We sit in the dark... ( a funny doggy tale/tail )

It started sometime last year.   The day would pass peacefully and normally and the night usually mirrored the day, but sometime last year things changed.  At first it wasn't a big change.  It was a little annoying, and certainly very much attention getting, but it only lasted a few minutes and then it was all done.  One night, some unknown thing startled him.   It wasn't a bark from a dog on the television, and it wasn't the sound of the neighbor's firecrackers that set him off, and there was no delivery at the must-be-barked-at-if-there's-someone-there front door to trigger the panting, the panic, the can't-sit-still, gotta-go-out, gotta-come-in, let's-go-upstairs, no-let's-stay-downstairs, pant, pant, pant that can now last for hours in this darkened house.

It did happen once in the daylight.  It was a Sunday afternoon and he just wouldn't calm down.  Pant, pant, pant, up the stairs, and down the stairs, scratch the dirt in the garden, scratch the (perceived) dirt in the carpet, scratch (the hopefully only perceived) bugs in the bed.  He was in a panic.  I thought it was the precursor to a cardiac event so off we went to what I was sure would be an event leading to euthanasia.  Turned out (after a couple of hundred bucks in emergency vet bills) he really just wanted a ride in the car.  We determined that because he was perfectly fine at the emergency vet hospital.  

You know when you take the car in for repair because it's been making that funny noise, but you can't quite describe the funny noise to the guy at the car repair shop, and it stopped making the funny noise about two minutes before you got to the car repair shop, and the guy at the car repair shop drives it around town and it still won't make that funny noise, and so the guy at the car repair shop takes your car home (his home, not yours - which also explains why you see your mechanic driving around town in some very fancy cars that kind of look like the cars your friends own) to see if it will make that funny noise , but that funny noise just won't reveal itself to the guy at the repair shop, and so the guy at the repair shop charges you $89.75 for his diagnostic ministrations (but he usually charges the other blokes $125 so you kind of feel better)?  Well, it was the same thing with the dog.  The dog was fine at the emergency vet, and he was fine when we brought him home, but who wouldn't be fine after getting a $75 shot of valium in their forty-five pound body?   Oh, and don't bother asking if the vet can hook-you-up with a quick shot of Demarol for your shattered human nerves: apparently they're only licensed to hook-up the animal kingdom, inter-species doctoring being severely frowned upon by those who administer the licenses of the vets who are charging you a week's salary for shaving a one inch square section of fur, to 'have a look' at the bump or lump 'that might' be the cause of today's palpitations (the dog's palpitations, not your own palpitations.  Your palpitations are easily explained by the avalanche of symptoms exhibited by the dog, and the palpitations brought on by the all-too-predictable-but-unexpected tsunami of cost attached to this veterinary visitation).

We bring the dog home, and we both attack 'Dr. Google'.   If you look hard enough, look long enough, and are persistent enough, you can validate pretty much any physical (for better or for worse) condition on the interwebbynettythingy.   If you want to confirm that you're at death's door, you can find someone, somewhere who has had that same pimple in the same place with the same headache, cough, and anal leakage that you've been experiencing simply by consulting the internet.   Having confirmed that you're at death's door, you now want to deny the reality of your own mortality by doing a search for remedies, palliatives, ointments and unguents that will relieve one of the headache, clog the anal leakage, remove the pimple and restore good health (relieve wrinkles, and restore a youthful glow) to one so deserving of good health and long life.   With Dr. Google, off you go down that well-worn path of denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance that is the right and privilege of those whose day's are numbered, and then you can go back out into the 'doctor market' to find some doctor who will agree with your diagnosis and relieve you of $500 but not relieve you of your pimple, headache, or anal leakage (which you later discover can all be cured by two aspirin, a pair of tweezers, and a cork that are found at Walgreens).

According to the interwebbythingy, this old dog is suffering from Cushing's disease.  Well, kind of, but not really.   He has 'this', but you really need 'this' combined with 'that' for it to be Cushing's disease.  He's never had 'that', but the 'this' portion of a Cushing's disease diagnosis he has in spades.   He has so much of the 'this' part of the Cushing's disease diagnosis that you convince yourself (because Dr. Google is telling you right there, in print, before your very eyes) that 'this' can really only be Cushing's disease, and just because he doesn't seem to exhibit any signs of 'that' doesn't mean he won't be doing 'that' real soon, and honestly, maybe he's been doing 'that' for months in some private place in your house or yard where you can't see 'that' - after all, just because the dog's every waking moment is spent at your side (as God intended), like I said, just because he's at your side constantly doesn't mean he doesn't take a few moments off from his watching-you-duties to have a little personal moment of 'that' for himself.  Does it?

The emergency vet says he'll calm the dog down with a shot (you'll have to calm yourself down with a shot of tequila when you get home thank you very much) but he's more than happy to do some blood work and do an X-ray.  Oh sure, 'he's happy'!   He's happy to see a $60,000 off road vehicle (that attacks a speed bump at Target at three miles an hour as if it were made of crystal and they were driving this $60K crystal off road vehicle across the Alps like one of the vonTrapp's more desirable children) in his parking lot with two guys (Gee, are you two brothers?  You look so much alike...) two guys who have clearly never missed a meal, and whose wallets are clearly encumbered by limitless credit lines given by Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover, and just by chance this happy vet happens to accept all four of those major credit cards, which is convenient because you're gonna max out every one of them if you take the sucker's-bet and go for the in-house blood work, and X-ray that are so generously (?) being offered.

