I continued to do advanced training in small animal surgery and surgical oncology and I am an ACVS board certified small animal surgeon and ACVS Founding Fellow of both Surgical Oncology and Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery. (It’s a lot of letters and my mom likes that very much.) Until recently, I spent the majority of my career in academia and was tenured faculty at the University of Guelph and the University of Florida.

Then things got interesting. Somewhere between Guelph and Gainesville I had thyroid cancer (I’m doing fine now. Thank you) and I started writing about it. Somehow, this journey turned into the bestselling memoir, LUCKY DOG: HOW BEING A VETERINARIAN SAVED MY LIFE, which was published by The House of Anansi in 2014. Despite the heavy topic (having and treating cancer), the book is funny. It will make you laugh and ugly cry in public. Writing this book made me realize how much I love comedy writing and creativity in general. This led to taking comedy classes at the Second City. I discovered my love for stand-up comedy and eventually I went full mid-life crisis and went to Humber College for two years in the Comedy Performance and Writing Program and graduated in 2023. I loved being in school again due to my extreme nerdy tendencies.