Erica Jellerson

Professional Writing

History of Compassion Animal Project

A decade ago, the goal was simple: save more pets.

Founder Dr. Rand Wachsstock tried his best to help clients who came into his referral center who couldn’t afford the care their pets needed. Over his forty-year career in emergency veterinary medicine, he has met thousands of dedicated pet owners who wanted to do anything they could - but couldn’t, for whatever reason, afford the financial burden facing them. Dr. Wachsstock and his team knew they had the skills necessary to save these pets. But without the financial resources to cover necessary care, pet parents had no choice except to euthanize a beloved family member. Weighing heavily on the hearts and minds of himself and his team, they had to do something.

Out of a desperate need to solve this all-too-common problem, Dr. Wachsstock’s original goal of saving more pets transformed into Compassion Animal Project’s mission to Keep Families Together. As a 100% donor-funded, nonprofit organization, loving pet parents nationwide are granted funds to help pay for their pets' much-needed emergency, critical care, and specialized veterinary care. Saving more pets means more sloppy kisses, happy tails, and more time together.

Founder Biography

Compassion Animal Project

Dr. Rand Wachsstock
Founder, Compassion Animal Project

Dr. Rand Wachsstock has always believed in the power of compassion. The compassion he has for animals is what led him to veterinary medicine and to begin practicing emergency medicine in 1984. Dr. Wachsstock has helped countless animals over the years, working hard to help make comprehensive, state-of-the-art medical care readily available to all pets.

That compassion has remained his driving force throughout his career as a highly respected veterinarian, an instructor at Yale University and his alma mater, the University of Illinois, and, perhaps most significantly, now as the founder of Compassion Animal Project.

In many ways, Compassion Animal Project represents Dr. Wachsstock’s life work: helping as many pets as possible. He likes to say that compassion is the perfect combination of empathy and action. Compassion Animal Project will allow him, his team, and all the donors to put their empathy into action by helping keep families together.

Personal Writing

Guts and Glory: A Skid Row Series

I'm a writer — I make sense of senseless things by writing them down, reading them out loud, and sharing them with others. But, the truth is, I prefer to write about something only after I can wrap it into a neat package — with a clear beginning, middle, and "this is what you do now."

This is not that. This is not a short story. This is not neat. I suspect I will be telling Skid stories in pieces for a while.

So, I guess this is the beginning. This is part one. This IS Skid Row.

A wish for peace.

Let there be peace on earth.

Let there be peace on Skid Row

and under each viaduct of Chicago from Fullerton and beyond

and in every town, city, and state

from El Paso, Texas, to Union Station, Chicago

and in Gaza and Israel

and in every crack and crevice of this giant planet, wherever and everywhere, life exists.

And let it begin with me.

Let me walk with my brother
in perfect harmony.

Dear Me (and You): It's OK to Stop and Grieve

Beautiful girl,

I don’t know about you, but sometimes when my life turns upside down, I peruse the bowels of Pinterest for quotes. It’s my own desperate attempt to find some famous author from any century who has discovered the language I still haven’t, a mysterious, yet universal fluency in boundless pain.

I haven’t found it — that sentence or paragraph or thesis on guttural anguish I’m hoping to recognize as my own. What I do find are the pins to be pinned on resilience and perseverance and your garden variety “look at you doing all the things and being all the things despite all the things that should have taken you down” bullshit.

See, the world expects us to take our deepest pains and rewrite them into nice, neat, pretty survival guides, instruction manuals on how to overcome. Other women will point at us in faux awe and amazement, “Look at [blank]! I don’t know how she does it, how she gets out of bed after [blank]!”

Beautiful girl, please hear me.

What I Wish My Loved Ones Understood About My Grief

To the people I love who are trying to make it better:

I know you are doing the best you can. But let me help you out and tell you what I need.

Just for five minutes, stop telling me it gets better with time. Please stop trying to pull me out of my grief, and sit with me in it instead. Lay next to me just long enough for me to feel less alone, even if all you can handle is one moment.

Don’t tell me it gets easier. Stop saying, “She’s watching over you” or “She’s in a better place.” In my grief, I cannot find “a better place” on a map. It returns zero results on Google.