Being no fool (well, not being the biggest fool in a world of fool's) we accept the drugging of the doggie, and decline the 'convenience and immediacy' of the offered bloodwork and X-ray.   After all, our own vet had to downgrade from a stateroom with a balcony to a regular (outside) stateroom for his last cruise, and we want to be supportive of his business, and we want the vet to have first class vacations (while we sit at home because we don't have money for vacations) so we'll take the dog to him (our vet) the next day.

Which is exactly what we do...

The regular vet has just spent a hundred grand on a machine because the tax laws gave him a generous break on such machinery, and it's a really great machine, and wouldn't we like him to use this expensive machine on our dog to diagnose that which would explain why he has 'this' and not 'that', but might also reveal that he's been doing 'that' for a long time and I've been too much of a lunk-head to notice 'that'.   This machine, when combined with $800 worth of bloodwork will, without doubt, without question, with no uncertainty, determine that the dog is on his last legs, or determine that his ailments are indeterminate in nature, and aren't you happy that he doesn't have anal leakage?

Which is exactly what the expensive machine, and the expensive bloodwork, and the expensive examination determine: this dog is (kind of) fine: except for doing 'this' (but not 'that') and being very annoying during the hours that we've generally determined to be time for sleeping (9:00 p.m' through 4:00 a.m.).  During the examination they've noticed some skin tags (doggie equivalents of pimples).  One of them looks like Hiroshima on a bad day in August, so let's just whack that sucker off.   Now, I've been picking at this thing for months, and it's the kind of pimply-growth-kinda-thingy that your finger nails just can't resist.  Five minutes of picking at this fleshy Vesuvius is always productive and weirdly satisfying (said the Marquis de Sade).  The dog can't feel my pinching of this monstrosity, and according to Dr. Google I can strangle this thing off his body with some dental floss and a tourniquette.   However, I'd much rather pay another $600 to remove this pimple by a professional pimply-thingy-removal guy, and since he doesn't exhibit anal leakage I'm that much ahead of the game (if he's suffering from headaches I'll never know).

He's an old dog.  At least sixteen years old, and there have been more than a couple of times in the last few years that we thought: "This is it, he's not going to pull through this event....".  Fortunately, medical science and thousands of dollars later, he's still here.  It seems to me that dogs weren't as expensive to have as they are today.  The vet who has set up shop here in our swanky neighborhood is a nice guy, and a great vet, but man is he expensive.  How the hell do poor people have dogs?   Well, I guess they have them, but they don't have them for sixteen years like I do.   Our other dog died in my arms (a heart attack) one September afternoon, and while I miss that old dog (he was nearly twenty) I sure can use the money (nearly five grand a year) that funded our vet's luxury accommodations on whatever cruise ship our vet vacationed on in those lush, hundred dollar a barrel oil years!

The vet has given me some medication that is supposed to relieve us of the 'this' symptoms.   Every evening, the dog gets a Xanax.   Actually, he gets a half of a Xanax.  Exactly what kind of a world is it when the dog is on Xanax and I'm not?  At first, the Xanax worked, and frankly there have been a couple of recent world events where I may have slipped a Xanax into my own Alpo to get through the night, but now, his Xanax wears off at about 11:00 p.m. and we're enjoying pant, pant, pant, in and out, up and down, 'this' but not 'that' throughout the night (well, at least until 4:00 a.m.).

The dog is now boasting a three inch square section of shaved skin.   It's kind of growing back, but it's doing so in a very odd way.   It's been four months since the initial shaving, and it's been four months of panting, out, then in, then upstairs, no downstairs, and none of this, absolutely none of this can, will, or does occur during business hours.   I'm kinda wishing I hadn't removed that doggie pimple, picking at it would give me something to do in the wee hours of the morning while I sit in the dark.

No, all of this panting, up, down, in and out needs to be done between his business hours (he apparently prefers working the night shift - 9 p.m. to 4 a.m.).  I'm trying to convince the dog that he can do his business during daylight hours and not bother anyone, but you know what they say about teaching an old dog new tricks.  Besides, part of his pleasure is in making me get out of bed an additional four times a night to attend to his needs (supplementing the eight times I'm up in the night to attend to my weakened bladder or supplementing the twelve times a night I'm up if I've dared to have more than two ounces of liquid after 4:00 p.m.).

Back in September, I just wasn't quite ready to let go of this dog.  So I made a deal with the devil, and he's still here.  In the morning, I get up (if I'm not already up like this morning) and make the coffee.  He rolls on outta bed (he's too old to jump on the bed so he has to be picked up to be put there - six times a day, and four times at night), and he rumbles on out to whatever part of the house I'm loitering in.  All he knows is that he's done his night's work, and it's the start of a new day.  He's always wagging his tail, and last night's 'this' is a thing of the past.   That I wanted to kill the beast sometime around 2:00 a.m. for the panting, the in, the out, the up, the down, the 'this' but not 'that' is also forgotten.   After all, it is (or soon will be) a new day.

In the meantime: we sit in the dark.   He wags his tail, I sip my coffee.   He wags his tail, I lament the world condition.  He wags his tail, I worry about money.   He wags his tail, I worry about health issues (mine, yours, ours).  He wags his tail... we sit in the dark!