Sucks. On. Toast.
“Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.” ~ Mark Twain
This is a personal post, so you may wish to skip it.
I’ve long established that the thirty-something meat girl behind Salome is a little on the nonsensical side. If you haven’t picked up on that, you’ve obviously not been reading long. One of the reasons I believe I can maintain my outside-the-lines mindset in certain respects is that I’ve utterly rejected traditional standards concerning relationships and (though my prancing about playing virtual dress up would seem to contradict this) gender roles. I actually inherited this way of looking at the world and myself from the family member who had the most influence upon my life.
Being an iconoclast of any manner establishes a fairly selfish way of life. History is full of noteworthy people who had radical ideas or immense talent, but were lousy to their loved ones. As such, I decided quite some time ago that I had no business dealing with that whole child-rearing roller coaster ride. Cute as nibblets are, and much as I enjoy spoiling those that belong to others, I am simply one of those people who knows they shouldn’t have children and honestly doesn’t want any. I appreciate that others feel children to be the miracle that makes their lives complete and I understand the love they hold in their hearts for them. I simply missed getting that sequence in my DNA chain — I suspect it was handed out while I was sneaking back in line for a double helping of sarcasm.
So, being a thirty-something single woman means, of course, that I own a pet. In my case, I have a dog – a white and blonde Toy Fox Terrier (I’ve never been a photo person, but Google Image search FTW – here’s a pair that look a lot like mine). He is small, he is spoiled, he is absolutely adorable, and since I first came into possession of him several years ago he has had me trained to his every attitude and whim.
Unfortunately, like his owner, he has lost the physical lottery when it comes to basic health issues. Even though he has a terrific personality (the girls at the vet keep threatening to steal him) he had bad knees (common for the breed) which resulted in one surgery when he was three. A year and a half ago he fell victim to a neurological disorder (somewhat common in toy dogs) which resulted in an issue I’m not even going to get into.
Yesterday, while still nursing my sprained ankle, I learned that an x-ray confirmed my little guy also has a collapsed trachea. It was not a surprise; when he first developed the strange cough that is best described as a “goose-honking” cough, I had scoured the interwebs and decided it was either heart-related or a collapsing trachea. Heart problems would have resulted in a loss of appetite which he’s never suffered from. Collapsing trachea is common in most toy breeds. As is so often the case in life, though I knew it was coming, I wasn’t prepared, and even when the veterinarian told me that it was nothing I’d done and there was nothing I could have done to prevent it, it’s hard not to feel monumentally guilty. Something small and helpless in my care has something wrong with it — how can it not be my fault? It sucks on toast.
I’m not sure how I’ll be dealing with this as it develops. The vet explained that his condition is “more worse than it is better” and there’s really not anything they can do about it. The operation to correct the condition is highly risky and has a very low success rate — it’s just as likely he’d die on the table than survive the procedure, and even if he survived there’s no great chance it would correct the problem. Many dogs live to full lifespan with the condition, but his case is severe and he might live ten more years or be dead in a month — there’s no way to tell. Right now he’s to be given antibiotics to ward off any infection and I have to shoot cough suppressant down his throat twice a day (cherry flavored and he likes it — so that’s at least good).
When a medical professional begins using terms like “your focus should be on his quality of life now” it feels more like a knell than an offering of hope and I really really really hate feeling so utterly helpless. Give me hoops to jump through. I’m good with hoops (bad with jumping, but good with hoops). Give me small tasks to complete — dots to connect or numbers to rearrange. Give me SOMETHING. Just being left to do nothing and “see what happens” makes me feel physically ill. It is a reprehensible frustration of the human (and, as it turns out, also the canine) condition. I find myself in that horrific state of hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.
Have I mentioned that this sucks on toast?
I am not, generally, a person who shares about their inner feelings — which is why my blogging in the past has always focused on anything other than myself. Sure, I’ll sling a good rant when I’m cranky, but this whole vulnerable position isn’t something I generally impart and certainly not on a blog level. But if this is to be a more personal space, then I suppose meat feelings have to appear amid the more frivolous trappings.
If you’re only here for the virtual dress-up, however, you can take comfort in that these types of entries will be few and far between — if for no other reason than it makes me cringe just to write them.
