Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Tuesday, or second Monday...

It's still too hot.

I tried to take My for a walk for the first time in weeks...still trying to come back from straining my foot a couple of weeks ago.  Damn gravity.  I thought, meh - it's a little breezy, doesn't feel as hot as it has been feeling, I need to get off my ample ass...let's do it.  Yeah.  It was a good start.  My was super excited to go!  She was jumping about, almost fell down the stairs of the greenhouse, barking!  Conclusion:  It was too hot.  My seemed to have some problems breathing with her head collar on.  My foot started aching five minutes into it.  Sweat starting trickling down the small of my back, my face started to melt a bit where the rims of my sunglasses just barely touched my cheeks.  Awesome.  Checked the temp when we got back and it was 96°.  Holy hot!  What was I thinking?  Oh, I dunno...get myself off the couch for at least a little bit?  Take my sicky white dog on a little walk, something she adores?  Maybe get out of the faked false coolness of temperature-controlled structures for a little while?  Ya think?

My is doing ok.  She was panting this morning before work...something unusual for her.  It stressed me out all morning and early afternoon until Katie came by to let Sadie out and informed me that all was well at home.  I feel pretty sheepish about the obsessing.  I felt bad about leaving her, but what am I going to do if I stay home?  Stare at her?  Constantly count and record her breaths per minute?  Scrutinize the outlines of Sadie's bony outline stretched across the ottoman?  Re-align the yoga mat path (again) to ensure there's no slippery spots for Sadie to lose her traction and fall?

None of these things relieve the anxiety.

Tick tock, tick tock.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

So true!

"It was hard for me to acknowledge that in the end, we truly are all in the same boat. And that now matter what are differences, we sink or swim together. That's how it seems to be everywhere else. They take care of each other, no matter what their disagreements. You know, when we see a good idea from another country, we grab it. If they build a better car, we drive it. If they make a better wine, we drink it. So if they've come up with a better way to treat the sick, to teach their kids, to take care of their babies, to simply be good to each other, then what's our problem? Why can't we do that? They live in a world of 'we', not 'me'. We'll never fix anything until we get that one basic thing right. And powerful forces hope that we never do. And that we remain the only country in the western world without free, universal health care. You know, if we ever did remove the chokehold of medical bills, college loans, daycare, and everything else that makes us afraid to step out of line, well, watch out."

- Michael Moore, Sicko

***

"Keeping people hopeless and pessimistic - see I think there are two ways in which people are controlled - first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them."

"An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern."

- Tony Benn, exerpt from Sicko

***

The Medical Establishment, or Mafia has no interest in making people better.  They are only interested in profits.  We put a man on the moon FOURTY-FIVE years ago and today in our country we have people committing suicide because they can't afford the medical care they need.  Families are homeless because they lost everything due illness or accident and the resulting medical bills.  Our Veterans are suffering and dying alone because they can't get the medical care from the entities that were created solely to provide their medical care.  I can't use my own money that has been earmarked in my FSA (Flexible Spending Account) for medical unless prescribed by a doctor (no Advil/Aleve, Nyquil, accupuncture, massage, vitamins...not even a gym membership!)...it's not allowed unless the Medical Mafia gets their cut.  They have even entered the Veternary realm...my Miss My is on Lasix, a drug whose patent expired years ago.  It costs me $12 for one month.  The hot new drug for heart failure in dogs is called VetMedin.  It costs $77 per month.  $77!

I could go on and on about this issue, but I will stop for now.  In the meantime, Stay Healthy!!!

Monday, July 21, 2014

12:27pm

I'm lying on the couch watching Sex and the City. That's a whole story in itself. Sadie is asleep on her ottoman and My is sleeping on the floor in front of the fan. Her respirations are the lowest I've seen in weeks. Her eyes are closed tightly and the tips of her ears are fluttering in the cool breeze of the fan.

We went to the vet this morning to get a urine sample and follow up xrays. They looked great! She has much less fluid in her lungs...You can see space in her chest cavity! Of course, she still has end-stage heart disease, but I think she will be with us for a bit longer.

My's chest cavity on 7.7.14
My's chest cavity today, 7.21.14.  Black areas are good...no fluid!

Miss Sade looks comfortable as she sleeps.


Sweet baby girls.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

still later...

My prayer for today: Lord, though I wander in darkness among the ravenous, jealous, and greedy heathens, give me the vision and the strength to see a better tomorrow. Yea, though I drive through the land careening with idiots who have zero respect or courtesy for others, give me the patience to not commit fiery road rage. As I witness the poverty, the sadness, the injustice, the murders, the hate-mongering, the anger, the closed-mindedness of my fellow humans, give me the courage to strive against utter hopeless. As I watch my world turned upside down by the thoughtless actions of others, I will remain clear and focused. As I watch more and more children brought into the desolation of our society, I will try to remember that only I am capable of changing my world. Grant me the grace and serenity not to crawl under a log. Amen.

Late on a Saturday night

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."
-Albert Camus

So, I have shrugged it off. It is strange to me that at one moment I feel like I am trapped in some deepening damp hole filled with clutching hands pulling me in…and then the next I am back into my normal, cynical, living skin. Ah, the human condition. My hair is still stunning, the basil is green, and yes, the plumbing is still functioning normally.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Watching and waiting

Today is day eight after My's diagnosis.

