27 May 2020
In her latest COVID Diary, Nat Scroggie discusses the different facets of veterinary life that have shaped her and changed her life.
Nat Scroggie
Job Title
Image: © Teerayut / Adobe Stock
At eight years old, my dream was to become a veterinary surgeon who travelled across the world writing and drawing portraits of the people and animals I met.
I had forgotten all about this until Vet Times arrived a few weeks ago with a photo of my self-portrait published alongside the diary entry. Seeing it on the doormat, I had a moment of sudden realisation that, if we call locuming across the east midlands “travelling”, I was doing it.
My childhood self understood long before I did that it was possible to have a “portfolio career” as a vet.
This week I have done no clinical work at all; instead, I am writing in a moment of respite from busy organisation for WellVet Virtual. We have all been on huge technology learning curves since lockdown began, and three vets organising a virtual event for the first time has been a particularly steep trajectory.
It has been a wonderful experience to take time out each week to write this column and reflect. It was a particularly special moment to recall that childhood pipe dream and appreciate where I am today; that against all the odds, I made it.
What I could not have known aged eight was that, although I would love being a vet, I would struggle with my mental health; that simply getting there would not make me as happy as I had thought. I also could not know that I would suffer a miscarriage, hitting me like a ton of bricks at a particularly low point in my career and leaving me at rock bottom.
In 2018, I drove to the first WellVet Weekend not knowing a soul and completely disillusioned with the job I had worked so hard for.
That weekend changed my life. I learned tools I still use every day and met people who I now call my closest friends. Those friends encouraged me in my writing and gave me my first opportunities.
It was at WellVet Weekend that I spoke for the first time about my miscarriage; conversations that ultimately led to the formation of the Vet MINDS Group. I owe it all, one way or another, to that weekend.
Two years on, life has changed dramatically again: a virus has swept the globe, we are locked in, and I have somehow found myself navigating the worlds of Zoom and virtual event apps.
But I also sit here now as a co-director of the initiative that changed my life, hoping WellVet Virtual will be a branch to others who are struggling.
By the time you are reading this, the event will already have happened – I hope that branch reached some of you.
Out of the darkest point in my veterinary career came everything I am thankful for today, as well as my passion for well-being in the profession.
My updated dream of being a travelling vet who writes, speaks, draws, runs and works in both well-being and baby loss initiatives is even more bonkers than the original.
It is also better than anything I could have planned, although (as is always the case in real life), it remains a little up and down.
When I was in the darkness, I would not have believed it was possible that I would look back and wonder if I would change any of it. If you told me then that “everything will be okay”, I might have throttled you.
Everything does not always work out, and devastating consequences of COVID-19 will occur.
It is not my intention here to diminish the pain or loss many will suffer, or carelessly scatter clichés about silver linings. But of the few things that feel certain right now, it is that the future is completely unimaginable – and maybe it always was.
I did not know what the future looked like when I was 8 years old (although it was a good guess), and I do not know now I am 28 years old. I am sure I will not know even when I am 88 years old. But I am beginning to trust that I will find my way there somehow and look back on this topsy-turvy world through totally different lenses.
Sadly, we cannot pre-order these futuristic spectacles. COVID-19 has emptied a multipack of mixed seeds into our lives, and it is impossible to imagine what they may grow into: ornate flowers, practical vegetables or knotweed.
Right now, we are completely blind to them. We can only trust that those seedlings are there, growing quietly in the dark, damp earth, and we will see them for what they are one day soon.
Stay well x
