not easy to medicate given how eye injuries are so painful.

Not to mention the vet bills that can add up quickly.

Sounds like your job is stressful too and there is only so many hours in a day. How can these cases be covered if there are layoffs leaving less staff for what is needed?
Can’t blame you for not wanting to hear that statement.

man your management sounds uncaring and oblivious to what’s happening in the real world. So sorry to hear about your horse hurting his other eye. Been following BG’s stuff on your other post.

Don't even let me get started about senior management. We are not a factory making widgets. We are dealing with troubled adolescent human beings. Senior management does not give a flying fig. It's all about numbers and the almighty dollar!

Typical upper management....."if you don't open new cases we will lay off so we can't even handle the ones we have now". We all know where upper management has their heads

During a particularly bad period in the agency I had over 100 cases spread out over three counties. One of those counties is the size of Rhode Island! Caseload are supposed to be 20-25. I used to live in terror that I would miss something or not do something and something would happen to one of my kids. Again, we are not a manufacturing plant. We work with real live human beings.

I got about two hours sleep last night, a few minutes here, a few minutes there. I'm about to fall on my face I'm so exhausted.

It's understandable you struggled to sleep last night. What you shared is a lot of stressers all at once and not simple challenges either.

Can you plan a couple of personal days so you can get a long weekend to rest?

OE, I did not get much/any sleep last night because I was up medicating the horse every two hours, not because I was stressed. Gotta say the lack of sleep added to my stress.



Sorry the idea of a long weekend to rest cracked me up. I will most likely be working off the clock this weekend. We are all scrambling to keep our jobs. Ain't nobody taking time off right now.

Is this for your horses eye injury?

The horse is boarded with me.

Oh so you are caring for someone else’s horse. That’s a stress too.

Where is the owner of this horse? It's not fare to expect you to stay up all night and medicate this animal every two hours.

I am wondering if you take things on because you care about the animal, and care about the children at risk that you help and you are expected to do more than you can. You maybe don't say anything because you don't want your needs to cost the animal or children in need?

I sympathize with you Liz because I myself have a horse and a pony that I worry about and I know that if I don't take care of them no one else will. My arab doesn't have very good eyesight so he tends to get eye injuries. I try to treat one eye and he struggles to let me because it's painful. And the eye I was treating must have been the good eye because he ended up banging his head and injured the other eye. So I had to treat both eyes. I KNOW no one else would want to care for him and I feel that he deserves to live because other than his eyes he is very healthy. I don't like this statement you are talking about either because I know if I don't care then the animal will suffer. It just seems like an insult or cop out like at your job where you are expected to do more than you can too by people who don't appreciate the value of a life but just think about the money part.

I am wondering if you care for this horse every two hours all night long because the owner can't afford or doesn't want to put this horse in a vet hospital where it can be cared for round the clock.

That's how I am and what got me was when I had too many of them all at once. I had to sleep in the barn. You know you will need a break Liz.

The horse's owner lives an hour away. She is coming over to treat him mid-day today because I have to be in the field for work. I told her yesterday that I cannot keep up the every two hour treatment. Told her ill treat it as often as I can, but am not staying up all night anymore.

Since I don't already have enough stress in my life....

The vet called with the dog's biopsy results. The tumor was cancerous. She thinks she got it all, but I have to keep a close eye on him watching for any new growths.

Then tonight after driving to the bar to unload feed, the truck would not start again. Will try starting it again next time I go out to medicate the horse. If it doesn't start then, F it! I have AAA. I'll call them in the morning.

ENOUGH!!!!!

Liz sending you hugs. “You can only do that much”. Oh please. Shut the...up. Clueless people. Vent away.

Try to get some sleep if you can. Easier said than done, I know. I get it

Um, you WISH you were driving to the "bar"...N. We are with you in spirits.

Now, Beeg is laying and whining. He doesn't seem to be in pain. I don't know why he is crying. It's making me crazy though.

Can you take a sick day tomorrow? You deserve a restful long weekend.

Could he be just uncomfortable. Like might not be pain but general discomfort from surgery/procedure? Hang in there

man, enough is enough!