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Pets

Comes the Deluge…

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Wow! What a fantastic day!

It’s been raining since about 8:30 this morning. Temps in the 70s. Naturally, I’d put off driving up to 2nd Opinion Vet’s office to pick up the doxycycline she wants to inflict on poor old Cassie’s urinary tract infection. So I had to shoot up there under darkening skies. Darted in, grabbed the pills, ran back out, jumped in the car…and the skies opened!

Along came a downpour like the great old rainstorms we used to get back in the day, before Arizona was destroyed by development and too damn many people, parking lots, buildings, and machines. Yeah: the kind of rain where you can barely make out the road in front of you. 🙂

Without the fiberglass cover over the back porch, rain sluices right down onto the pavement, which tends to turn into a lake. But interestingly, despite a LOT of rainfall, water did not come up to the back doors’ threshholds. Apparently when the cover was there, it channeled so much water to the rocks off the back patio (submerged in this picture) that the French well and rock “river” couldn’t handle it. If the amount that fell today couldn’t flood that patio up to the level of the back door, presumably the back door and slider are pretty safe from water damage.

Got home without incident, mostly because there weren’t many people on the road early on a Saturday morning. It’s now 3:30 and the rain has just let up. The local play-nooz is reporting that October is now the 2nd wettest month on record (right! I’ll believe that when pigs fly). Whatever: the pool is now filled to the coping. Another few inches of rain and it will overflow. I probably need to open the valve on the filter to let some of that water out, but truth to tell, I have no idea what will happen when I do. So…discretion being the better part…

How do you like this little toadstool that popped up in the rain? Cute little guy, ain’t he?

Finished another two sections of the present client’s annual promotion & tenure paperwork. Ohhh dear God, am I ever glad not to be in the academy anymore! Crazy-making. And this woman: she’s like some sort of nuclear engine. A real powerhouse! When you look at what she’s been doing, you wonder when she has time to breathe at all, much less have a life.

Cassie is enjoying doggy moments when she seems MUCH better. This morning she was just about back to her old bright-eyed, yappy self. Never thought a dog’s barking would be a welcome sound! She does have her ups and downs, though. Right now she’s doping off on the bed again. The vet said the doxycycline could have some unpleasant side effects, but so far…so good. But of course, she’s only swallowed one of them.

She’s still unduly thirsty and still peeing gallons, but no longer on the floor. She can make it outside, and she doesn’t have to pee every 20 minutes. Thirst and frequent, copious urination are symptoms of Cushing’s disease — i.e., something wrong with the adrenal glands. BUT…they’re also side effects of Benadryl, with which I’ve been dosing her copiously. It seems to have helped the cough significantly, although the cough and wheeze have not gone completely away. And they’re side effects of prednisone, of which I suspect she was given too much. She’s much better…but lifting her off the bed presents a problem in the breathing department: the weight of her chest on my arms as I lift her down apparently sets off a coughing/wheezing spree. So…yeah…there’s something wrong there.

Coughing, though, seems not to be a sign of Cushing’s. We shall find out, sooner or later.

2nd Opinion Vet made a few remarks that were unwittingly revealing… She said that one of those ultrasound scans costs $450 to $500 — this was said in the context of her mild surprise when I said I couldn’t afford to spend vast amounts of money trying to keep a 12- or 13-year-old dog alive. When I told her that MarvelVet had comped the ultrasound, she was startled.

Now, he may have done that out of the Goodness of His Heart. He is a very nice man, after all. So it seems. But…I’ve begun to suspect that he thinks he misdiagnosed the supposed Valley Fever and in doing so gave her two drugs that he shouldn’t have given her. Either one would have made her very sick. The fluconazole, as we’ve seen, damn near killed her. The Temaril-P probably was responsible for the incontinence, explaining why that phenomenon is going away now that the Temaril has about worn off. He probably figures he practiced mal, and he’d better find some way to make up for it. Or to cover it with a convenient other ailment.

And lo! there is an other ailment, all right: 2nd Opinion Vet finally got a copy of the ultrasound — days after requesting it — and she said there indeed is a mass on one of the adrenal glands, but it’s impossible to tell what kind of mass it is. She uses the term “Cushing tumor,” which doesn’t seem to be standard — at least, I’m not finding it. At any rate, there’s a 50/50 chance the tumor is benign. The only way you can know is to take it out and biopsy it.

