Little Miracles Everywhere: Memoir of a Holistic Veterinarian By Marcie Fallek, DVM, CVA

Little Miracles Everywhere: Memoir of a Holistic Veterinarian
Available at Amazon
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1510782028
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1510782020

'Little Miracles Everywhere': Holistic Veterinary Care

Key points:

All living beings are made up of body, mind and soul, which are intimately connected.

Dr. Fallek calls attention to an approach that integrates body, mind, and spirit to prevent and treat disease.

She hopes by sharing her experiences healing “hopeless” cases, people will seek a holistic veterinarian.

Marc Bekoff: When I learned more about Dr. Marcie Fallek's (DVM) highly acclaimed new book titled Little Miracles Everywhere: My Unorthodox Path to Holistic Veterinary Medicine, I wanted to know more about this alternative approach to healing other animals. Not surprisingly, Marcie received some pushback from more conventional veterinarians but persisted on her journey. Around 25 years ago, a dog I rescued was suffering from something my conventional veterinarian couldn't figure out, and when I asked them if it was OK to see an alternative veterinarian who was visiting Boulder, she said, "Go for it!" I did, and he was cured—a win-win for all.

The endorsement of Dr. W. Jean Dodds, an internationally published clinical research veterinarian, echoes my own and others' feelings about Marcie's challenging book: “Dr. Fallek is one of few vets doing this courageous and important work. She’s unafraid to speak the truth about the underlying causes of many diseases in pets. She uses holistic medicine, which integrates body, mind, and spirit, to prevent and treat disease.”

Why did you write Little Miracles Everywhere?

One day, en route to a homeopathic conference, my inner voice asked me to write a book about my spiritual journey. I felt as if God wanted me to share my truth with the world. So I wrote a paragraph about feeding street dogs at an ashram in India but I didn’t know where to go after that.

So I put the book down. I thought: Why would anyone care about my spiritual journey? Then I started writing vignettes of my most powerful healings and experiences. I came to realize that, deep down, my spiritual journey and my professional journey were intertwined.

How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?

I became a veterinarian because I love animals. I am also a truth-seeker with an inquiring mind. Since I was a child, I’ve sought a deeper meaning in life and a universal, higher connection. This has guided me personally and professionally.

I became a vegetarian at 17. I learned the dangers of processed food and became wary of pharmaceuticals. I shied away from conventional doctors and used holistic practitioners for my own health.

When my dog, Annie, ruptured her cruciate ligament, I took her to a veterinary acupuncturist. While that didn’t work for my dog, I was fascinated with the successes I witnessed there. I enrolled in a certification course in animal acupuncture and that led me to homeopathy.

During my homeopathic training, veterinary immunologists contended that vaccines caused most chronic illnesses in animals. We’d learned nothing about vaccinations in vet school, and I’d accepted the party line of “safe and effective.” As it turned out, Annie’s injury was vaccine-related.

I called pharmaceutical companies, identified myself as a veterinarian, and asked what their products contained. The unanimous response: “Sorry, this is proprietary information.” So was I to administer vaccinations without knowing what I was injecting? I couldn’t reconcile that.

Then I followed my patients at the conventional veterinary hospital where I worked. Sure enough, many returned with vaccine-triggered conditions. I’d had a lucrative side-business making housecalls administering vaccines, but I couldn’t continue without compromising my moral code, so I left the conventional veterinary world.

Who do you hope to reach in your interesting and important book?

I hope to reach pet owners who blindly trust conventional protocols and are unaware of the damage wrought by drugs and procedures designed to “heal” their animals.

I hope to teach readers to not surrender in the face of adversity, to have faith that a Higher Power guides us. I hope these readers can trust their inner voice, for their pet’s well-being and for their own.

I hope to inspire veterinarians to question conventional protocols and to consider incorporating holistic modalities into their practices.

What are some of the major topics you consider?

