I’m sitting in a hotel room watching TV with my husband while the girls supposedly go to sleep. We had a boring day in the car but fun tonight … at least I did! There were 45 out of my 72 classmates present, and hopefully more will be in attendance at tomorrow night’s party. Boy, we’re an old bunch of folks!


We were about an hour late to the party, after driving all day and losing an hour to a time zone change. I arrived just as they were introducing the classes, and the “class of honor” was the Silver Anniversary Class of ’82. We lined up and one by one took the stage and briefly told where we lived and what we were doing. As you can imagine, most of my classmates were still practicing veterinary medicine, or working for Eli Lily Pharmaceutical company or something like that. Many owned their own practice, and some were presenting workshops at the veterinary conference that is occurring this week. (I get my continuing education credits from a magazine, because I do keep my license current!) We lined up alphabetically so I was midway in the second half. My summary of what I am doing was just a bit different than those before me or those who followed! The presence of my beautiful daughters in the audience punctuated my comments.


Afterwards, a few classmates asked more about what I was doing. We had a reunion five years ago, and some of my classmates already knew about my passion. One member of the latter group told me she had a friend who had adopted and was having some difficulties. This friend told my classmate she had heard of “some veterinarian who knows about attachment in kids …” and my classmate asked me for my card!


Before we left tonight, I approached the newly appointed Dean of the Veterinary School (a really nice guy that worked in the Pathology lab when I was a student) and asked him if there was any way we could tap into the resources represented in that room full of accomplished and successful professional people. I have two agendas … find financial support and get the word out to families who need us. He was interested and we will be talking more about this soon. I guess I can’t help but mix business with pleasure!


Tonight’s meal of pizza in the hotel room will be my last until after my insides are examined tomorrow. Stay tuned!


Photo Credit -- Class of '06, School of Veterinary Medicine