Gather around friends, and I'll tell you a tale of a dog with superpowers.
About a week ago, Dexter the Mutant Chihuahua started to throw up. He would eat his breakfast and fwapp...up it would come, thirty seconds later. Other than the vomiting, he was his usual normal self. After two days of random upchucking I, being the concerned chihuahua mama that I am, took him to the vet.
Because he walked into the vet clinic looking superfly and acting like the world was his oyster, we went with the conservative approach. A little sulcrate to soothe his stomach and some low fat easy-to-digest soft food. Another day of vomiting and back to the vet Dexter goes.
Diagnoses are thrown around. Pancreatitis? No...he'd be acting and looking like death. But to be sure the vet presses and pushes and digs around his abdomen. If it was his pancreas he'd be whimpering and showing signs of pain. After five minutes of investigation, Dexter is cool as a cucumber, although certainly curious as to why the vet keeps pushing on his belly.
Pancreatitis ruled out. Blockage perhaps? Dexter is known to eat whatever he can get his mouth around so that's certainly feasible. Based on his symptoms of throwing up almost immediately after he eats, the vet (the extraordinary Dr. Kathy) suggests that it indicates strongly towards blockage and we do an x-ray. The x-ray appears clean but there is a suspicious looking bit in his stomach so I take Dexter home and starve him for 24 hours.
The next day another x-ray is taken and it reveals the mysterious bit is gone. We're 90% sure he isn't blocked. I take him home feeling hopeful but the vomiting continues Friday night. Curiouser and curiouser...
Saturday morning, it's back to the vet for another examination and this time blood is drawn. It`s sent to the lab and first thing this morning Dr. Kathy phoned me. Turns out that Dexter has a roaring case of pancreatitis. His pancreas levels are so high, it`s on the verge of mutiny. Dexter should be in an incredible amount of pain, he should be refusing to eat, he should be vomiting much more than he is and he most certainly should not be chasing Hannah around the yard trying to get her to play. Normal pancreas levels are between 0 and 200. Dexter`s pancreas level is a thousand.
For a week, his pancreas has been trying to murder him and he's been all, "Shut up pancreas. I'll show you who's boss."
Dexter weighs 15 pounds and I'm pretty sure 10 pounds of that are his giant, balls of steel. Now that we know the problem, we've started to treat it and hopefully in the next few days he'll be back to normal.
My dog's superpower? Ignoring crippling, soul-crushing pancreatitis that would bring a Great Dane to his knees.
Weekly Photo
Orange
Tuesday 10 September 2013
Tuesday 9 July 2013
Ebony
Our cat Ebony died today.
She was the last of my original three - the cats that found their way into my heart when I was in my teens and early twenties.
Ebony (along with Mollie and Smokey) lived with me in what I like to refer to as the "lean" years. The years where I was single and broke and moving from apartment to apartment in Alberta. The years where they got to eat such wholesome cat food as "Friskies" and "Whiskas" because I barely had enough money to feed myself. The years where we lived in tiny, cramped apartments with walls so thin you could hear your neighbour blowing his nose, where instead of a door on the bedroom there was only a beaded curtain, and where a lady of the evening like to work her trade on the corner just down from our bedroom window. (Her name was Liz and sometimes when I was walking home from work in the cold and in the dark, I would stop at the McDonald's, buy us both a hot chocolate and visit with her for awhile.)
Ebony was brought to me in the fall of 1999 by my best friend's brother. He had found her in his yard playing with his dog. She was eight weeks old and a tiny, bony little thing. She was a spitfire right from the start though. She tormented and teased the two older cats, hung off the beads in the bedroom doorway, climbed the curtains and attacked all three of us in the middle of the night.
She never grew much bigger; she always weighed less than five pounds and visitors often mistook her for a kitten, even after she was fully grown. She had lovely yellow eyes and a silky soft black coat with a tiny patch of white on her chest. She had severe petting intolerance which meant that although she loved to be petted, after a certain amount of time, she would turn and bite you. She varied the amount of time she would tolerate petting just to keep us on our toes.
She survived a nine-hour moving trip to BC in a blizzard so severe that at one point, when I turned to my brother as we were inching through the mountains in the dark and the blowing snow and asked him if we were going to die, he replied gravely, "Probably."
