pet connection

My back is bedeviling me again, no doubt a result of too much computer time during last week’s series of storms, when I was social media-ifying pretty close to 24/7 for the day (and night) job, which is on the communications team of the local customer-owned electrity utility.

I work there part-time, and I usually like it a lot. Strange but true: I love public policy, electric transportation and green energy technology, and I’m a total fan girl for infrastructure. (Infrastructure makes me all tingly!)

Yes, I’m a policy wonk. So far, the interesting subject matter and challenging nature  of the work has been enough to offset the fact that my “cube” at the best public utility in Sacramento is so distressing and depressing it would make a factory-farmed chicken feel better about a battery cage. I can’t get it changed, and some of these gray winter mornings the thought of working in that spot … well, you can tell the work is interesting to me, because I’m still there. Yes, I know that sounds whiny, and yes, I’m glad I have a job. But would it be too damn much to ask for a workspace that doesn’t make me want to cry?

But back to those back spasms. They come and they go. It’s age, it’s hormones, it’s my Sciatic nerve … it’s just something to deal with when it happens, so it goes. Walking, physical therapy and rest when it gets bad, there you have it.

Frankly, my doctor couldn’t care much less. She nice and she’s smart, but she works for an HMO (and yes, again, I’m lucky I have coverage), and she needs to get me in and out of her exam room in 15 minutes or less. And she needs to keep me out of the hands of specialists and surgeons and away from tests, all of which cost the HMO money they’d otherwise get to keep. So she tells me to lose (more) weight, walk more and go to the physical therapist. Thank you, goodbye. Please don’t call again. You’re welcome.

So I’m home yesterday, in occasional spasms of agony, when I notice puppy Faith is very quiet. This, it almost goes without saying, is not normal for her 9-month-old puppy self. I work her over a little and discover that she is in pain. So I call over to the veterinary hospital and in 45 seconds, I’m talking talking to our Primary Care Veterinarian, the saintly and gifted Dr. Bill Porte. After a few minutes, FayBee and I are on our way to see him.

Once there, she is ushered into the back, enveloped by worried vet techs, and soon, Dr. Bill is there, too. Within an hour, she has also been given a look-see by the surgical specialist and the neurologist (it’s a specialty center, 24/7), and the radiologist has reviewed her rads and ultrasound. Blood and urine tests are sent out stat. Nothing obvious presents, so she is admitted for overnight observation and fluids, after the night doc is called in to the room to meet me, meet my dog and get the overview from Dr. Bill.

This morning, Miss FayBee is bouncing off the walls at the veterinary hospital, licking the top layer of skin off the face of anyone who comes near. After hospital rounds, she’ll likely be released, at which time I’ll know more about what could have laid my crazy 9-month-old retriever puppy so low yesterday she didn’t want to pick her head off the exam-room floor.

We’ll drive home with me shifting in the seat painfully, heading home for more meds and a heating pad, wondering why health-care reform is so apparently unobtainable that despite insurance I can’t get help for anything — but my dog can get help for everything. Chances are I’ll start crying again, thinking that this time last year almost to the day my family and I were in a hospital emergency room with my scared and dying father, begging for someone to help him, to admit him, to ease his pain. And getting nothing and nowhere for hours and hours and hours.

The fact is, my father, despite the best efforts of his own, good, primary care physician, was chewed up and spit out dead by the health care system. The best care he got while dying? In hospice. Sad but true.

The whole thing makes me want to vomit, but that effort would surely make my back even worse — and God knows I won’t be able to get any urgent help with that. So in a couple of hours I’ll go gratefully reclaim my puppy, hug my veterinarian and let it go for a while.

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On a happier note …

On Friday I came home and found two packages in my mail box. The first from from regular reader Cait Macanliss, who’d read my admiration of the felted dogs and cats I’d seen on Etsy and offered to create one for me herself, being a crafty sort.

She did, and I love it. The little dog is a model of the late, great Heather, right down to the gray on the muzzle, and she didn’t have to tell me that, so strong was the resemblance. She also included a big surprise: A Drew! (The picture doesn’t do them justice, believe me.)

I love these both, and I cannot recommend her work enough. If you’re looking for a treat, click on her name and drop her an e-mail.

The other package was from Iowa, from Dooley, a/k/a The Big D, who was known here at the house  by his ribbon color, Blaze Orange Boy, or BOB. Bob is living with my friend Alyce (a/k/a Verde) who also has the last remaining member of Heather’s litter, her 13-year-old brother Bogey.

Inside the package: A long, beautiful pheasant feather, and a note that read, in part:

The Big D is going to be a hoot in the field and a pain in my ass every day of his existence. I love him to death! I hope he drives me crazy for 13+ years like another dog I know.

So do I, Alyce. So do I. And that feather? From Dooley’s first retrieve as a hunting dog. His housemate Bix put the bird up, and Dooley brought him back. Good thing Alyce is a good shot, because the spurs on that old roo were 3/8th of an inch long and could have dampened the puppy’s enthusiasm for retrieving considerably had the bird put up a fight. Well, considering that the puppy is the very determined The Big D, likely not. That boy is unstoppable.

All the puppies McKenzie and I raised here last spring are doing well, and their families check in regularly. This morning I got a picture of Jack The Zipper, known here as Mr. Yellow, or Zippy the Pinhead because of his distinctive cowlick down the middle of his nose. Always had a real soft spot for this boy, because I thought I was going to lose him a few days after he was born and rushed him to the veterinary hospital on Easter Sunday, where the ER doc patted me on the head, told me the puppy was fine, just fine, and sent me home.

Once a worrier, always a worrier. Here’s Jack, now a healthy 9-month-old Murgatroyd. I’ll soon be off to pick up his sister, then it’s back to the pain meds and heating pad.

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