Camping trip was successful. She hiked 2.5 miles with me around the lake. She wagged her tail and loved all the attention that was lavished on her. She loved being wrapped in her warm, borrowed blanket and slept for a couple hours in the tent before we went to bed each night. Thank goodness for the rigid door of our tent.

We went to the holistic vet on Monday evening. It was in a lovely part of south Nampa, very picturesque. An excellent place for a vet's office, I think. The floors in the waiting room were bamboo with Chinese symbols as a border. Dr. Ault was matter of fact and brusque. She did a physical exam and then some kinesthetic work. She prescribed several more supplements to add to the drugs she's taking. She's lost 7 pounds in the last 7 days, we can presume is fluid loss from the diuretic.

I still am filled with anxiety. I want to do the right thing by my beloved Miss My...but I have to be truthful, I am $1000 in so far in the last two months and I don't know how much more is healthy for either of us. The expenditure of money makes me anxious, and the anxiety over being anxious over the expenditure is real as well. I'm watching her every move...wondering if she's breathing too hard or is too hot in this oppressive heat.

Then there is Sadie. She's had a hard time walking in the house...She did great camping. She seemed able to get around quite well on the dirt and asphalt when camping. She swam a ton, did well in the life jacket (in the water only...She froze up and fell on her side like she was dead when we out it on her on land. Kind of sadly hilarious.) I'm hoping she just needs to get used to being back in the house and navigating between the yoga mats we have all over.

I feel like when I concentrate on one if them I am forgetting the other one. Again, more anxiety. I want to show then equal love. But their needs are so different. And Sadie hasn't even been to vet. Dear God, what would happen if I took her in? Jeebus! Again, the balance between what I want to provide for them and their age is so hard to maintain.

I love them so much...I hope that I may make the correct decisions for them both and maintain our love, our lives, and our hearts without regrets.

Monday, July 7, 2014

My Beloved Mylie

I'm very sad to report that our visit to the vet today was full of bad news. My has been diagnosed with dialated cardiomyopathy. The vet started by noting that he could barely feel a pulse in her femoral arteries on her back legs. X-rays confirmed that her heart is severely enlarged, taking up nearly all of the space in her chest cavity. It is compressing her lungs, which are full of fluid. She turned blue when they had her on her side to complete the x-ray, so they put her on oxygen for a bit. She's been prescribed three drugs, Lasix to help dissipate the fluid in her lungs, one to reduce the enlargement of her heart, and another to open her blood vessels so that her weak heart can get more oxygenated blood to her body. Without the drugs, her prognosis was only days before she starts to suffocate. Even with them, she's only going to be with us for one to two months. Her recent issues were certainly caused by hypoxia (not enough oxygen to her brain). As I sit here with the few tears I have left rolling down my face, I am trying to comfort myself knowing that we've given her the best life possible, but it's not really working. I'm not sure if it's better to know she's going to die soon, and watching her every move like a hawk...living in a constant state of fight-or-flight, being hyper-vigilant; or just to have lost her suddenly. I thought that I was so smart, thinking that her undiagnosed UTI was to blame for her recent vestibular incidents (seizures)...and in going to the vet to confirm my own "diagnosis," discovering that my little white dog is terminally ill, and soon, is so shocking. I guess it's good to be told that it is genetic and degenerative and could never have been predicted; not something that started or got worse by her mom's sins of omission or blindness. She appears to be her usual self...which makes the possibility of her dropping dead at any moment all the more distressing to me. We've decided to maintain our plans to go on our annual camping trip, despite the vet's back-handed recommendation that we don't. We want to keep her life as much the same as we possibly can, as nothing will change her prognosis. We hope to give her one last time in the outdoors, exploring, sunning herself, eating the kids' uneaten hot dogs...before she leaves us for the great beyond. But, I can't help being mad as hell. She's the only baby I'll ever have and right or wrong, she is my baby girl. I know she can feel my anguish and my tears right now, as she has always been so sensitive to my emotions...I should stop. This emotional tidal wave is not good for my heart, nor for her huge (literally and figuratively), precious heart. Please bear with me...this is and will be very hard for us, but it is Nature's true and sometimes cruel Law that all things come to an end. It is an immutable truth that none of us can change or undo. I apologize in advance if I am unable to give or even speak without breaking down for a while...I can't help it. Life is fragile, and all the more aching when lost. Especially when it is my sweet Mailie, whose only need was to be loved, who never asked for anything but love, and who now cannot, by even the fiercest love, be saved.

This heat...

To be in a snow and ice-encrusted igloo, free from the heat of the gorged Sun, the sweat of billions of cars (Oh!  How they try in vain to force Winter through their insignificant plastic vents!), the waves of hot, blistering smoke that roll across the shimmering landscape. My dream: To huddle on windswept tundra, shivering in the cold, arching my back in a trembling stretch. To be out from under the heat that makes me shudder, sucking the air from my lungs, bleeding me to death by osmosis. Ah, to be frosty under plastic, a Dreamsicle maybe...so cold - air sticking to each fine, misty drop of crystalline moisture. To escape the stuffy, thick, heavy air and dive naked underneath smooth, light, obscenely expensive liqueur over ice. Feeling slow and deathly pale. To move from the achingly hot of today into the painfully cold, blue, suffocation of Winter.