When I married Ben and we moved in with him, she developed a deep hatred for his cat Kaneyko. We spent the next eight years keeping them apart in our tiny house and planning elaborate and detailed ways to give them both the attention and love they deserved without having to re-home either of them. It was difficult, but worth it.
She spent a great deal of her later years in our bedroom. She wasn't fond of the dogs and she was content to sleep most of the day under the covers of our bed.
On Sunday morning we noticed that her balance was off. By late that night she was lethargic, weak and dehydrated. I took her to the emergency vet and for nearly two days they gave her IV fluids to rehydrate her. They did blood work and discovered that her kidney values were off the chart. She was suffering from severe kidney disease.
This morning they called us and said there was nothing else they could do for her. Her kidney values had not come down with the IV fluids and she was starting to vomit and develop ulcers in her mouth. We had her transferred to our own vet clinic and we met her there to hold her one final time and tell her goodbye.
We are so grateful to Dr. Kathy for rearranging her crazy schedule to fit us in. There is comfort in familiarity and in having someone who is not just a vet, but a friend, help us to say goodbye. We are also comforted by the knowledge that Ebony did not suffer, that she went from being good to not good in a very short period of time, and that we had a chance to be with her and hold her before she died.
Cats are creatures of habit and our Ebony was no exception. After thirteen years together, we had our own rituals and habits, her and I. And while her death today was painful and sad, it is the absence of those rituals and habits in the coming weeks that will hurt the most. Never again will she sit in the bathroom and watch me apply my makeup. Never again will I wake in the middle of the night to feel her small body sleeping on my hip, and there will be no more early morning whiskers tickling my cheek as she bumps her head against my face and makes her high-pitched purrs.
Tonight I will open the door to our bedroom and instead of being greeted by a small black cat crawling out from under the covers of our bed and meowing softly, there will be only silence and emptiness.
It is that emptiness, the absence of her and our small but meaningful rituals, that leaves a hole in my heart that will never fully close.
Sleep sweet Ebony. You were a good cat.
She was the last of my original three - the cats that found their way into my heart when I was in my teens and early twenties.
Ebony (along with Mollie and Smokey) lived with me in what I like to refer to as the "lean" years. The years where I was single and broke and moving from apartment to apartment in Alberta. The years where they got to eat such wholesome cat food as "Friskies" and "Whiskas" because I barely had enough money to feed myself. The years where we lived in tiny, cramped apartments with walls so thin you could hear your neighbour blowing his nose, where instead of a door on the bedroom there was only a beaded curtain, and where a lady of the evening like to work her trade on the corner just down from our bedroom window. (Her name was Liz and sometimes when I was walking home from work in the cold and in the dark, I would stop at the McDonald's, buy us both a hot chocolate and visit with her for awhile.)
Ebony was brought to me in the fall of 1999 by my best friend's brother. He had found her in his yard playing with his dog. She was eight weeks old and a tiny, bony little thing. She was a spitfire right from the start though. She tormented and teased the two older cats, hung off the beads in the bedroom doorway, climbed the curtains and attacked all three of us in the middle of the night.
She never grew much bigger; she always weighed less than five pounds and visitors often mistook her for a kitten, even after she was fully grown. She had lovely yellow eyes and a silky soft black coat with a tiny patch of white on her chest. She had severe petting intolerance which meant that although she loved to be petted, after a certain amount of time, she would turn and bite you. She varied the amount of time she would tolerate petting just to keep us on our toes.
She survived a nine-hour moving trip to BC in a blizzard so severe that at one point, when I turned to my brother as we were inching through the mountains in the dark and the blowing snow and asked him if we were going to die, he replied gravely, "Probably."
When I married Ben and we moved in with him, she developed a deep hatred for his cat Kaneyko. We spent the next eight years keeping them apart in our tiny house and planning elaborate and detailed ways to give them both the attention and love they deserved without having to re-home either of them. It was difficult, but worth it.
She spent a great deal of her later years in our bedroom. She wasn't fond of the dogs and she was content to sleep most of the day under the covers of our bed.
On Sunday morning we noticed that her balance was off. By late that night she was lethargic, weak and dehydrated. I took her to the emergency vet and for nearly two days they gave her IV fluids to rehydrate her. They did blood work and discovered that her kidney values were off the chart. She was suffering from severe kidney disease.