I can’t afford $1000 to operate on a dog that’s this close to the end of her normal life span. That sounds awfully cold…but it’s a fact of life. I don’t have thousands and thousands of dollars to spend on a pet…and if that’s what’s involved in taking in a pet, then obviously I can’t afford to have a pet.

A urinary tract infection is among several signs of Cushing’s disease, the effect of a tumor on an adrenal gland, and so if the tumor is non-benign,  she may  never go back to normal. But…it’s worth knowing that Cushing’s can also be caused by over-administration of steroids — of which prednisone is one. And we did give her two rounds of that stuff. Often iatrogenic Cushing’s clears up after you quit dosing the dog…although the stuff can do permanent damage. Gee, doc…thank you so much for telling me that [not!]. Do I have to look up every goddamn thing for myself?

2OV was also startled when I told her MarvelVet said her UTI was so minor as to be insignificant and did not need treatment. She said the numbers were about as high as they can get. Which would explain why the poor dog was peeing out undiluted blood. I gave the stuff to Ruby, who came to me from the breeder with a UTI, and she had no problem. This dog is agèd and has been very sick, indeed, and so we could see some side effects. But we won’t know until we try it. If it works, though, she may be OK. Also, if the cough is from a bacterial infection, the doxycycline may help with that. Which brings us to another gripe: MarvelVet has not sent the purported X-ray of Cassie’s lungs and heart to 2OV…hmmm…. Was there even a real X-ray, or did he show me some other dog’s X-ray to scare me into paying for expensive treatment for Valley fever?

2OV did not say so but she sounded a little nonplussed by MarvelVet’s prognosis that the dog will live about 3 months if left untreated.

Arrrghhh! I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West to be so skeptical about all this. But my own Adventures in Medical Science — to say nothing of past Adventures in Veterinary Science — incline me that way. I just have the worst feeling that this thing is not only a tempest in a teapot, it’s a fraudulent tempest….

Meanwhile, speaking of Adventures in M.S., I’m not yet very alarmed about the alleged skin cancer thing. In the first place, we don’t know that it is skin cancer. Young Doctor Kildare a) is not a dermatologist and b) is a D.O., not an M.D. Although osteopaths are licensed to practice medicine in this state, a D.O. from Midwestern University is not the same as an M.D. from Johns Hopkins or some such. YDK’s sterling quality is COMMON SENSE. And we see this characteristic here: Duh! Send this woman off to a dermatologist.

Hmmm…and lookee here: the lady is not just an M.D., she’s listed in U.S. News and World Report!

I haven’t been able to get in to a dermatologist for years. They’re all backed up for six months or more — literally, you can NOT get an appointment. So YDK’s having shoved me in to see this woman — in three days flat — is quite a little feat. And a relationship with her will be valuable for me, because when you live in Arizona you really should go to a dermatologist about once every year or two and have all the colorful growths that sprout inspected. Just about everybody who lives here permanently eventually gets some kind of skin thing.

Seventy-one degrees and a rainbow over the ’hood!

Dogruminations…

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Okay, I may be one of two things:

a) Pathologically skeptical; or
b) Grasping for straws.

Lemme tellya…I  think there’s something mighty fishy about all this Cassie Standing at the Gates of Heaven narrative. My sense about this is that either there’s something MarvelVet isn’t telling me, or there’s some part of his story that just plain isn’t straight.

Let us consider what the story is. Or rather, what the stories are. Or were.

First, the dog comes down with a cough. I call the vet’s office and am told not to bring her in because something is going around, they know what it is, and they’ll give me a drug to ease it. I drive over to his place and pick up a bottle of Temaril-P, which is a combination of an antihistamine and prednisone. Its purpose is to suppress coughs.

She goes through the prescription, administered according to his instructions, but is still coughing.

If the human had been a bit less trusting — as it should have been, already, it would have come across this warning:

Do not give Temaril-P to your pet if the pet has a serious viral or fungal infection. Temaril-P can be given in the presence of acute or chronic bacterial infections provided the infection is controlled by antibiotic. Temaril-P may weaken the pet’s immune response and its ability to fight infections.

When I report that she’s still hacking, he has me bring her in. He does a blood panel on her and then, with no evidence in the results to prove this, tells me she has Valley fever. He then tells me to keep her on the Temaril-P and give her fluconazole.

