Why a Puppy's Medication Sent Me Back to the Worst Day | Episode 485

Why a Puppy's Medication Sent Me Back to the Worst Day | Episode 485

A syringe shouldn’t be able to time-travel, but sometimes it does. I’m connecting a few moments that still live in my nervous system: my grandma’s declining health, her move through care facilities, the day she kept saying “we need to get out of here,” and the shock of being asked to hold her still while staff gave her a shot. It’s a raw look at how caregiving, elder care, and grief can create trauma triggers that don’t fade just because time passes.

I also share the lighter memories that keep a person whole in our minds, like her determination to get a wine discount and the advice she repeated to me about saving money. Those details matter because they bring dignity back into the story and remind us that family members are more than their worst medical day. From there, we talk about regret and anxiety, including how hard it can be to say goodbye when life is already overwhelming.

The thread keeps running into the present: hospice care for my dad, the reality of end-of-life medications like morphine, and then an unexpected flashback when our puppy comes home from surgery with antibiotics that have to be given by syringe. If you’ve dealt with anxiety, needle phobia, medical trauma, or the emotional whiplash of watching someone you love change, you’ll recognize the feeling.

If any of this hits close to home, listen, share it with someone who needs permission to feel what they feel, and subscribe so you don’t miss future conversations on mental health, trauma recovery, and healing. After you listen, will you leave a review and tell me what moment stayed with you most?

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Chapter Markers

• 0:00 Welcome And How To Support
• 1:05 Facing A Loved One’s Decline
• 2:17 Grandma’s Wine Discount Mission
• 9:41 Loss Before The Wedding
• 12:43 Visiting Her And Just Being Present
• 20:39 “We Need To Get Out”
• 24:17 Needle Fear And Holding Her Still
• 29:15 Hospice, Morphine, And More Trauma
• 33:36 Puppy Surgery And Syringe Flashbacks
• 38:42 It’s Okay To Feel This