This morning they called us and said there was nothing else they could do for her. Her kidney values had not come down with the IV fluids and she was starting to vomit and develop ulcers in her mouth. We had her transferred to our own vet clinic and we met her there to hold her one final time and tell her goodbye.
We are so grateful to Dr. Kathy for rearranging her crazy schedule to fit us in. There is comfort in familiarity and in having someone who is not just a vet, but a friend, help us to say goodbye. We are also comforted by the knowledge that Ebony did not suffer, that she went from being good to not good in a very short period of time, and that we had a chance to be with her and hold her before she died.
Cats are creatures of habit and our Ebony was no exception. After thirteen years together, we had our own rituals and habits, her and I. And while her death today was painful and sad, it is the absence of those rituals and habits in the coming weeks that will hurt the most. Never again will she sit in the bathroom and watch me apply my makeup. Never again will I wake in the middle of the night to feel her small body sleeping on my hip, and there will be no more early morning whiskers tickling my cheek as she bumps her head against my face and makes her high-pitched purrs.
Tonight I will open the door to our bedroom and instead of being greeted by a small black cat crawling out from under the covers of our bed and meowing softly, there will be only silence and emptiness.
It is that emptiness, the absence of her and our small but meaningful rituals, that leaves a hole in my heart that will never fully close.
Sleep sweet Ebony. You were a good cat.
Thursday 14 February 2013
A Valentine's Letter to the One I Love
Dear Harold,
It's Valentine's Day today. As I write this you are five hours away at a work conference and I am sitting on the couch, wrapped in 3 blankets with a box of kleenex beside me and one large fuzzy dog and two small fuzzy dogs plastered on my shivering, freezing body. I have the plague you see. Or possibly just a really bad cold. Either way, I am pretty sure I am dying as my numerous texts to you have indicated.
I have a red and raw nose, my eyes are bloodshot, and when I speak I sound like an unholy cross of Fozzie Bear and Darth Vadar. Earlier today I sneezed so hard that I peed my pants a little. I keep nodding off on the couch (possibly due to the large amount of cold medicine I have ingested) and every time I do, Dexter the Mutant Chihuahua sticks his tongue up my nose. I wake up snorting and sputtering and coughing and wondering why the dog is suddenly so obsessed with my snot. Is it superhuman snot do you think? Has my plague/cold given me super powers that the dog can sense and is trying to steal? Also, isn't love grand?
We've been married 8 years now (Or 7? No, I'm pretty sure it's 8. Or it could be 7... you know what? I'm just gonna call it 8) and this is the first Valentine's Day we've been apart. Not that it matters all that much - you've pretty much made your peace with the fact that you have married the least romantic woman in the entire world.
Do you remember our first Valentine's Day? I don't remember how long we had been dating but we had been friends for years so I remember it felt natural and right. You made a reservation at one of my favourite restaurants, and I'm pretty sure what you remember most about that dinner is the gaping look of horror on my face when they brought out your lobster dinner and it was the ENTIRE lobster...face and all. Or perhaps what you remember is when you told me to pick a movie at the theatre after dinner and I chose "Monster", a movie about a female serial killer. Romantic yeah?
You'll be coming home in two days but as I'll most likely be dead from the plague by then, I thought I would tell you some of the reasons why I love you and how happy you have made me the last 8 (7?) years.
I love you because you're kind and thoughtful and make really good French toast. I love you because of how fiercely you love your children. I love you because when your father was dying, you spent every moment you could with him, encouraging him, listening to him, and loving him. I love you because you love and respect your mom.
I love you because you love and respect my mom. I love you because you talk to my dad about Nascar. I love you because you love our pets as much as I do. I love you because you always remember your sibling's birthdays and call them. I love you because you love to cook and you're good at it. I love you because it doesn't bother you that I can never remember how long we've been married.
I love your unending desire to learn new things, your interest in photography, your willingness to parallel park the car for me, your sarcastic sense of humour, you uncanny ability to do long division in your head, and your obsession with the Food Network.
I love that you call me the Girl, that you can make me laugh, that you care about my friends, that you occasionally become weepy over inspiring stories of athletes who have beaten the odds. I love that you put up with my weird obsession with zombies and that you don't care if I haven't shaved my legs for weeks.
