Zoe lies on the sofa now, even when Leah is in the room. Sylvester has had his own chair for some time now. I thought it was for me when we bought it, but I was mistaken.
Sometimes Zoe spins a little.
She has a habit of peeking over the back of the sofa when we’re at the table.
I have been taking the dogs with me when I have to run errands. Sam has not thrown up so far, which is progress. I have also been letting Zoe off the leash to run out the garage door when I’m leaving. That’s a risk, since she has run away several times. So far that has been OK as well. Wednesday afternoon when I let her out she ran down beside the house and disappeared. I called and clapped my hands, and she came back. That was a relief. Leah told me she chased Sylvester up onto the front porch. That explained the running away. I don’t know what explains the coming back.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Dogolas soon would be there; the animals were settled as snug in their beds…
Well, Sam, no one is sleeping with those headlights staring at them. Go to sleep, settle in with Zoe.
There, that’s better, although perhaps not all that dignified.
Everyone in bed, Mollie. That will be fine if that’s where you want to sleep.
Yes, St. Dogolas can find you there. He sees you when you’re sleeping.
Sylvester, if you want to sleep inside, you better close those eyes.
Now, everyone settle your brains for a long winter’s nap,
He’s chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf. I’m sure we’ll see him, if I say so myself.
Will he come to our house before we sleep? Let’s be careful and quiet, not making a peep.
Out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. What to my wondering eyes should appear,
A little old furkid, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Dog.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his leash was all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of Dog Toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack. His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
… laying his paw aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose; He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle, But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“ … and to all a good night!”
From Leah, Mark, Sam, Zoe, Sylvester, Chloe, Dusty and Mollie.
Tonight we remember the animals that left us most recently.
Zeke and his brother from another mother, Elroy.
Elroy lived in Littleton, Colorado. He was with us when I visited last year. He was getting old then, and we were worried about him. When I left, I told him I expected him to be there the next time I came out to visit. But it was not to be.
As of he date of this1 post, I am as old as my brother Henry was when he died in 2018. Still, when I think of him, I see my older brother. But now he’ll never be older than me.
I had thought to write more about Henry, but other things occupy my mind right now. On Monday morning Leah and I arrived at the hospital around 5:15 am for Leah’s surgery. After she went back to the operating room, I had to rush home to let the dogs out. The doctor called as I was on my way back to the hospital and said everything went well. She was in her room before 10. She was groggy for a while but seemed to be coming around pretty quickly. I went home for lunch, and when I got back to the hospital she had been walking around and seemed alert and aware.
I had to go home again to feed the animals and walk the dogs around 5 pm. When I got back to the hospital, Leah didn’t know where she was. We (the nurses and I) kept telling her that she was at the hospital; she said she knew that, but she seemed unable to hold the idea in her head. She would acknowledge that she was in the hospital, and then say she needed to get her shampoo, or toothbrush, or hand lotion out of the bathroom — our bathroom at home.
As I said in an earlier post, post-operative cognitive decline is a known problem. It can be temporary, long term, or permanent. I don’t know what to expect in this case. As I write this at a little before midnight, she is sleeping. I hope she’s better when she wakes up.
Leah will get an early present this year. She’s going to have surgery on the Monday before Christmas.
She has been having leg pain for several months because of pressure on a nerve in her spine, and she is experiencing some weakness in her leg. She has fallen a few times lately, once in the shower and once in the garage. She has avoided serious injury only through luck. It has reached the point that surgery of some sort is necessary.
The surgeon gave her two choices, fusion of the L4 and L5 vertebrae, or a laminectomy, in which the doctor removes some of the tissue that is pressing on the nerve. As usual, the choice was not clear. The laminectomy would almost certainly eliminate the problem, but it’s possible that the vertebrae might have too much motion as a result, and a fusion would have to be performed anyway. Fusion seemed a surer bet, but fusing vertebrae results in reduced motion, which often leads to back problems in other locations.
The laminectomy is a less complicated surgery that requires less time to recover — weeks instead of months. We asked the doctor the probability of needing fusion after a laminectomy. He said maybe 10 to 15 percent. Then we asked which he would do if he were in Leah’s shoes. He said a laminectomy. So that’s what Leah is going to get.
The surgery will be first thing Monday morning. And I mean first thing. We have to be at the hospital at 5:30 that morning. That’s bad enough, but Leah is supposed to drink a special carbohydrate supplement two hours before she arrives, plus take a shower with an antibiotic soap. And it takes about a half an hour to get to the hospital from our house. So we’ll be up shortly after we go to bed.
Leah is not looking forward to the surgery. She’s worried about a lot of things, some of which are even possible. Her father had surgery at about 81, and suffered permanent cognitive decline as a result of anesthesia (Post Operative Cognitive Dysfunction. Here’s the wikipedia article; if you search for POCD you will find lots of other articles, some pretty scary. See in particular the first sentence of the abstract at that link.). He also had back surgery many years ago, and that surgery left him with a weak leg.
And then there’s the fact that when we asked the doctor which surgery he would do, he said he would really not like to have any surgery. But, as I said, there really is no choice at this point.
I have posted before about how vocal our dog Zoe is. I have a couple more examples.
She has different vocalizations for different situations. There is the impatient whine when I’m preparing her dinner. There is the sort of growling she makes, sometimes for unknown reasons, and sometimes because she has to go out to relieve herself. And then there are the simple barks.
She barks a lot. Sometimes it’s because she sees something that wasn’t there before, or maybe a cat that she has seen many times before, and sometimes just for the sake of barking, to announce her presence to the world.
She is certainly the most vocal dog I have ever had, and maybe the most vocal dog I have ever met.
Copyright 2013 Mark V. Paris
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