Folks. Valley fever is a serious fungal infection. If he knew what he was doing (or believed what he was telling me…), why would he have me continue to give her a drug that is specifically contraindicated? And if she’s not getting better, why put her on a drug that reduces her ability to fight an infection? Assuming it is an infection.

The fluconazole makes her extremely sick. So much so that twice I think she is about to teeter over into the grave.

When I look this stuff up and discover a list of a half-dozen dire side effects, a couple of them life-threatening, he tells me oh, those are symptoms of Valley fever. By now I know that…well, no. No indeed, they are not symptoms of Valley fever. Not by a fuckin’ long shot.

I take the dog to another vet, who says it’s pretty ambiguous and there’s good reason to doubt that she has Valley fever. But by now she’s very sick, indeed. It appears she’s not going to make it. And by now, too, my skepticism is fully aroused. I decide to take the dog off the fluconazole on the chance — which I think is pretty good — that she doesn’t actually have this dread disease. Show me some empirical proof, and I’ll reconsider.

As the fluconazole clears out of her system, she  slowly improves. You can’t just stop taking prednisone: you have to titre off of it. But before long I have her eased off that stuff, to no ill effect. The incontinence stops. Prednisone, as it develops, can cause incontinence in dogs. Meanwhile, I happen to know that you can give Benadryl to dogs — have done so before. She’s wheezing, as though she has asthma. Of course, asthma has many causes…but one of them is allergies. She gets markedly worse on a day when heavy winds and rains blow through. Why not? think I…

Put her on a couple of doses of Benadryl, morning and night. Within a couple of days, she’s markedly better. Meanwhile the vet has me bring her in for this supposed “free” ultrasound scan.

Free? Really? Hm. Well, whatever.

Not surprisingly, the result is dire: he tells me she has adrenal cancer.

I say, “Well, then. We’d better put her down right now.”

His response is to say that it’s not necessary, because she seems to be doing all right for the moment. (Benadryl is some kind of chemotherapy, is it?) He says we should wait until she seems to get a lot worse, and remarks that she’ll have her ups and downs.

I ask how long she’s likely to live.

He says, “About three months.”

Uh huh.

I now look up this new drama and find a number of things out.

• You can’t know whether something that looks like a tumor on a dog’s adrenal gland is malignant without doing surgery to biopsy it.

• If the dog actually does have a tumor on her adrenal gland (I’m beginning to wonder; see below…), it may be harmless. About half of such growths are what is known as “nonfunctional,” meaning they just sit there and do nothing. Half are malignant and cause the dog to exhibit symptoms that look like Cushing’s disease. This dog does have a few such signs: thirst, vigorous appetite (which she’s always had: a corgi will eat until it explodes!), unusual lethargy. Alternatively, the mass may be an adenocarcinoma: an aggressive malignancy that indeed will spirit the dog away sooner than later. Interestingly, though, when you look that one up you find she exhibits exactly zero symptoms of it.

Hm. Day by day, she gets a little better. The Benadryl — or tincture of time, could be either one — seems to be bringing her back to normal. She still chokes and wheezes when she drinks water…but she’s always choked on water. Corgis do that: Ruby does the same thing. She’s now barking in her accustomed excessive way, and not wheezing every time she yaps. Or even any time she yaps. She’s beginning to lose the “tragic” expression and looks far more normal.

I’ll tellya what I think.

I think MarvelVet made an incorrect assumption on the fly. Chances are his original diagnosis — a bronchitis that was going around at the time — was right. But the assumption that a week on Temaril-P would cure it was incorrect, because of her age.

If you believe those silly dog-to-human-years charts, this dog is the same age I am. The last time I got a cold — apparently a fairly ordinary cold — it took me six months to get over the cough. A 12-year-old dog is not going to get over a bug as fast as a two-year-old or a five-year-old or even a seven-year-old dog. If my theory is correct, the cough hung on because it would take her longer to throw it off. And if she actually has a symptomatic cancer of the adrenal gland, she would not be steadily improving.

If my alternative hypothesis is correct — that she had asthma from the git-go — then what happened was the storms aggravated allergies that were developing and growing more bothersome as she has aged. One way or the other, the reason she did not show signs of Valley fever in the blood panel was that she did not have Valley fever.

