Suicide and Disability

If it’s Monday, then it must be time for the MELD update. Looks like I’m not the only one who’s moved up in the past few weeks. I’m hanging onto my 19 by mere fingernails, and will probably drop back into the next group with the next set of blood work submitted.

One thing I neglected to mention in my last update was a somewhat upsetting news announcement I heard during the Alumni Meeting this weekend. Each year they always have a roll call of the deaths of alumni veterinarians during the prior year. They are listed in order of year of graduation, oldest first. The first year listed was 1907, which gave me rather big pause. I know they went to college level schools at a much younger age those days, but even if the lad were 16 years of age when he entered school, he’d have been 112 when he died! What an amazing run. I wonder how long he was a practicing veterinarian.

The last year they listed was 1999, the class that graduated a year after mine. When they read the name, it was someone I’d known. Later, talking among friends, the rumor surfaced that he had committed suicide. I had simply assumed until that point that it must have been an auto accident, or some fluke illness. Even though he and I were never more than passing friends, it’s left me with an empty feeling. I obviously didn’t know enough of his life to understand the pressures he was under that brought him to this decision, but I’d never have guessed in a million years he would have taken that road.

The feeling is perhaps exacerbated by the fact that this is the second suicide I heard about this month. The other one is from a more awkward situation. A dear friend that I had become estranged, SCUBA-Boy, has two younger brothers, twins. One of them, a well-educated young man with every reason to live, killed himself over the Christmas holidays. He was an addicted, and apparently simply chose to overdose. This has crushed SCUBA-Boy, who had a checkered history of bickering and sparring with this brother. SCUBA got in touch with me after a long silence to let me know it had happened, and it became apparent how hard this had hit him.

SCUBA-Boy and I had picked a bit of a fight previously, and that he had to swallow some pride to get back in touch with me. I love this guy dearly as a friend, and fear I may have been too hard on him. While I was as sympathetic as possible regarding his brother, I didn’t back down too much from the stand I’d taken on the item that we’d fought about. Even though he told me he wanted the truth, in retrospect I think I may have given “the truth” too freely. It’s too late to turn back the hands of time though, so I’ll just have to continue waiting to see how this plays out.

Today has been my last day at work before going on disability. I expected it to be far more bittersweet than it has been. Yes, I’m sad to be leaving, but I’m so tired that I’m still counting down the minutes to end of the day. I’ve gotten phone calls from people all over the building wishing me good luck, and several people have asked for my home address and email address. There’s part of me that thinks I must be a fool to leave this kind of daily support system, but the God’s honest truth is that I can’t do it anymore.

Maybe the updates to my diary will be more complete and less erratic now, anyhow.