Da blues

I need a job.

The problem with my line of work is it can be physically demanding (which I love except I wear myself out leaping and dancing between enclosures) I dig working outside, and being around wild animals makes my heart flutter. I feel the intense feelings of love one feels when one is in love. No exaggeration, no joke, this is a real thing. I love working with animals of the wild variety. There is nothing more fulfilling, thrilling, exciting, fun... I run myself into the ground doing it. Once I get going it's hard to reign in the energy. I don't cut corners. I always do my job as best I can, I will go out of my way to make sure nothing is undone, or neglected.

When I was working at Rancho and the girls had gone off to a conference, I had to take care of the animals alone. This would have been fine except for 4 things. One: I'm a trainer not just a keeper. I took on 9 cats to train, aside from the lynx, everyone got 2 sessions a day. The time spent shifting everyone, making the individual meatballs that day, training and keeping records was my normal job. Adding cleaning everyone's enclosures alone without someone to help shift added a lot of time to the day, plus enrichment aside from training-- browse to cut etc. Two: I had the llamas and the zebras to shift, clean and feed. Trying to not get kicked and bitten by the female zebra was a real threat that had to be carefully avoided. That could take a while.  Zebras are sketchy. Three: I have stage IV cancer, I shouldn't be busting that big of a move, I should have put that much training off for the time being, just stuck to the basics. Four: the temps were in the triple digits.

I ended up with heat exhaustion from working 4 days in a row with temps ranging from 104-111. I worked 12-14 hour days. On the fourth day I couldn't feel my arms, my body was shivering from cold, my skin color was between yellow and gray, and when I drove home through intersections I wasn't sure if green meant go, or red did. I had to think about it, hard. That was a terrifying 25 mile drive. I had my sister take me to the hospital at 1 a.m. My blood pressure was through the roof. I was severely dehydrated and some other shit I don't remember.

The point is, I am afraid of my commitment to working. Doing what I love gets in the way of rational thinking. Anyone out there want to hire this monster? I think I learned my lesson this last time, but I feel a mild fear when thinking about this next job, wherever that may be. Maybe it's a healthy fear, because I lack boundaries. I'm in love with animals.

I need a job. I am tired of being poor from living off of the pittance I get from disability. Animals are my life. I was looking at job postings today through my school. I felt my heart thumping with excitement over the possibilities. The problem is that I haven't been training this whole time so there is a major gap in my resume. Who would hire a cancer girl? I know I can nail an interview no problem, it's getting the interview with the shitty resume I fax to them. It will go straight in the trash. Then there's the geographical issue. Lots of these places are far away and if they aren't very far away they are mildly distant. One hour drive. 45 minutes. There's always volunteering as SB zoo. Maybe I will just do that. The Eatm curse follows me there, there's that to deal with, but it's a nice AZA accredited zoo with plenty of money and good vets, so there's that.

I am trashed from treatment right now all I can do is nada. It's nice to dream about work. I hope to work again soon. It's food for my soul and money for my pocket. I'm feeling the depression that comes from detoxing. It's confusing to be sad and to cry when I have nothing to be sad about. I have to remind myself that it's the cancer dying that's making me feel bad. That is only a good thing not a bad thing. I went to bed at 6 last night and didn't get up until noon today. The power is out at the center so I got a day off, not that I need one. Maybe I need one. I don't know. I hope this works. I need some good news. I have been happy and upbeat but my cancer is still growing. It needs to be stopped. How can I be so happy when this is going on? I don't know. I guess I'm not that's why I'm complaining about it.

The brain is a funny glob of goop. I know I feel poorly because of treatment but my brain will start dragging in other shit to add to the mix. So I have to be depressed over not having a job too? I already have a job, albeit a shitty one that doesn't pay, but full time cancer treatment is a job. I get really over it on a regular basis, go out there, do some normal shit and then pay the piper for days afterwards. Let's just hope this current treatment is doing something because right now I am not feeling like Mary Poppins. Cheerio!