Being the Center of Attention

I was talking with my husband the other day, and before that, I had a conversation with friends and the same topic came up.  Long ago, when I was a small child (ok, maybe even young adult), I enjoyed being the center of attention.  I enjoyed talking.  I still enjoy talking (to an extent) and getting credit for things I do.  I obviously have not become an antisocial hermit, I do have a blog after all.  Some of my glee, though, with socializing with people and being the center of attention has totally left me.

This has happened slowly and gradually.  I didn't wake up one day and decide I didn't like socializing any more.  It has come about after a decade or so of entering an exam room and being the center of attention.  Initially, being called "doctor" and being the respected person of authority in the room was kind of cool.  More often than not, though, it has become more like a stage actor going on a stage.  I do not act when I'm in an exam room per say, I tell the truth, but my presentation has to be much more like that of an actor.  I have to present myself and the options for the pet in a way to convince the owner to believe me and furthermore to make the right decision for their pet.  This really isn't hard when it comes to the mundane things, (well, it's not hard to present it, but harder than you would think to convince people to do things).  It is very difficult, though, when it comes to presenting difficult facts: "no, it's not likely that your pet will make it to Christmas, etc."  It's not easy when you have philosophically polar differences.  An example of this would be when a client took out a pocket knife in response to me providing treatment options and saying, "well, doc, isn't this a treatment option too?" and motioning at the cats jugular.  Yeah, how do you answer that?  They don't teach you that in vet school.

Yep, being the center of attention is not all it's cracked up to be.  Sometimes I wish I could be the fly on the wall to see how I hold my facial expression together (or not) when clients say or do the darnedest things.  Yep, that's more my speed at this time in my life.