We Ain't Doin' Right

Are things as bad as they seem?

Image by Christine from Pixabay

We use loads of acronyms in medical record-keeping: MVC for motor-vehicle crash, MI for myocardial infarction (heart attack), BP for blood pressure, and so on.

Back in the day, when I was practicing veterinary medicine, we used acronyms too. For instance, HBC — hit by car — was the abbreviation for animals nailed by vehicles.

I spent four of those veterinary years in Mississippi, which like all regions has its own flavour — although the Deep South is more flavourful than most, in more ways than one.

Imagine a rural Southern farmer arriving with his blue-tick coonhound, its oversized ears dragging on the ground, the dog so fatigued that every step was an effort accompanied by loud and laboured breathing, and almost every square inch of the dog’s coat covered with engorged deer ticks.

“What seems to be the problem?” I asked as the farmer heaved the dog onto the exam table.  I already knew what his answer would be.

“Dunno, doc,” he drawled in response. “He just ain’t doin’ right.”

Ain’t doin’ right; that answer was so commonplace that it became the go-to acronym under “Presenting Complaint” in our veterinary medical records: “ADR”.

Just as I knew what the farmer would say, I also knew what the dog’s problems would be, even before running any diagnostic tests. The warm and humid South is a rich breeding ground for all manner of parasites, which causes all sorts of problems but which make a veterinarian’s life infinitely interesting.

The engorged ticks had left the hound dangerously anemic and infected with blood-borne diseases like Ehrlichiosis and Babesiosis. Beyond that, he was infested with a full load of intestinal worms: hookworms, roundworms, and whipworms; and thanks to mosquitoes he was burdened with heartworms — the adults of which, as the name suggests, reside in the right side of the heart and impede blood flow.

In short, the dog was a mess. But it was all fixable.

We drew blood from a clinic dog and transfused it into the hound. A dose of de-wormer started killing of the intestinal parasites, a chemical soak removed all the ticks, antibiotics went to work on the Ehrlichiosis and Babesiosis, and an intravenous drug began eliminating the heartworms.

A few days later the hound was returned to his owner, full of vim and vinegar and ready to go back to treeing racoons.

I’ve had “ADR” on my brain lately, on the eve of an American presidential election which has doomsayers on both sides predicting the end of democracy.

The Grand Canyon is a minor fissure in the earth’s crust compared with the yawning chasm that exists between the MAGA crowd and Harris supporters. Anger, division, suspicion, and distrust are the order of the day. Public discourse is submerged by a tsunami of hyperbole and hypocrisy — both four-syllable words, and both stuffed end-to-end with unmitigated bullshit.

The final days of the campaign have been less than uplifting, with Donald Trump commenting on Arnold Palmer’s equipment — he wasn’t referring to his golf clubs — and Kamala Harris tossing out ever-larger word salads comprehensible to absolutely no one (probably not even to herself).

I’m reminded of the words of W.H.Auden, in his poem September 1, 1939:

“Our world in stupor lies, beleaguered by negation and despair.”

He wrote those words as the world was descending into the awfulness of the Second World War. And if folks like veteran journalist Bob Woodward are to be believed, fascists are once again at the gate, with another Trump presidency certain to launch us into a third.

As my readers know, I’m no fan of Trump. But Woodward and Co. seem to have forgotten that there were essentially zero wars during Trump’s first term; and that the current unsettled state of the world, with Russia in Ukraine and with the Middle East an exploding powder keg, arose during Joe Biden’s administration — an administration hallmarked by the shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan that signalled weakness for all the world to see.

In short, we’re a mess; we ain’t doin’ right.

But as with the coonhound, it’s all fixable.

I’m on board with the sentiment of Alexander Pope, that no matter how dark things seem, “hope springs eternal in the human breast”.

We’re not all that different, after all. Apart from the Deep South, I’ve lived in Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Colorado; I have friends and acquaintances in all those places. And if you strip away their cultural and political differences, the citizens of each of those places all want the same things: safe communities, roofs over their heads, decent jobs, food on the table, some money in the bank, and opportunities for their kids.

In the end, as the saying goes, we all bleed the same red.

But we could do with a transfusion of humility, a dip in the bath of human kindness, a dose of empathy, and an injection of tolerance.

Auden, again, at the close of his poem:

Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Indeed, we’re all composed of Eros and dust. So let’s work to show that affirming flame.

Because then we’ll be alright. I’m sure of it.