My book illustrates how the current veterinary paradigm does not allow for true healing, with its 15-minute time slots and hospital costs. Conventional vets must pigeon-hole symptoms into categories and codes, each with a standard-of-care protocol. But this addresses disease only superficially and, often, with great harm. Symptoms are not the disease. Symptoms are an expression of the body trying to heal itself.

Conventional protocols treat the body as a machine, with broken parts to be fixed or replaced. The holistic approach understands there is a spirit, which homeopathy calls the “vital force,” acupuncture calls “Qi,” or we may call the “soul,” which animates the body.

All living beings are made up of body, mind, and soul, which are intimately connected. Disharmony in one part affects the others. Harmony—health—is dependent on the relationships of beings (human and animal), and the environment in which the animal lives. An energetic matrix connects us all. This divine matrix is consciousness—is God—and it permeates everything. Quantum physics teaches us that everything is made of the same “stuff”; we just vibrate at different frequencies.

In my practice, I’ve witnessed four main causes of chronic disease: vaccine injury, pharmaceutical injury (including flea and tick products), poor-quality food, and emotions. When I diagnose an issue and choose a remedy, I use a human homeopatic repertory to find the correct remedy.

For example, emotions, particularly grief, are a huge source of disease in our companion animals. The homeopathic remedy Ignatia specifically treats grief. When a worried schoolteacher contacted me about his flowerhorn fish named Silvio, who presented with anorexia and diarrhea despite several rounds of antibiotics prescribed by a conventional vet, I explored the mental or emotional facets of the case. I discovered that prior to the onset of diarrhea, Sylvio’s tank had been moved from a bustling classroom to an isolated spot after the air conditioning broke. I deduced that Sylvio was lonely and sad. I instructed the teacher to drop three pellets of Ignatia into Sylvio’s tank, and this healed the fish. When we understand the emotional state of animals, we can achieve results without unnecessary, expensive, toxic interventions.

How does your book differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics?

In addition to being about pet care and the dark side of veterinary hospitals, Little Miracles Everywhere takes the reader by the hand as we travel together on my personal voyage of discovery—as a veterinarian, truth-seeker, and animal lover. My bumpy path was riddled with ethical, moral, personal, and professional obstacles. I navigate these as a pet owner and a woman of faith who refuses to surrender in the face of adversity.

My memoir encourages readers to trust their connection to the divine, which guides us. When you commit to doing the right thing and to surrender the consequences, God intervenes. Plus, this book has a good dash of humor!

Are you hopeful that as people learn more about holistic veterinary healing, they will be more open to going that route with their companion animals?

The future of holistic medicine has never seemed brighter. Pet owners have become skeptical of conventional protocols, outrageous fees, and toxic “treatments.” Many seek natural, less invasive approaches.

I hope that by sharing my experiences healing “hopeless” cases, I will inspire readers to seek holistic veterinarians who can help them prevent and treat disease. I hope to encourage pet owners to become educated consumers and to do their research before agreeing to treatment. Don’t have blind faith in someone just because they wear a white coat. You are your pet’s advocate. Your allegiance is to your pet, not your vet.

References

In conversation with Dr. Marcie Fallek, DVM, CVA, an internationally respected doctor of veterinary medicine licensed in New York, Connecticut, and Florida. Though she was trained and practiced as a conventional vet, she has been a holistic veterinarian for more than thirty years. Marcie is certified in Veterinary Acupuncture and trained in Classical Homeopathy. She has offices in Manhattan and Fairfield County, Connecticut, where she shares a home with two cats, Jyoti and Zahara, and Kyra, a dog rescued from the streets of Russia.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Marcie Fallek, DVM, CVA, is an internationally respected doctor of veterinary medicine licensed in New York, Connecticut, and Florida. Though she was trained and practiced as a conventional vet, she has been a holistic veterinarian for more than thirty years. Marcie is certified in Veterinary Acupuncture and trained in Classical Homeopathy. She has offices in Manhattan and Fairfield County, Connecticut, where she shares a home with two cats, Jyoti and Zahara, and Kyra, a dog rescued from the streets of Russia.

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