03/04/2024
*Sound On*
10 years ago we opened our own veterinary clinic. We were 28 and 31 and really had no idea what we were doing. We discussed having our own place for 3 years, put 6 months into really planning this one, and put in a month around the clock getting the final touches ready after moving to Silver City with a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old. That morning, we listened to Eye of the Tiger before we left home, we thought we had every charge in the computer and everything we could possibly need at hand. However, by lunch, after we grabbed fast food because we were so busy, there was a moment when we looked at each other in panic and said, “What did we do? I want to go back. I want to go back to the safe job.”
We got through that first day somehow, then the first week, and before we knew it, our first year. Every single day was a learning experience and we made mistake after mistake in owning our own business. There was the proverbial blood, sweat, and tears, but there were also sleepless nights, anxiety, crippling loans, wishes for do-overs, and many missed opportunities with our young boys. There were weeks we didn’t see Britton and looking back, in a lot of ways we lost years with him.
Our boys had to grow up in the clinic sometimes – often we had no help and we’d run emergency after emergency ourselves. We ripped the boys out of their warm beds more than once at 2 am and made them beds on the floor of our office while we did emergency surgery. There were, however, a lot of nights and weekends where our wonderful parents stepped in to care for the boys. There were countless sacrifices.
But there were happy clients, healed patients, thank you cards and baked goods of appreciation, encouraging online reviews, and amazing word-of-mouth praises all around town. There were milestones, there was growth. Things got a little easier every day.
3 years in, we opened our custom facility that we had always dreamt of. We have some very special people in our lives who helped make that dream a reality. When we prepared to open in our new building, we were exhausted and stressed, but I told Brit, “This will be our first day in the new clinic, but no matter what happens, we will NEVER have to do that very first day ever again.”
As time went on, the anxiety lessened, the confidence came, the lessons of failures reminded us to keep on the right track.
Today, we live a blessed life, and while we still work extremely hard — Brit doing mentally and physically demanding surgeries day in and day out, is now the #1 surgeon of the TTA-2 in the World. I work behind the scenes administratively, sometimes in the trenches, but most importantly, I’m able to put the time into my home and my boys that they deserve.
We could not be more grateful for our staff, our friends and family, our faith, our precious boys, our amazing clients, and of course, our beloved patients. This community has been so great to us, as well as the growing number of clients all over the Southwest who make the drive to us. To everyone along our journey, THANK YOU 🫶🏻
I posted the following quote the day we found out for sure that we’d be making this leap of faith:
“It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”
― Paulo Coelho
And boy, is life interesting…and life is so, so good. ❤️
-Dr. S