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Transcript

Welcome And How To Support

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices 0:02

Hi everyone, it's Justin here with Voices for Voices. This particular episode, as well as all of our episodes, are now brought to you by Voices for Voices Audio. Thank you for joining us, whether you're watching or listening, whether you are here in the United States or across the world, thank you so much for joining us. If you could give us the big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, repost, uh, we would greatly appreciate that. If you can follow us on social media, we're everywhere. Voices for voices. And if you're able to um reach out to 25 or 50 contacts on your phone, let them know about the voices for voices, TV show and podcast, and ask them to join and subscribe and all those fun and free things to do. So this particular episode, it is uh it's a little bit of a somber episode, I would I would say um so we'll jump we'll jump right in. Uh I'm sure a lot a lot of you watching and listening, either personally or know somebody in your family that you care about that may be declining in health, I guess, would be the way that I would characterize it. And sometimes uh sometimes we we witness things and uh anyways, and so this is an area of trauma that I really haven't addressed for me. Um so my grandma uh my my grandma White House. So first I want to start with a little bit of uh uh I don't wanna I don't know if it's humor, but it's uh it's more up uh more uplifting than the other part, the other parts we're gonna discuss all affecting mental health. Uh so my so my grandma white house, my my dad, my dad's mom, uh we went to we was declining in health. I don't know how much we knew it, or I guess how much I knew of it, because my family kept a lot of things for me, which is I I look back and I'm given my emotional and the mental challenges I have, I guess it was probably better that way. Um but there were a few times we would we'd go eat and then we would stop at a local grocery store and so I don't I don't I don't I don't consume alcohol anymore. We've already discussed this at length. Um drinking wine is apparently supposed to be good for you. Uh you know what having in moderation, of course, is the key. And I remember a couple times, but I think one one really stood out. So we uh so picked picked my grandma up, went to eat, I think we went to eat lunch, and then we went to the local grocery store because she was a firm believer, as I guess we all should be, is looking for a deal, looking looking for a discount. And so she was taking the advice of her doctor saying, Red wine's good for you, wine's good for you. And it's crazy saying that because I since I don't drink anymore, it's just those words just usually don't don't come out uh of my mouth, really, uh just kind of helpful for me to just focus on other things. So we went to the went to the grocery store, and on the way, my my grandma was saying, like, oh, you get a discount if you I don't know, I think it was like if you were if you got six bottles uh of wine and and then they give you like a carrying case, but the ones that she wanted were like the bigger ones because she wanted the quantity, so it just wasn't one of these quantity stores where you get huge quantities and at a little bit of a reduced price per item per ounce. And so we walked in and she was like, we gotta go get like the only reason why we went to the store was for the wine because she was running out, and and so she was having she was drinking just a glass a day, and and so we went and and she's like you know, tell them that you know I should get a quantity discount, and I should get this carrier to be able to put the wine in, and it kind of just made me chuckle just a little bit because of how adamant she was about it, and but it makes complete sense, made complete sense if you find something that you use or drink or eat or what have you, and you're able to get at a quantity discount, and especially uh come in a holder, these are like the larger bottles of of uh of wine. Uh so I don't know that six fit in there, I think it might have been four. Anyways, she's like, they better give me my dis like we're waiting in line, and they better give you my discount, you know, because this is made the heroes for six, but I can only fit four in. Uh and so we ended up getting the discount, and that's literally we took the cart and then went out to the car, and then went went back to her and my grandpa's house. My grandpa had passed uh at this by this point. Uh and and so her thing, one of the things she would always always say to me is uh save your money, which is I I think good advice for anybody. Uh and and then the other couple things uh was she would tell me like, oh, I had like two glasses yesterday, I got out of hand, and so it was kind of a little bit a little bit funny, uh, and then she would listen to jazz music, uh and you know, oldies music, and that was what she liked to do, you know, as as the years progressed. Uh she lived in the into her 90s, and uh I unfortunately you've heard heard me talk about that. She passed uh during the week of the week before my wedding. Uh and so I was dealing with myself, and I knew she was not in great health, and that's one of my one of my regrets is not being able to say you know, proper goodbye, give her a hug and a kiss, and uh so to the to this day that that's one of these you know I know we're not perfect, we we can't be perfect. Um I mean to tell you how bad my anxiety was to go get a haircut that takes because I think I was getting it like I wasn't growing it out like I have been recently, and so like a buzz cut maybe five to ten minutes or so, and I had so much anxiety that I was like, oh my gosh, I have incredible anxiety. One of the reasons I did was because one of the one of the companies that I resigned from, my barber was really good friends with an individual who worked at that that company. And so in my mind, I'm thinking because I had been getting asked questions about are you okay? I heard you left your jobs, everything okay, and I'm not good at confrontation at all. And so I had this like fear, and this so this was I mean the odds of something drastic catastrophic that was gonna happen in those ten minutes at the barber shop was very close to zero. Yet here I am. I'm I'm just beside myself. So fortunately, grandma passed out during the week before my wedding. Uh and so now we get to back up the story a little bit. So prior to my grandma's passing, she was at a you know care facility. She had a couple a couple different ones. Uh because certain things medically happen, and so start at the hospital and then I'm gonna say like a step down from the hospital, I guess. Uh, but where where we wanted her wasn't available, there wasn't a bed available, a room available for her. Uh until