Sunday, January 27, 2008

Getting on with getting on...

Walter got his stitches out last week. He did not like it. It took two of us to hold him down and a third to take them out. He got more and more nervous as the vet tech got closer to his winkie. To make up for it we went on a small stroll at Dishman Hills. Nothing extreme, just a short loop but he was very excited and soon forgot about the trauma he had just been through. It is going to be at least another week or two before I can take him out for some serious walking. That was major doggie surgery. I measured his incision and it was 18 inches long!!!! I know, how cracked am I to be measuring my dog's scar????

I have not been doing too much outside of the house. First, it was colder than the proverbial well digger's ass, then we started to get tons of snow. I am not sure my car would even make it to the end of the street right now. As of this afternoon there was 54 inches of snow outside of Nancy's cabin with more to come soon.

I finished my last and final internship the Friday before last. I showed up in the morning to the school district being in a state of emergency. When they announced a lock down and that we would not be able to use the bathrooms or leave our office, I took off out the back door and went home. I was not alone. That evening my buddy Gar and I went up and spent the night at Nancy's cabin to celebrate my being done. Aside from waiting for my temp license, then taking my national certification exam, and then waiting for my regular license, I am done with the more than two and a half years of educational hoop jumping/occasional voyages into academic hell. Gar and I excavated the fire pit which was under 20 inches of snow and then set out to burn three huge palates we picked up on the way there. Oh, and we also consumed some beer. We sat out there for a least 4 hours. It was nice.

I have been up to the cabin a couple of times in the last week alone as well. The wood stove is finally in and I just about cooked myself out the other night.

One big thing I have been doing the past few days is sewing. Now, I don't really sew. I had one or two lessons from my mom when she brought me her old sewing machine but that is about it. All right, just to show how entirely sick and twisted I am over my dog, most of the sewing has involved him. It started out with hemming up curtains for Nancy and then morphed into a removable double layer of polar fleece insulation for Walter's red coat, then a polar fleece pad for the top of his backpacking sleeping pad (who wants to sleep on nylon??), and then a lovely draw string bag for his rolled up pad. The bag turned out really good, hell, as good as store bought ones made by 8 year olds in third world countries!!! I made it out of an old wind breaker. I have a couple of other projects planned as well...a new bag with loops and a spot for a caribiner to hang my food away from the bears when backpacking, some stuff sacks...made out of the sleeves from the windbreaker...and a couple of pillow cases for Nancy. I have found that sewing is actually kind of fun and relaxing.

I start work at my official place of employment tomorrow. I will just be working as a rehab aide until my temp license comes in. Then I can actually do OT work. I am pretty excited about it. I did my first internship there and enjoyed it quite a lot. I will probably have to walk since the snow is so deep and mucky, but I don't mind.

Pictures: Walter in his stylin' red coat; Gar by the fire; the sunset on the way to the cabin; Sophie (in front), Lily (behind her) and Walter (way in the back on the left) chillin' in the living room during the snow storm.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Up in the Sick Room

This week, in addition to Walter's drama I have also been really sick. It started last weekend with the typical cold sort of thing. By Thursday it had moved from my face to my throat and I could hardly talk. I sounded like a cross between Bart Simpson and Phyllis Diller. Not pretty, especially when I had to spend my days talking. Now it has moved into my lungs. In the desire to make sure I am able to go to work each day this week, Walter and I hung out in my bedroom and watched TV and napped all day. I don't have cable so normally my TV choices suck, but PBS had a good line-up today. Walter also had a pretty good day. He is eating small amounts of canned food throughout the day and has shown no indication of feeling sick. His pain patch came off tonight. I am going to keep the pain meds on board for a couple more days. I am no longer fearing that I will wake up and find him dead. His incision looks pretty good but I am going to have to keep an eye on the red spots. I think those are just razor burns from being shaved around his winkie.


This is my last week of my internship. I am darn excited. It has been one hell of a long road getting to this point with many occasions of wanting to just quit. It has been almost four years since Morgan died. I look back and cannot believe that I was able to keep my head above water for most of the time. The first year was of course very difficult, then Nancy and Seth left the country and I was all alone. I somehow knew that I had to keep plugging away because I didn't have much of anything else going for me. I did not want to go back to archeology and I knew I wanted more than a NAC job. There sure were a lot of mornings when I had to use every thing I had to get out of bed and get to class.