I think he realized he’d misdiagnosed the dog, and that the meds he put her on made her extremely sick. May even have caused permanent damage. And between you and me and the lamp-post, I think this scan thing is a diversion.

He probably figures that if I don’t put her down and she gets better over the next three months, he can claim a miraculous cure. Or simply say the alleged tumor is of the “nonfunctional” variety and so, whaddaya know! It didn’t kill her…

Tellingly, his office has not responded to Second Opinion vet’s requests that they send the scan over to them for a look-see.

I wonder, really, if his alleged colleague even did any such thing…if they simply shaved her belly and told me this story. Even though I asked, I was never given a chance to see the scan — and when he was telling me she had Valley fever, he did show me an X-ray that he alleged to be her lung and heart.

Now admittedly: all of this speculation may be the product of a fevered brain. Or some part of it may be and some part may not be. We all know I’m a crazy little woman, and what we see here may simply be a manifestation of that, eh?

BUT…for a dog that’s pounding at death’s door with cancer, Cassie seems to be surprisingly well. Once she got off the toxic drugs, she began to come back to normal. Right now she’s barking without coughing, eating cheerfully, bright-eyed, and alert. Under the influence of 1/2 Benadryl in the a.m. and 1/2 in the p.m. (she only weighs 20 pounds!), she seems kind of sluggish and tired. But lo! Look it up and you find Benadryl has the same sedating effect on dogs as it does on humans:

The most commonly reported side effect is drowsiness. This is so common that many people give Benadryl to their dogs to help them calm down. (Diphenhydramine is even marketed and used as a sleep-aid by many people.)

The second most common side effect is mild disorientation. We recommend paying attention to your dog’s behavior after giving them Benadryl to make sure they don’t experience this before giving them a second dose.

Hell, I weigh more than six times what that dog weighs, and a half-pill of the stuff will knock me out all night! I use it as a sleeping pill.

Dollars to donuts, once she’s off that stuff, she’ll be her same old normal self.

Will she die within three months? Maybe. But that wouldn’t be surprising: I’ve never had a dog that lived longer than 12 or 13 years. And she’s at least 12 right now.

 

Doggy Doom?

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So we’re told this afternoon’s abdominal ultrasound of Cassie the Corgi shows a large tumor on an adrenal gland. So that comes under the heading of “the last act.” The vet proposes that we not put her to sleep just now, since she seems to be doing fairly well — except for the cough (which she started with), all the other symptoms (which I still believe to be induced by the Valley fever drug and the prednisone) are going away. He says these symptoms will come and go, and he thinks she’ll last about three months, at the most.

I remain skeptical. Why? Because…

a) Cough and wheezing are NOT symptoms of adrenal gland tumors.
b) The symptoms she’s had that could be explained by an adrenal tumor also are classic side effects of fluconozale and of prednisone.

So what do we have here? The following potential symptoms for adrenal cancer:

  • Excessive water intake (polydipsia) Cassie: yes. But it’s also a prednisone side effect
  • Increased urine output (polyuria) Cassie: yes. What goes in must come out.
  • Increased appetite and food intake (polyphagia; affected dogs are often ravenous): Cassie: Yes: she lost two pounds in the coughing episode, so I’ve been feeding her more.
  • Weight gain, frequently to the point of obesity: Cassie: no
  • Abdominal enlargement (pendulous, distended abdomen; “pot-bellied” appearance) Cassie: no
  • Hair loss (alopecia; usually patchy and symmetrical on both sides of the body): Cassie: no
  • Darkening of skin (hyperpigmentation): Cassie: unknown
  • Excessive panting; often when lying down and appearing to be resting quietly: Cassie: yes
  • Skin bruising: Cassie: unknown
  • Clitoral enlargement in females (clitoral hypertrophy) Cassie: unknown
  • Testicular enlargement in males (testicular hypertrophy) Cassie: n/a
  • Loss of normal reproductive cycling in females (anestrus) Cassie: n/a
  • Infertility (males and females) Cassie: n/a
  • Weakness: Cassie: possibly
  • Lethargy, listlessness Cassie: no more than usual
  • Exercise intolerance Cassie: unknown
  • Muscle atrophy Cassie: no
  • Thin, fragile skin that tears easily Cassie: no
  • Poor coat condition Cassie: no
  • Lack of coordination (ataxia) Cassie: no
  • Neurological signs (circling, aimless wandering, pacing, bumping into walls or furniture, falling down for no apparent reason) Cassie: no
  • Poor wound healing Cassie: no

That’s pretty ambiguous. Yes, she does have some of the signs. But she also doesn’t have a lot of the signs. Some of the signs can be explained by whatever sickness caused the coughing, which was severe (and is now, finally, gone). Some of them can explained by her age, which is rather advanced. Two can be explained by the effect of the prednisone.

