Recently, I received a rare clinical insight. A wake-up call. However, it was not in the treatment of a person.
Rather, it was in the care of our beloved rescue dog, Chloe. Chloe is 11, or as our kids like to say, “77 in people years”. Chloe has always been a handful, with a load of interesting behaviors she picked up before we adopted her, like barking incessantly at delivery trucks and dogs walking by the house.
On the day I was born
The nurses all gathered ’round
And they gazed in wide wonder
At the joy they had found
The head nurse spoke up
Said “leave this one alone”
She could tell right away
That I was bad to the bone
–George Thorogood, “Bad to the Bone”
A friend posted the thought-provoking cartoon on the left on Facebook with the title ‘If Physical Diseases Were Treated Like Mental Illness’ (credit to Robot Hugs). The cartoon graphically points out something that all of us know—“mental” disorders are treated differently than “physical” disorders.
