Spaying and neutering your pet can save their lives and prevent unwanted litters. I believe this is important because the loss of a pet over something preventable is heartbreaking. Not everyone is fully educated on the risks to not altering pets and the importance of regular check-ups. Please spay and neuter your pets as early as possible to decrease their risk of developing medical complications and cancer!
The Road of Heartache
Before the Rainbow Bridge
“Heartbreak is life educating us”
Her thirteenth birthday was approaching, and this would be the first birthday after her parents' divorce. She and her mother had moved about five times in the last ten months. With no friends, and nowhere to call home, and feeling completely out of place, she wanted nothing more than a friend that would love her unconditionally and be there through all the difficult days. On her birthday, her mom told her she had a surprise for her, and after about fifteen minutes of driving down the highway pulled up to someone’s house and lead her inside.
She had never been to this house before and did not know these people. Staying quiet, she followed her mom into this woman’s kitchen where there was a litter of kittens and the momma cat. The mother was white, had two orange kittens, two black kittens, two gray kittens, and one single calico kitten. She was finally getting the furry friend she had always wanted. It wasn’t an easy decision, but she chose the calico kitten, it was different and out of place, just like she was. Her name was Cali. This being her first pet, and her mother without pet experience, they took her to the vet’s office for vaccines once, but never followed up for boosters or to have her spayed.
Over the next six years, Cali has been there through the loss of the girl’s brother, all of the heartaches that come with teenage years, all of the happy moments, and has been the perfect companion to the girl. Over these six years, her furry friend has aged and had several heat cycles, but she assumes all cats go through this and that there’s no harm to the cat. She takes her to the vet when she develops an allergy and her skin becomes infected.
Ashamed at the lack of her consistent veterinary care to her daughter’s furry friend, her mother lies to the veterinarian and says she is a stray she found like this. The now-grown girl was so worried about her furry friend but the veterinary technician alleviated her concern and told her Cali would be okay.
By the time eight years have passed, the girl is 21 years old and has just started school to become a veterinary technician so she can make other pet owners feel safe and alleviate their anxiety just as the technician had helped her a couple years before. She learns the risks associated with not spaying and neutering your animal, not staying current on vaccines, and missing regular check-ups.
Cali becomes lethargic, loses her appetite, and has discharge from her vulva six months into the girl’s classes for vet tech school. She’s already learned about many conditions in her classes and becomes concerned she could have developed a pyometra – a condition in which the uterus fills up with purulent material – which can be life-threatening if not treated very quickly. She gathers her furry friend and rushes to the Animal Emergency Clinic in the capital city over an hour away.
The ER staff take Cali into the treatment area to be assessed by the on-call veterinarian and her suspicions have been confirmed, she has indeed developed a pyometra and would need to have an emergency spay to treat her.
Reluctant to leave her furry companion overnight, she agreed and spent the whole night trying to sleep with no avail, pick up at 8:00 AM could not come fast enough. She felt horrible after all this knowledge she had gained, that this could have been prevented if she had Cali spayed when she was still young. She knew the more heat cycles she experienced, the greater her risk of pyometra and mammary tumors.
Cali recovered from her surgery; the surgeon said the pyometra had been caught so early that it was almost a routine spay. The girl went on to graduate vet tech school with honors and worked for several months in the same emergency clinic that took care of her furry companion, helping other pet owners through difficult times.
Five years after Cali’s emergency spay, the girl notices a lump on her side that looks like a fatty tumor or cyst of some kind and makes an appointment for a veterinarian to check it out. Upon exam, the doctor found 3 more lumps the girl had not noticed and diagnosed them as mammary tumors. She was devastated and felt defeated knowing this was the result of being spayed late in life. The doctor scheduled to remove two full mammary glands and two smaller tumors.
Cali, once again, makes it through surgery very well for a cat at the age of thirteen. Two years later, the girl begins working with some of the best veterinarians in southern West Virginia and notices Cali is eating less, sleeping more, and assumes its due to her old age. At this point, she’s had her furry companion for more than half of her life and knows her day will come eventually, but fears that day has come too soon when she notices a tumor emerging, yet again.
The girl and her veterinarian decide palliative care is the best option at this age and that it wouldn’t be right to put her through surgery again, with the chance she may not make it through at her age. It’s not long after Cali begins taking pain medications that she starts to decline.
With Cali at the age of 15, the girl has decided to say goodbye to her best friend. She does not want her to suffer, she does not want to wait until she can no longer eat, no longer lift her head, and no longer recognize her human companion. Cali crosses the rainbow bridge as the girl tells stories of her younger years and all of the good memories with her friends. She won’t be gone forever; she’ll just be waiting for her human companion at the rainbow bridge.
Reflection
Spaying and neutering are important to prevent mammary tumors, which are usually very aggressive and malignant in cats, but also present in dogs, and to prevent prostate cancer in male cats and dogs. Regular check-ups from a veterinarian can help catch problems, lumps, and bumps when they’re small and just beginning so they can be taken care of before they grow and evolve into more complicated conditions.
Call to Action
One thing I've learned from Ira Glass and his stories from This American Life is it's all about the suspense and hooking the reader early in the beginning. Make them want to learn more. I've tried to incorporate elements from Storytelling by making the setting known early on - the main character's home situation with parents, and describing the character's age and emotional well being (she's lonely and different). The plot evolves throughout the story but is focused on the girl and her relationship with her cat. Invisibility was tricker and hopefully the reader becomes engaged early on in the story and forgets that they're just reading it and becomes fully immersed. For the mood, I chose third person because first person just sounded whiney and like the storyteller was complaining, it felt like the reader would feel more sorry and a better emotional response if they were on the outside looking in. The movement of the story is sequential and only the essential highlights throughout the years to avoid the boring lulls of the entire story.
Figure-Ground Relationship is part of the Gestalt Principles of Perception. This principle states that we can look at an object and focus and determine the background and ground elements. In some unstable relationships, the images can be interpreted differently depending on the person. I've included a few images as examples. The first one is an image of a saxophone player and a woman's face and is easy to see both and rightfully titled "player and woman." The second is titled "father and son," this one is more ambiguous because I stared at this image trying to see the other view and was unable to. The third is a word cloud I created for my DCP archive, It has an image of a heart, cat, dog, and of course, the words that make up these images depending on which way you see the image. 
Picture Superiority Effect is when it is easier to remember a picture instead of words. This is one reason why many schools implement more hands-on study devices, such as foldables (example included). This can also be the use of words and pictures together to help the viewer remember the topic. I've implemented this device in the items of my DCP archive by including items I've made such as compelling posters, infographics, word clouds, as well as including pictures of a normal reproductive system compared to a pyometra. 