There are two types of adrenal tumors in dogs: functional and nonfunctional. This squib is a little clearer. A functional tumor is a malignancy, but a nonfunctional one is not. Apparently there’s really no well to tell without $urgery. Nonfunctional tumors need no treatment. If the thing is “functional” and it hasn’t metastasized, you can operate and get from 16 months to 3 years of extra life. I’ve already spent almost a thousand bucks on this. Looked at the bank account and almost fainted when I saw the balance. At this rate I’m going to run out of money for living expenses LONG before the end of the year that this year’s RMD covers. I’ll have to get a job. And at this age: fat chance!

So I’m going to try to get a second opinion, as a kind of last-ditch thing. Because, to tell the truth, after my Adventures in Medical Science I’ve learned to always get a second opinion every time some doctor (or vet) delivers a dire opinion. But I don’t hold out much hope. She is old. And obviously the vet saw something on her adrenals. Whatever it is, it ain’t likely to be good for her.

Time to Take in the Slack…

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Nothing on this earth is there like a Young’s Double Chocolate Stout for unwinding purposes. All of about an hour remains in which to rest. I’ve done (endless!)_ battle with not one but two computers to get a $28 check deposited; finished proofing edits and returning the third of three sections of a P&T review sent over by one of the Chinese academics; met with the appliance repairman, who cleaned the stove burners, examined it carefully, could find nothing that would have caused two of the burners not to work after the recent brisk storms, and charged me sixty bucks; driven to the Costco to return the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted; driven to AJ’s to buy some of their reasonably acceptable coffee; gone back and forth with two veterinary offices; transferred funds (on a wing and a prayer) from PayPal to my corporate checking account; negotiated with the pool company’s dude for a date to resurface the hole in the ground (having decided there’s no need for expensive repairs on the car); talked with the vet at Indian Bend, who finds Cassie has a urinary infection (surprise!); arranged to take Cassie to Arcadia for an ultrasound; explained to both vets that she seems to be returning to health in response to the Benadryl I gave her (good luck with that!); talked to a nurse at the Mayo about an interesting new lesion, (probably unsatisfactorily); cooked up a little spread for lunch and served up said Young’s with it.

In 30 minutes, I’ve gotta be outta here again. Any question why I never get any of my own stuff done?

Cassie continues to revive. As we speak, she’s barking her little furry head off, in her former accustomed manner. And she is NOT wheezing after each attempted yapfest. She seems a little weary, but you would, too, if you’d been as sick as this dog has. This noon she shot out the side door after Ruby, just like a turbocharged little rocket, something she hasn’t done in weeks.

I think if we can get her treated for the UTI the Indian Bend vet just diagnosed, she’ll be just about back to normal. Yes, I do understand that prednisone and fluconozale both cause incontinence. But also understand that cloudy urine is suggests an infection (lo! I was right…). But I also understand that corgis are prone to UTIs and that the incontinence should stop when the drugs stop.

It is much better. But she’s still given to a certain embarrassing urgency. I think if we treat her for the infection this vet says he found, she’ll soon be back to her old self.

Can’t believe it! Truly…there were two occasions when I truly thought she was going to die. Then when the vet proposed to put her on that monstrous drug for upwards of six months, I told him I would put her down before I would do that: occasion #3.

• I can’t believe my 12-year-old dog is still alive and seems to be on the mend…

• I can’t believe I spent upwards of a thousand dollars to do nothing for a doggy ailment that seems to have resolved itself pretty much on its own…or with the help of an over-the-counter allergy pill.

• I can’t believe I crashed my car in the middle of all this.

• I can’t believe I was able to get the car repaired without having to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for the privilege.

• I can’t believe I managed to get through six assignments from clients while all this shit was going on.

• I can’t believe beer could taste this good.

 

Hear that Sound in the Sky?

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That is the sound of angels singing.

