Catching Up

Greetings and Happy 2010! I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays to the fullest!

It seems as though I begin every blog post lately with “I’m such a bad blogger; I haven’t posted in ages.” It’s not that I haven’t wanted to post or haven’t had any ideas; last semester was pretty heavy on the workload and I just petered out too quickly. I had no energy left to right a decently entertaining blog. Plus, I had so much new information from school being shoved into my brain so quickly that any thoughts of my own were forced aside to make room for the new stuff. [The funniest part is trying to recall anything I learned last semester. I’m drawing a blank. Beautiful. God, I love Holiday break!] In any event, I am making a New Year’s resolution - not to blog more, but to quit making excuses for the lack of bloggage. If I don’t post, it’s probably because I’m sleeping or wishing I was sleeping. That's my blanket excuse from now on and it's the truth. I make no apologies, dammit!

OK, now that I got that off my chest…

The biggest event going on right this moment, as many are aware, is the health of my dog, Zoie. To make a relatively long story short, she is in the midst of and being treated for renal failure (kidney failure in lay-speak), the cause of which remains unknown. At first we thought she might have schlepped up some oil that leaked out the transfer case of a 4x4 vehicle on Christmas day, but, as I was later informed, transfer cases are filled with a heavy weight oil that is highly sulpherous and therefore unappealing to the average mutt. Well, Zoie is not average Mutt…she is (in my best superhero introductory voice) Miss SUP-ER PICKYYYYYY!!!! So, if it won’t pass the Tucker test (my other dog, aptly nicknamed “gristle gut” for his ability to stomach all earthly substances, like, for example, his own feces), there’s no way Zoie is having any part of it. We are stumped as to what hit her system so hard.

At this juncture, it really doesn’t matter what the heck the dog got into. Something poisoned her, so we're treating her with what we know (nothing). The vet is treating her as a renal failure patient the best he can, and we go from there. The latest course of treatment is a three-day regimen of “superfluids” in an attempt to flush enough of the toxins out of her system to allow her to regain her appetite. I get to pick her up tonight and bring her home – yay! But the downside is that now I get to go back to constantly stressing about her lack of appetite. To be 100% honest, I missed my dog, but it was kind of nice letting someone else stress out about her not eating and give me a little break. It was breaking my heart to watch her starve.

Her initial course of treatment by an emergency veterinarian was to give her supplements and limit her to the prescription (translation: really freaking expensive) liver-specific food (her first blood test indicated that the liver was in worse shape than the kidneys were). We got nowhere and she starved all New Years weekend, during which I remained in a constant state of mild panic. After another checkup by my regular vet, he basically said “game on; give her anything she’ll eat.”

So the other day, before she was hospitalized, I actually took the day off work so I could cook food for her. Yes, I said COOK food for her. I made her scrambled eggs, later adding cheese and ketchup when she ignored them. I then made her fresh chicken and rice, which she also neglected to eat. Then I made her ground beef, broke up bread pieces, and made a dish of cheese and crackers. Usually this dog would have been in people food heaven, scarfing down everything she could, but she ignored ALL of it. Well, we did manage to get her to eat a bit of ground beef after a ton of coaxing and cajoling. I think she ate to please us more than anything else. But it was really funny because I had a veritable buffet out for the dog and she wouldn't touch a thing, meanwhile Tim and I were eating hot dogs for dinner because I was too worried to cook food for the humans. Had I been in better spirits, I would have taken a moment to appreciate the irony.

Clearly, if you look at the numbers, she is a very sick little dog. Not that you can tell by watching her. By all accounts, she seems to be the normal, happy, perky little Eskie she always is, she is just not eating. This has my vet stunned beyond belief. As he puts it, with blood test numbers like hers, she should be visibly sick – lethargic, uninterested in her surroundings, generally miserable. She is none of that, which drastically complicates this whole situation. It’s hard to believe I’ve spent nearly $1K trying to treat a “sick” dog who still finds the gumption to hump my leg with vigor. It’s also hard to believe that if her markers don’t improve, we may have to consider “other options:” 1) either dropping big dime on a specialist as a last ditch effort; or 2) the always popular, euthanasia. Since I can’t, in good conscience, put down a dog who is still giving valiant effort toward making me her “bitch,” I guess we’re pulling out the checkbook!

Except for the whole eating thing, her quality of life is still generally excellent (though eating is kind of an important component – noted), so we’ll plug on ahead as long as she looks like she wants us to. She’s only 11 years old. Her breed enjoys a lifespan of 15+ years. We can squeeze a few years out of her yet. Besides, if she’s gone, how can she inspire further Halloween costumes? C’est impossible, I say! [For those who missed it, a good friend of mine dressed up as Zoie for Halloween and, to complete the costume, she walked around humping people's legs all night. Pee-in-your-pants hilarious.] We remain ever hopeful that we can save the doggy.

In other news, school starts up again in under two weeks (insert Debbie Downer music here). [I just noticed, with a chuckle, that I just got through discussing my dog’s potentially fatal condition without a hitch, but bring up school, and NOW I'm cuing the violins. How messed up is that!?!] This semester will be 15 credits, while working full time, and oh-by-the-way, I got elected to an officer position for an honor society on campus (another way to pad that veterinary school application). Why yes, I am insane, thank you for asking!

Oh, and did I mention that I have almost made the decision to do the P90X fitness program? For those that have never heard of it, the P90X fitness program is a set of workout DVDs and a nutrition plan, advertised via infomercials, that is supposed to royally kick the ass of the person doing the exercises. 90 days of cardio torture. Awesome!!! I’m tired of feeling guilty every time the new semester rolls around that I eat like crap and don’t exercise. As such, I decided to do something about it. This fitness program is getting rave reviews from users on the internet, so I figured, what the hay? Why not? Because I won’t be busy enough, right? Well, it's not as though I'll have the time to hit a gym, so this is as good as anything. I may not “get ripped” and come out looking I belong on WWE wrestling as so advertised, but perhaps I can quit my habit of gaining the equivalent of a bag of sugar in excess poundage every semester. That would be enough. I just hope I can stay disciplined enough to stick with it. I may or may not post before/after pics. It depends what “after” ends up looking like. If it blows my mind away, I'll consider sucking up the embarrassment of the "before" photos.

With all THAT going on, you may not hear from me for a while, but I’ll do the best I can to come up for air once in a while and jump on the blog. But if I don’t, whatevs. As Jim Carrey said in Ace Ventura, “if I’m not back in five minutes…just wait longer.”

Keep your fingers crossed for the Zo-meister.