I will be starting my new job sometime around the first of February, or whenever my temp license comes in from the state. I am just about to step into the light at the end of the tunnel and it feels pretty damn good. I am also thankful that Walter is ok and I did not have to make a decision to have him put to sleep because of financial reasons. I did that with my dog Truman and I have regretted it ever since. He was indeed a lovely dog; big 110 pound white shepherd. He and Walter were learning to hike together on a leash. They were pretty good friends and Truman taught Walter to pee with his leg up. You can't ask for more than that.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Post-Op Day Three

Walter has had a rough time of it. I think he probably came home too soon. He was unable to hold down even a small amount of water. It was more of a full reflux rather than a vomit. I gave him some Pepcid and until about 3 this morning only gave him ice cubes to lick. He seems to be doing much better. This morning he ate a jar of chicken baby food and washed it down with some low sodium chicken broth. He has always been very trim but is starting to look a bit peckish. This is the first food offered to him that he would eat. I keep checking him for dehydration and he is ok.

The other dogs know that something is up with him and have left him alone. Usually there is quite a bit of poodle play going on here. Dogs are so funny. And poodles in particular really seem to have some sort of emotional intelligence that I have never seen in other dogs. Very strange. I am sure he is hurting. They gave him a fentanyl patch but I have been giving him an oral pain medication as well. I think too often we assume dogs are not in pain when they really are. We expect indications of pain like we see in humans but evolution has made dogs very different. Last summer his mother Ruby ended up with a six inch shard of glass in her side. It was millimeters away from her intestines. She did not make a sound. It is too complicated to even explain how she ended up with glass in her. I am still not able to discuss why Walter had access to a towel in the dog yard that he was able to chew up. I am too mad about it still.

For the next few days Walter will be lying around in his sick chair. Next week I am going to start taking him out for some short walks to build his muscles back up. I am not sure if dogs loose as much muscle mass from inactivity as humans do, but it would not surprise me. Humans can lose something like 20% in three days of inactivity. That is a lot. I just took the picture of Walter in his chair. He is pretty darn loopy.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Welcome Home Walter

Walter came home this afternoon 24 hours sooner than I had expected. His activity needs to be very restricted for the next week or so and he needs very small amounts of food and water throughout the day to keep the staples in his stomach from coming out. And for the rest of his life he has to eat small amounts 3-4 times a day. Nancy picked him up while I was at work and he stood by the front door until I came home. Now he is in his chair in the living room. The boy has one hell of an incision. I have been feeling pretty freaked out about this whole thing. I was worrying last night about whether or not I am going to end up even more protective of him than I already am. Yeah, sometimes I can get pretty freaky with him. Like last year when those dogs came after him when we were hiking at Riverside State Park. I wanted to physically harm the owners of the dogs and had they been closer to me I am not sure if I could have restrained myself. And I have only really been in one fight in my life...Tina Beaston...7th grade...she kicked my ass at the bus stop. Ok, I am pretty much a sissy so I probably would not have done anything, but I sure felt like it!!!!

I am probably just gonna kick back and hang with Wally this weekend. He is going to get the prime spot in bed with me tonight, that is for sure. And maybe I will move his chair out by the fire. Yeah, I am pretty screwed up over this dog.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

A Walter Update

Walter had surgery this morning to tack up his stomach and remove two obstructions, one in the stomach and one in his intestines. There was no necrotic tissue which was a huge relief. I stopped in this evening to see him for about 8 seconds. He was awake enough to see me but I don't think it registered in his brain that it was me, which was good because I did not want him getting upset. I just had to see him and check on him. He will probably be there until Friday. The vet said the obstructions were too large for him to pass and without the surgery he would have died. More later.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Adventures at the PEC

Tonight Walter paid another visit to the Pet Emergency Clinic. I returned home this evening from my birthday dinner and knew within about one minute that something was wrong with him. He jumped up on me without an invitation then within five minutes was walking around panting and restless. I knew that his stomach must be bloated and if left too long, the stomach twists and cuts off blood to the liver and other organs. An x-ray was done within five minutes of getting in the clinic door and he indeed had a bloated stomach and intestines. This is about the 5th time we have been through this. The first time we were driving from Spokane to Illinois and we were in Iowa. I was driving and on the phone with my vet here who was trying to find a vet in Des Moines and Walter was in agony in the back seat of my truck. I was afraid that he was going to die on me before I even got to the vet. Walter was just 3 months old at the time. The bloating is usually the result of him eating something, but not always. The bloating and gastric torsion is very common in deep chested dogs and poodles are especially prone to it. If the stomach twists the dog will die within a half hour.