When the dogs rousted me out of the sack…again…as per the New Usual…at three in the morning, Cassie needed to get outside fast to pee (prednisone makes dogs incontinent), but just lifting her off the bed started her wheezing. She gasps her way through that for a couple of minutes, then can finally breathe enough to stagger to the door.

This little dog was — again…still — very, very sick. Has been for a long while, despite the various drugs the vet has tried for the cough and the wheezing. Today she literally could not bark without falling into a wheezing frenzy. And since this dog lives to bark, that’s a lot of wheezing. She couldn’t drink water without wheezing.

Time passes. When she’s not wheezing, she’s flopped on the bed with her little chest heaving.

Finally I think…what, really, is gonna happen if I give her half a Benadryl?

I know dogs can tolerate Benadryl, and I know 1/2 tablet is the correct dose for a 20-pound dog. Decide I’d better ask MarvelVet about that first, though… Reach his office but am told he’s out for the day. Hm.

So along about 9 a.m., I think fuck it. She’s gonna die if this keeps on, anyway. Wrap up half a pill in a wad of butter and down it goes.

No noticeable effect ensues. I plow through two of the three files the current Chinese client has sent; return them to her. But must go to Costco to (as we’ve been led to believe) replace tires, especially the one I successfully gouged up in the late, great fender-bender. Really, really depressed. Four new Michelins…it’s more than I can contemplate… {GLOOM}

So without finishing the tripartite job, I traipse up to Costco, braced to have to cough up hundreds and hundreds of bucks to install four new tires on the Toyotamobile. But nay!

To my astonishment, the tire foreman looks at the things and says…”There’s no reason to change these tires. They have plenty of tread left on them. Yeah, there’s a ding in that one sidewall, but it’ s nothing to worry about. Only problem is, you did wallop the air valve on that tire. It’s bent so it can’t be used. Sixty bucks to replace it.”

Almost fainted on the spot!

Make it so, say I, and I charge off to spend money in the store.

Buy a month’s worth of food. Retrieve the vehicle. Cruise home, drive into the garage, hear Cassie BARKING. And barking and barking and barking and barking and…NOT WHEEZING!

She hasn’t been able to bark at all — not one yap — without falling into a wheezing frenzy, not for days and days. Fling wide the gates, and…. Cassie is dancing around, she’s barking, she trots outside…not one cough nor one gasp for air!!!!

Holy doggerel! The Benadryl must have worked!

There’s really no other explanation. She was mighty sick when I left the house this morning…as in “dog is not long for this world.” Four hours after a dose of Benadryl, she’s almost completely back to normal!

Wouldn’t that be something, if all this doggy misery and all this worry and all this (phenomenal!) veterinary expense were caused by…allergies? The hound has developed asthma, and it has something to do with whatever is in the air or whatever she’s eating.

Gets worse, if that’s possible

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Bye-bye…

Dammit, I just dropped the external backup drive on the floor. Presumably broke it, because every time you drop anything electronic on the floor, you break it. The other external drive doesn’t work, either. It broke a long time ago.  As nothing, though…

What’s really broken — that matters — is the dog. And my budget.

Today I took Cassie to my son’s vet, who’s only about 10 minutes away (well…when every route going in that direction isn’t dug up and blocked to one [1] lane, which is not the case today…) to find out about the “abnormal” results of her recent urinalysis.

Is there a reason why we have to make such a fuckin’ drama of this stuff?

Oh yeah, sure there is: it’s called a rea$on.

They now want to do another urine analysis, in which they propose to culture the bacteria they found in her urine. Uh huh. And was there a reason we didn’t do this on the first try?

They propose, all told, to charge me almost $700 for the various tests and treatments they foresee.

Understand: I just paid MarvelVet $500 for treatment that has done nothing to help the dog.

Twelve hundred dollars is the sum total of my monthly income. Well, that’s not true: Social Security amounts to about $1211 a month. So this is more than just grocery money. This is more than half of what I have to pay all of a month’s bills. And that’s without repairing the car and replacing the tires after the fender-bender incurred in driving home from the last visit to this vet.

This is just crazy.

One thing is sure: here in our lovely 21st-century dystopia, if you are retired, you cannot afford to own a pet. In the near future, I’ll have to have this dog put to sleep. And that will be it in the doggy department for me: I simply will not be able to have another dog or cat around the house. Because I can’t afford it.