there was. And at this previous job, I would uh because of where this care facility is located, I would try to stop by because it was on my way home. I tried to stop by even if it was for a few minutes, if I could. Right? We look back and say, well, who doesn't have a who doesn't have a few minutes? Even if it's just sitting with a loved one. Forget the quality of conversation of that, just sitting. I mean, I'm sitting right next to my dog that had surgery yesterday, and she's just resting lethargic, but she's cuddled up next to me, and I know we can't talk to pets in real life, but you know, she'll communicate try to communicate with barks and growls and all that, so that I don't know what all that means, but right now she's recovering, and so just being in the same room as me or someone in our family, my wife in the office, daughters at school, you know, at school, we're doing the show, and so I know how important just sitting and being with somebody. I mean, I re I remember multiple episodes talking about when I was in 2017 when I was coming out of the hospital where my dad would come up, he would drive 40 minutes or so, and he would just sit with me. We wouldn't have to have a conversation for hours, we would just be watching. I mean, I think there was like some golf on and different things, and uh and so we don't always have to use words to show our presence or to feel like oh well I didn't get a chance to talk to her or him. So my visit didn't matter, it's not that so on one of these visits I came by to visit my grandma White House her her health was declining. Wasn't in the end days per se at that point that I'm referring to. And you know, sometimes she'd be like you know, she would throw her food. I mean, I'm sure I'm gonna be like that someday, I'm gonna be the person I like she doesn't like it or whatever. She just pushed the tray away, and uh, but there's one thing that she did kind of like, and I said, You want to go get some ice cream? And so they had uh like a vanilla ice cream machine, maybe it may have been chocolate too, in any event, and so that was kind of something that I was like, you wanna get some ice cream? So after that, the staff was telling me that she was getting really worked up. She said she won't my grandma said she wanted to leave, uh, and she had her purse, which didn't have anything in it, because given her health, uh I think we had like like a pair of glasses, and I think that might just been magnifying, you know, magnified uh because her eyesight had been declining rapidly. And so there was like a couple things. And so she would it was like the cutest thing. She would carry it. She'd be in her wheelchair, right? 'Cause people progress and age and in that their bones get more brittle, their strength decreases, and and so people would be just sitting in their wheelchair, and that was just the way they they were mobilizing. Or there's you know, lazy boy chairs that families would say, hey, not that it had to be a lazy boy chair, and lazy boy is not one of our sponsors, so I just wanted to share that. Um and so the residents, a lot of them would be there was this line of lazy boy type chairs where right, like if if your loved ones aren't gonna be head heading back to their home, you know, there's furniture, and so a lot of people they donate it, and it's that's uh a grand jest gesture is to you know donate something and that some people are going to be helped by. So it's usually wheelchairs or you know a comfy chair. And so I I I came and this particular day she w my my grandma wasn't quite in in in the wheelchair. Um and so she had her purse and and she's like and so I'm there and she says, we need to get out of here. We we we need to get out of here, let's go, like, let's break out of this care facility, like James Bond or whatever. Um, and I'm only laughing because it's like I can imagine myself doing that when I get older of being like, let's go, let's go, let's get out of here. And she was my grandma's just so worked up like she was just it was just it was hard because it wasn't like she said it once and then you know, we moved on to the next thing, like the ice cream or something else. She was saying it over and over again, we gotta get out of here. Let's go. Are you coming with me? And I'm like, Grandma, like we we can't. Like, oh, these you know, the people here, they're helping you. So, no, we we we can't go. And she goes, fine, I'll go by myself. I'm like, oh my gosh. And the staff was like my grandma's kind of getting a little bit combative, like, come on, let's go. Alright, you don't want to come? I'm gonna I'm going, I'm going back to my house. And so I was tearing up because I knew she wasn't going back to her house. And in her mind, that's where it's where she wanted to go, where she felt that that's what I mean, she couldn't drive. So there like there was really no way that she was gonna be able to go. Um, and and she was at a at a point where sometimes family members can take their family member to go get something to eat outside of the facility, or maybe a celebration, like a part, like a birthday party or something. And so, you know, you have to sign out, and then you gotta bring them back and all those things, but that wasn't gonna happen uh unfortunately. So I was tearing up because I'm like, she's uh she doesn't know she's not gonna be able to go back home basically, you know, where she was at was her home. So she was so worked up that the staff said we you know we gotta we gotta calm her down. And before I say this next part, first off, I have a I have tattoos. They're used there's needles used when I have to get blood drawn, I don't like it. I use I always have to be laying down, it's not fun, it's just the way my body is. And one of the phlebotomists said, You have all these tattoos, and I said, Look, I'm telling you, uh, I need to be laying down when we do this because I'm gonna probably pass out. Oh, you'll be fine, be fine. Well, I almost passed out. I had a white t-shirt on, there was a little bit of blood on it, and I came to it. And of course, what does the phlebotomist say? Make sure next time you tell the person that's drawing blood about this, and I said, I told you, and you didn't listen to me. So there's the needles, the tattoos, the drawing of blood, all these things. So I'm already basically terrified of needles, even even getting uh shots. That's what they are. Call them vaccines, most of them are shots, some help more than others. We're not gonna get into that. We've already gotten into that, and we'll probably get into that topic another day, but not today. So fast forward, I'm at the care facility. My grandma's being restless. Staff's like, well, we need we need to we need to get her calmed down for her her safety. Like, we don't want her to get like to hurt herself, like fall or run into something. Like I said, her eyesight was really bad. Um and