Because of his history I have decided to have surgery done on him tomorrow. There is a wonderful board certified dog surgeon in town who will do it. The surgery will involve looking for any foreign matter in his stomach and intestines and then tacking his stomach to his abdominal cavity. This will prevent it from twisting if he bloats again in the future (which he probably will). The potential for the gastric torsion is always banging around in the back of my head when Walter and I are out and far from a town.

Last night I found out that one of his other brothers has died. Cosmo was hit by a train last July. Someone left a gate open at his house. His twin Jake (yes, they were honest to goodness twins out of the same sac) died about two years ago. I was thinking last night about the possibility of losing Walter. I have had other dogs before that I have been absolutely in love with that I lost. One to old age, two to cancer, and one to an intestinal blockage from eating a tennis ball. I have never been bonded to a dog like I am Walter. The morning after his birth we rushed him to PEC because he was not eating or responsive. He was the first one born of seven in an almost 8 hour labor. He ended up chilled and was close to death. I ended up keeping him in my shirt and feeding him with a bottle for two days until he was strong enough to nurse. I had no intention of keeping any of the puppies but after that I just could not part with him. So in the morning he will have his surgery and then hopefully we can bring him the next day. And of course a huge thank you goes out to Nancy who is funding the procedure (oh, am I gonna pay for this one).

Aside from the drama and trauma of the night I have had some very good stuff happen the last few days. I had a job interview last Friday at a place I really want to work. It is only a mile from my house and I can walk or ride my bike every day. I got the hours I wanted and the pay I asked for but never expected to get. I will be working 4 ten hour shifts and have three days off in a row during the middle of the week. I am planning on spending a lot of time camping with Walter this summer. Being off in the middle of the week promises more solitude on the trails and in the campgrounds. And I will have money for gas!!!!!!!! I might even have some funds left after I get my head above water to hit the ski slopes before the snow melts. Nancy has more or less moved in with me so now it is my turn to have some freedom. Hell, I held the homestead together while she was in Mexico for two years. I deserve it.

So I will update on Walter's progress. Maybe throw in a picture or two of his stitches. Keep your fingers crossed and your good mojo flowing Walters way!

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

A New Year

I started out the new year learning a great deal. One big thing I learned is that cell phones do not fare well in the washing machine, even if they are retrieved before the rinse cycle. Another thing I learned is how the cell phone people really screw you when you do happen to put the cell phone through the wash. I also learned that when it is someone else's cell phone it is even worse. I also learned about SIM cards and that if you dry them off quick enough they can be transferred into a $20 phone from KMart. But all is now well even though Nancy no longer has a flip phone with a camera and all the trick stuff. And I have been forgiven. As she said, it could have been worse; at least I did not go out and buy a Harley.

I spent the last few days of my holiday break luxuriating in solitude. I stayed up at Nancy's cabin for two nights and had a wonderful time all alone. I dug out her huge fire pit (the snow was about mid thigh level on me) and had a nice outdoor fire each night. I read a lot, watched old episodes of Law and Order on DVD, and tooled around on my cross country skis in the dark a couple of times. Unfortunately I was not able to take Walter with me. The neighbor has several dogs that are rather aggressive and I did not want to chance Walter getting in a fight with them. They were close to killing another dog a few days ago.

Before New Years I also went on a nice walk in the snow with my friend G. We went out to the Columbia Plateau Trail and walked from the Amber Lake trailhead. It was a really nice walk and gave us a chance to catch up on stuff. Now the break is almost over and it is back to my internship for two and a half weeks and looking for a job. I am sure I will find something soon.

The pictures are of my fire and a better picture of Mt. Spokane (the tall one) from Nancy's driveway. And I finally figured out how to turn the damn date thing off on the camera. Man, that has been bugging me.
free counter
free counter