Ruby will still be here, but I’d probably better find another home for her while I can — while she’s still healthy and some naive dummy wants her. Because if I can’t afford Cassie, obviously I can’t afford Ruby, either.

Sooo exhausted. Haven’t slept more than a few consecutive minutes in the past month.

Tried to take a nap this afternoon. If I don’t put the dogs on the bed, they lobby — by whacking the bed and trying to climb up — until I capitulate and lift them up here. Trying to wiggle out of Ruby’s way (she being in full pester mode), I found myself in another cold, wet puddle.

Yesterday I ran FIVE LOADS through the washer, plus had to clean the washer out with the shop vac and then unclog the shop vac. Now the washer is laboring away with another entire set of bedding including a blanket. Literally, I ran the goddamn washing machine until 10 o’clock last night.

Well. Today’s mound doesn’t include the bed pad…this time she managed to pee on the piddle pads that protect the under-bedding. Hope I managed to get all those out of the wad of cloth I hauled out of the garage.

I just can NOT keep on doing this.

Meanwhile, two new jobs came in. When exactly am I supposed to find the time and the physical strength to edit these things, given that it’s impossible to sleep and the dog is so sick she has to be schlepped to a vet every second day and the car is wrecked and the stove is broken and the roof needs to be repaired and…holy shit. To say nothing of the fact that the country is going to Hell in a handcart.

The car is still running. I haven’t had time to get to Costco to find out how much it will cost to replace the tires. Whatever it is, though, between that and the vet bills, I can’t get the pool replastered this fall. Haven’t called the pool guy yet to let him know that deal is going to be off. The brushed metal things that I thought were some sort of fancy wheel covers are…not. They’re the wheels themselves. God DAMN it. So that means I need to buy a whole new wheel for the right front whateveritis on the damned car. God only knows what that will cost.

Still can’t find my credit-card holder with my AMEX card in it. I’m now beginning to suspect, against my better angels, that the locksmith guy must have lifted it. Really: that is the only explanation. I’ve searched all over the house.

There are a limited number of places that I could or would have set it down. We were near the front door when he handed me his bill. I signed it and handed him the credit card, which he put in his Square. He would have handed it back to me, I would have put it back in the case, and I would have — could have — done one of only two things:

  • I would’ve put the case back in my jeans pocket, where it resides whenever it’s not in its accustomed home; or
  • I would’ve set it down on the lamp table next to the sofa, the only flat place available.

Since it’s not in either place…well…

That day I was wearing the only pair of white jeans I own.  I’ve checked the pockets repeatedly: the thing is not in the jeans, not in the laundry bag, not in any other pair of pants, not on the table, not in the table’s drawer, not on the other table near the door.

Am I mistaken? Were we in the dining room or kitchen when this transaction occurred? In that case I would have put the card in my jeans pocket (no…) or on the dining room table or on the kitchen counter.

It’s not in any of those places.

Did I do the responsible thing and carry it back to the office and put it where it belongs, in a small purse hanging from a hook on the wall in that room?

No.

Did I take it back to the office and drop it on my desk or the file cabinet?

No.

Did for some unimaginable reason I put it in the car, in the consoles or on the passenger seat?

No.

Did I leave it on the kitchen counter or dining room table?

No.

And that’s about it. There really are no other places that I would, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, have carelessly placed it.

Soooo…. Reluctantly, I’ve just about arrived at the conclusion that it was stolen. We were chatting merrily and I was distracted by our conversation. If I’d set it on the sofa table, he could easily have lifted it while I was entertained by a dog or by my own mouth going.

Well, if that’s the case, it was more trouble than it was worth for our Nimrod. That card is now canceled. The Social Security number printed on my SS card was blacked out. And as we have seen, the new number on the new Medicare card doesn’t work. I need to contact Medicare and ask them to send me a new card, but frankly, that bureaucratic runaround is more than I can cope with just now. Fortunately, I made several extra copies of the damn thing. Whether they’ll want to cut a new card with a new number, I do not know.

While Cassie was locked up at the vet’s, I took Ruby for a walk, all by her little self. You know, I think that’s probably the first time this little dog has ever been on a doggy walk without the Boss Dog.

Dog interactions are weird. Maybe human interactions are, too…we’re just not aware of it, being humans. She was like a different dog! No dragging, no wackiness…just trotted right along as though she knew how to heel. Which…she doesn’t. 😉