Tag: dogs

Straits and Turns

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

His voice was clear and stern. She knew that his argument was
probably right, but the convenience of the ready-made food was hard
to replace.
They decided to follow the first vet’s advice: put their pet on a
daily medication and pray for the best. They started Elvis on his daily
regimen, just like himself being on a daily dose of pills since his heart
attack almost twenty years earlier, when one of his coronaries was
occluded. However, he was lucky it was only one coronary, and he’s
still around to tell the story. The beautiful animal got used to his medication
to the point that every time after lunch he would say “Elvis,
time for your medication” The little dog stood ready to be picked up
by mom, to be taken close to the kitchen counter close to dad who was
holding the tube with the daily dose of medication in his fingers and
when he touched the side of his pet’s mouth and said, “your mouth”
Elvis half opened his mouth to take the little squirt of medication
which was followed by his treat.
Days went by, months, a year, and almost a second year. They
realized that their decision not to put their pet on chemo was the
best one. And their Elvis gave them many days of laughter, against all
odds and the doctors’ prognostications. Until two weeks before the
second anniversary of the prognosis, while petting him, he noticed
the dog was tender on his right hind leg over the area of his surgery
years ago.
He mentioned it to his wife. Concern spread in her eyes. They
promised to keep an eye on him. Two days went by. The situation
worsened. They called the vet, who suggested that perhaps the cancer
metastasized from his bladder to his bones, as it was statistically the
case in most of these dogs. They searched online, and they froze when
they realized cancer metastasizes to the animal’s pelvis 90 % of the
time. His pelvis was his weak point. True enough, as the days passed,
Elvis worsened. He couldn’t go up and down the stairs anymore. She
carried him up and down and outside to pee, and to his plate to eat,
until the last day when he didn’t touch his food and stayed on his blanket
all day. They exchanged glances numerous times. It was time.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4250839#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763866

Straits and Turns

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

…in dogs: some of these stones, usually smooth and round most times
dissolve over time, and some other kind of stones were jagged and usually
they remained in the body for a long time, and this was the kind
Elvis had in his bladder.
“What do you suggest we do?” He asked the vet.
“Surgery,” the vet answered.
Cold sweat overtook both as they recalled that Elvis was hit by
a car when he was only a year and a half, and that resulted in surgery
to join two parts of the right side of his pelvis that were broken. The
surgeon used two platinum plates and nine screws to mend the pet’s
broken bone, and it took the young animal two months to heal and feel
good. The idea of another surgery didn’t sit well with them.
“Is there any chance the stone might dissolve?” he asked as if
begging for a positive result.
“I wouldn’t say this,” the vet insisted.
“There is a procedure of using a laser to pulverize kidney stones
for people; is this done to animals?” He asked the vet.
“Not here; I believe there is a company down south and one in
Winnipeg that performs such procedures, but the logistics of doing it
there are against you, you know, travelling, US funds, etc.”
“I see”
“What we could do,” the vet underlined, “is to put him on a sodium
diet which will force him to drink more often and with the excess consumption
of water the stone might be neutralized for a while.”
“Perhaps this is a better option,” they both agreed.
And they put the dog on that special diet. They bought the
proper food and drove home. However, when they talked about it later
and searched the internet for ideas, they decided to get a second opinion.
They located another local vet and called him. The next day, the
new vet examined Elvis and recommended a scan. They agreed. When
the scan results were known, he called them for a consultation. Something
made both feel uneasy. True enough, after his initial comments,
the vet referred to some calcification, revealed by the scan, and lined
the wall of the dog’s penis that led to his urethra.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4250839#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763866

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Excerpt

One day the dogs heralded the arrival of a new family. They staggered
into camp with barely enough dogs to pull the sleighs. The animals’ ribs
stood out through their fur, and they lay down exhausted, their eyes
glazed. The people had to be helped from their sleds. Inside the big igloo,
they explained that they had come from far away and had left most of
their people behind. They had not found caribou this season and had run
out of food. They had no seal oil for heat. They were dying.
One young man’s toes were badly frostbitten. The elders determined
that they would have to be removed to prevent gangrene, a common condition
in the North where blood circulation to the extremities slowed.
There was no hospital – not even a doctor. The old woman said she
would select the person to perform the operation, but the young man
said he would do it himself.
The old woman stopped Ken as he turned to leave. “No,” she said.
“Kabluna wants to go everywhere and experience everything. This is part
of everything.”
The young man honed a knife and with immense concentration and
deliberation, selected the correct place to amputate the toes. One by one,
he sawed through flesh, sinew, and bone. He did not complain, cry, or
moan, taking the same impassive, measured care that he would if he had
been skinning an animal.
It shocked me. How can someone do that in that way and not fall into
paroxysms of agony? And I knew I had something to learn. I had to investigate
what pain was and how it was dealt with. I knew these people were not
superhuman but their understanding of humanness was very different from
mine and it probably came from eons of living in that environment.
These things set me on a very different track in my own head. They led me
to deal with our concepts of possible/impossible, difficult/not difficult and
so on. Nature is neither good nor bad. Nature is neither kind nor unkind.
Nature simply is. Possible and impossible are things of the imagination –
just as the pain is in our imagination. And seeing as we don’t know enough
to make these judgments, we shouldn’t even consider worrying about them.
If there is something in you to be done that is powerful then you set about
doing it and you take out all the imaginings of the dark monsters you might
meet on the road ahead. They may, in fact, never materialize. These concepts
were the golden door through which I walked toward a completely different
understanding, an understanding that has made it much more difficult for
me to live in our culture.
A council was held to decide the fate of those who had been left behind
to starve to death. Four dog sleighs were loaded with food, blankets, and
other necessities, and when it seemed that Ken was to be left behind…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573