so the staff pulled out a needle, and they said this is oh what they say it was adrenaline, and I'm not a medical person, so I don't understand. I thought adrenaline is what you're trying to lower, but apparently getting a little bit of adrenaline helps calm down a person. I don't understand that. I'm just telling you what what was happening and what happened. And so they they said we have to we have to get we have to get your grandma basically stabilized. And so I had to physically hold my grandma not so hard, but enough pressure so that when they were gonna give the shot, um, you know, she wouldn't like move her arm and then draw and then cause more blood and that. So they administered the shot of adrenaline. And I'm just thinking of all these different things as they they come up, and and and today it was one of those days where I had a ton of trauma from that. Number one, you know, having my grandma being combative on combative, I'm like, that's not my grandma. That she's not like that's that's not her. And then I have to hold her in place so that the staff could administer the adrenaline. Fast forward 2024, early 2024. I'll bring it up just as one time. The turbo cancer, the the COVID shot likely caused my dad to have the turbo cancer stage four, less than a year to live. And so my dad's on hospice. I'm sure a lot of you know what hospice is. If you don't, Google it, and Google's not a sponsor, so it doesn't matter what search engine you use. And in my dad's final days, I'm just moving a little more comfortable here. There we go. Uh in the last days of my dad being alive on Earth because of the pain he was in, because of this stage four turbo cancer. One of the last kinds of medications that's administered is morphine. I thought it was only administered through an IV, so I don't even know why it brought that, it's nothing to do with it, but because we're afraid of my dad choking, and the medical staff we were starting to administer medication and towards or at the very end, one of them was morphine. Very powerful, very very strong. Only usually used in a professional setting. Can be monitored, person can be monitored. And because we didn't want my dad to choke, and chewing was out, he wasn't able to chew food very well, and that kind of goes with the choking that if you get a little bit of food, you can't chew it up, then it gets it, tries to swallow. So it wasn't understanding as as much as he always had been. Not in a needle, but in a syringe that looks like a needle. And I just I couldn't I couldn't come to to do it. I and so you kind of see the evolution of needles and and the like through different experiences in my life. So what's that have to do with April 2026? Our puppy Lucy goes in for her um goes in for her surgery. She's doing very well. And then we've never my family's never had a pet. Again, we we had a an outdoor dog for from what I remember growing up, I don't know for how many years, but it wasn't many. Fortunately, Doug his way out of the fence, got struck by car trauma. So with Lucy after her surgery, I picked her up, there's antibiotics for her to take, um because of pain, infection. Uh she's it's obviously more lethargic. I mean, any of us would be after any type of surgery. Yeah, it'll take a while. Like, like right now, it's part of it is part of our lethargic is the anesthesia that's working its way out of her system. And so here we are again with and we've done it with our daughter with antibiotics and you know uh other other medication with uh with a syringe. So now we have now we have four syringes, four days of antibiotics for for her, as well as she has a little she has a little cone on her head uh to help her because as we're finding out I don't know if cats are the same, but dogs like to lick themselves. Uh, and so this helps with the um the stitches and that to be uh be healing and not have them lick themselves and then you know get an infection or have the stitches come out and that. And so this episode's been a lot of anyway. So that's that sort of just to kind of wrap that up with syringes, needles, and that up till now in my life. And so when I saw those when when I when I picked Lucy up yesterday, it took me automatically back my mind to those different times that I shared earlier in our show. And I believe that I I've I've gotten some trauma from kind of each one of those. Uh even with our daughter, you know, we're administering medication medicine, and I'm sure I was probably the same way when I was growing up, throwing, you know, just going, no, I don't want it, and then just being so upset. And then somehow, some way I would take it, and so it's the same way with our child. But she doesn't like taking it again. We're just talking about through the syringes. My grandma and me having to give blood for testing and that, you know, and tattoos, you know, those are needles, and then the other ones are syringes. So why why did I bring up all this for our show? One it is real life. Two, uh it's a hard these are hard topics to really verbalize and to share. But we do cover hard topics and we do share them. Third is it deals with mental health and trauma that ten years from now I'll probably be the same way if I see needles or syringes, or it's just one of those things where it just takes my mind back to to these uh to these events, these experiences. And so I just want to say it's okay. It's okay to have these feelings. It really is. Don't worry about what anybody else says. You do what you need to do, and that's all needs to be said. So thank you for joining us on this episode of the show. Brought to you by Voices for Voices, audio. Again, thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, repost, follow us on social media. We're everywhere. Uh, download our entire catalog, which we're now over 400. Uh, actually, this might be our 485th episode, actually. Pretty sure it is. And if you're able to, you can donate at lovevoices.org. lovevoices.org. And that is lovevoices.org. And you can also reach out to 25 contacts in your phone, let them know about the voices for voices, TV show and podcast, built as a foundation, as the pillars of mental health, trauma, recovery, and helping people. And our gigantic goal is to reach and help at least three billion with a B to reach and help three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. So thank you for joining us. Look forward to having you with us for uh additional shows, and you can uh download uh our catalog all the way up until now and uh continue. And episodes will just drop into your app, and you'll just be able to pick which ones are uh uh are interesting topics, guests. So thank you. We value you, we we're grateful for you. You're the reason we do this, and so we'll talk to you on our next show. So let's celebrate the voices of the world and let's be a voice not only for ourselves, but somebody else in need. Bye bye for now.