I love that you don't mind that I put our conversations on the internet for the world to see. I love that my Asshole Cat can practically scratch your face off in the middle of the night and you just shrug and say, "He's just being a cat."
I love you because when I am sad you cheer me up. I love you because you like to dance. I love you because you want to travel and meet new and different people. I love you because you went to every single stupid Twilight movie with me and didn't complain once. I love you because you make me coffee in the mornings. I love you because you take the garbage out. I love you because you'll play Monopoly with me. I love you because you believe in me, think I'm funny, and call me on my bullshit.
And I love you because even when I have the plague and look like this:
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You still think I'm beautiful.
Happy Valentine's Day honey.
Love K.
It's Valentine's Day today. As I write this you are five hours away at a work conference and I am sitting on the couch, wrapped in 3 blankets with a box of kleenex beside me and one large fuzzy dog and two small fuzzy dogs plastered on my shivering, freezing body. I have the plague you see. Or possibly just a really bad cold. Either way, I am pretty sure I am dying as my numerous texts to you have indicated.
I have a red and raw nose, my eyes are bloodshot, and when I speak I sound like an unholy cross of Fozzie Bear and Darth Vadar. Earlier today I sneezed so hard that I peed my pants a little. I keep nodding off on the couch (possibly due to the large amount of cold medicine I have ingested) and every time I do, Dexter the Mutant Chihuahua sticks his tongue up my nose. I wake up snorting and sputtering and coughing and wondering why the dog is suddenly so obsessed with my snot. Is it superhuman snot do you think? Has my plague/cold given me super powers that the dog can sense and is trying to steal? Also, isn't love grand?
We've been married 8 years now (Or 7? No, I'm pretty sure it's 8. Or it could be 7... you know what? I'm just gonna call it 8) and this is the first Valentine's Day we've been apart. Not that it matters all that much - you've pretty much made your peace with the fact that you have married the least romantic woman in the entire world.
Do you remember our first Valentine's Day? I don't remember how long we had been dating but we had been friends for years so I remember it felt natural and right. You made a reservation at one of my favourite restaurants, and I'm pretty sure what you remember most about that dinner is the gaping look of horror on my face when they brought out your lobster dinner and it was the ENTIRE lobster...face and all. Or perhaps what you remember is when you told me to pick a movie at the theatre after dinner and I chose "Monster", a movie about a female serial killer. Romantic yeah?
You'll be coming home in two days but as I'll most likely be dead from the plague by then, I thought I would tell you some of the reasons why I love you and how happy you have made me the last 8 (7?) years.
I love you because you're kind and thoughtful and make really good French toast. I love you because of how fiercely you love your children. I love you because when your father was dying, you spent every moment you could with him, encouraging him, listening to him, and loving him. I love you because you love and respect your mom.
I love you because you love and respect my mom. I love you because you talk to my dad about Nascar. I love you because you love our pets as much as I do. I love you because you always remember your sibling's birthdays and call them. I love you because you love to cook and you're good at it. I love you because it doesn't bother you that I can never remember how long we've been married.
I love your unending desire to learn new things, your interest in photography, your willingness to parallel park the car for me, your sarcastic sense of humour, you uncanny ability to do long division in your head, and your obsession with the Food Network.
I love that you call me the Girl, that you can make me laugh, that you care about my friends, that you occasionally become weepy over inspiring stories of athletes who have beaten the odds. I love that you put up with my weird obsession with zombies and that you don't care if I haven't shaved my legs for weeks.
I love that you don't mind that I put our conversations on the internet for the world to see. I love that my Asshole Cat can practically scratch your face off in the middle of the night and you just shrug and say, "He's just being a cat."
I love you because when I am sad you cheer me up. I love you because you like to dance. I love you because you want to travel and meet new and different people. I love you because you went to every single stupid Twilight movie with me and didn't complain once. I love you because you make me coffee in the mornings. I love you because you take the garbage out. I love you because you'll play Monopoly with me. I love you because you believe in me, think I'm funny, and call me on my bullshit.
And I love you because even when I have the plague and look like this:
.jpg)
You still think I'm beautiful.
Happy Valentine's Day honey.
Love K.
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