When I walk in it’s absolute chaos. It can’t be helped though. Vanessa’s house is not a big place so when Maggie and Bella – each one large enough to hog an entire loveseat alone – get moving, they cover ALL the territory very quickly. “Maggie looks like a Twinkie,” Vanessa chuckles. I’d have to agree. Bella is no slouch...Read More
Sometimes, in this “business,” you just have to sit down by yourself and feel the hurt pressing down on your chest like a heavy boot. There are good days, though. More than you’d think, really. The kind that bring tears of a different kind and remind you why you do this in the first place. What happened to Moe is...Read More
In May of this year, in a small Oklahoma town, a seventeen year old young woman named Natalie was killed by a driver while sitting at a stop sign in broad daylight. This tragedy, senseless and cruel, devastated her family, especially her sister Cait. Cait and her husband Ben were preparing to move to Kansas City from Virginia so that...Read More
Once upon a time we looked at surgery check-in and what that process looks like for us and our clients. Now let’s take a look at what happens on the other side of those mysterious surgery doors… Check-in is in high gear by the time 8 o’clock rolls around. The surgery team spends much of that first half-hour finding their...Read More
Necole has a full house. Five kids, ages 3 months to 15 years. And then there are the four dogs, including two puppies. It gets crazy, she admits. But to her way of thinking, at a certain point the chaos couldn’t get much more… chaotic. “Life is already crazy enough with five kids,” she jokes, “why not add two puppies...Read More
This is a story about perspective. It’s about loss and pain and struggle. But what stands out is that it’s also a story about unconditional love. And that friendship really matters. What doesn’t matter is how many legs those friends happen to have. … I first met John sitting in our waiting room. Ramona, our community cat and resource coordinator,...Read More
Nine a.m. arrives relatively quietly on this Wednesday. Surgery check-in goes until 8:30, and there aren’t too many people running late, so we’re actually a little quiet in the waiting area. One man is already waiting, though. James has two pups, Finnley and Veda, and he’s an eager pup dad, not super familiar with puppies and a little nervous, but...Read More
Barbara lives alone now in a quiet house, except for when her son comes to stay with her occasionally. It used to be different, though. Much different. Several years ago, her husband passed away. Five months later, her father. Five months after that, her mother. And then just two months later, one of her sisters passed. When she recounts the...Read More
