Day: December 22, 2017

Anne has a glower than can freeze water instantly, she is well known for it in our town. She is our friend, our bookkeeper, and also has a particular distinction: in a very literal way, she saved my life.

When my life fell apart in 2208, and my ex-wife happily turned over the finances to me, I went to pieces and was drowning in bills, accounts, receipts and tax forms. Anne sensed that I was in trouble – she was rebuilding the old flower garden at the first Bedlam Farm – and offered to help.

I was terrified of Anne for years, her gloomy and sometimes withering stare caused consternation and panic in me, she didn’t mess around when it came to the books, and I had messed around for decades when it came to money and the books.

If I knew she was in the house, I’d drive around until she was gone. “It’s time to panic,” she told me one night when she first went over the books. I can’t imagine why she didn’t flee.

Miraculously, we hung in there together, and under Anne’s sometimes fierce stare, I am learning to manage money, am debt-free and thoughtful about what I buy, and keep meticulous account of my money. I pay my bills on time and even pre-pay my taxes. I owe nothing.

Anne can even read my handwriting sometimes.

And beneath the glower is a pure and loving heart, Anne is all good, to people and especially to cats. This morning, she startled me – okay, she scared me –  by popping up in the bookstore right across from me, and I asked her if I could buy her a book for Christmas (we have a special present in mind for her) and she looked at me evenly, and said “no.”

I love Anne.

I am especially grateful to her. She is one of the very few people still in my life from those tumultuous and painful  days. I know my money-handling and record-keeping drove her mad at times, but she stuck with me, and I stuck with her. I suspect it was because she really likes Maria.

Anne has also helped Maria figure out her taxes and receipts and helped her to understand how to run a small business. It is, to me, amazing to think about how far I come, every morning, I browse through all of my financial apps and make sure things are in order.

Sometimes, she comes over with her laptop and we sit down face to face and go over the books. It is fun, now, Anne is an enormous help to me.

Anne gave me a great compliment earlier this year and if Anne is generous of heart, she is chintzy with compliments. She said this was the sanest year that I had been since she met me a decade ago.

It’s not saying much, but it is saying something. I’ll take it.

Merry Christmas, Anne.

There are some people you just can’t let get away.

The first thing we think of in a snowstorm are the birds, songbirds used to take off South for the winter, but in recent years they’ve been sticking around, perhaps because of climate change. So we have two feeders we keep  full for them, especially in weather like this. They swarm around them all day, buzzing in and out of the trees, I could watch them for hours.

For the past few weeks, Gus has been spitting up and vomiting food, it was an eerily familiar experience for me. This week, the condition worsened, and he was vomiting four or five times a row, several times a day.

Aside from the mess  and discomfort  for him and us – it was extremely foul-smelling – we realized there was a problem and we brought him to see Dr. Suzanne Fariello at the Cambridge Valley Vet today.

She examined Gus and suggested an X-ray after administering a small amount of barium (the white substance on the right), so that she could examine his esophagus, where we both thought the problem was coming from.

Dr. Fariello is a superb diagnostician, she spotted the issue right away.

She showed us the X-rays and diagnosed him as having Megaesophagus.  Gus’s esophagus was abnormally swollen (see the small hand on left of the X-ray).

When a dog’s esophagus is healthy, it is narrow, and squeezes food down into the stomach by contracting and relaxing.When it is swollen, the movement of food into the digestive system is blocked.

Megaesophagus is the most common cause for regurgitation in the dog.

Regurgitation results from the inability of the esophagus to contract properly and push food down to the stomach.

As a result, the ingested food and/or liquid remains in the esophagus, for anywhere from minutes to hours to days. Since the good doesn’t reach the stomach, the dogs has no sensation of being full and will continue to eat. As a result, the esophagus  enlarges as it dilates  with food.

The majority of cases of canine megaesophagus have no apparent cause, and treatments vary wildly.  The illness is not a breeding issue.

I want to say right off that this condition is not genetic. Both of Gus’s parents and all of his siblings are seen by Dr Fariello, and  none of them have this condition. Dr. Fariello describes the line as exceptionally healthy and sound.

It is also quite ironic that my mother suffered from this same condition, they called it acid reflex or esophagitis. I took her to many doctors regarding it and learned a great deal about it. Perhaps this is why I recognized it so quickly in Gus. How curious that my mother and my dog would eventually have the same disease. Perhaps she has come back to haunt me, she often complained I didn’t take proper care of her.

This condition is confusing, it isn’t cut and dry, there is no instant fix, no surgery or common resolution.

It can be a major chronic problem or a minor one. It can be caused by anesthetics – Gus was neutered a few weeks ago – or it can disappear as part of the growth process.  It might be caused by a viral disease of some kind. Gus is only nine months old, he is still growing. Megaesophagus can also be caused by parasites or lead paint, peristalsis or pneumonia. We will almost certainly never know what has caused it in Gus.

Of course, there are vast online support groups for people whose pets have Megaesophagus. At this point, I don’t care to join them, I’ll go with my vet.  We are taking some steps to respond to this.

One is medication to reduce acid, and is administered before Gus eats.  We have dissolvable pills and a syringe.

We are raising his food bowl eight or nine inches off of the ground so he will raise his head when he eats and swallows. We can, if we wish, give him Pepcid or Zantac.

Many pet owners with this condition use “Bailey Chairs,” specially constructed eating chairs so dogs can sit up like infants when they eat and force the food down past the swollen esophagus. These chairs cost hundreds of dollars. We aren’t there yet, I don’t want one as of now. If I do, I’ll happily buy one..

We are, at Dr. Fariello’s recommendation,  switching his food from dry kibble to special wet or canned food – Purina Pro Plan Gastroenteric.

There were immediate results today.

Gus hasn’t spit up or gagged up or vomited his food once today. There was no gulping or any signs of acid reflex. Dr. Fariello wants us to monitor Gus for five days – give him medicine before and after he eats, stop giving him conventional hard treats or any kind of kibble. She also wants us to hold him in our laps sitting upright for five or ten minutes after he eats. No problem there.

Then we’ll sit down and strategize further. In the meantime, no therapy training or work.

So another chapter in our lives with dogs, more things to learn, more perspective to keep. This could go on for years, it could go away in days. I’ll share the process as always. Gus is in great spirits, running around like a madman, bossing the other dogs around, running his farm.

We are lucky to have him.

Gus was at the vet this afternoon (more later) and we had to leave him there for awhile, we got a call from Cassandra and Nicole there, saying he was ready to come home and suggesting I bring my camera. So we knew something was up. When we got there, they have wrapped Gus in a Christmas bow, I think he was an angel under the tree.

He seemed to love the attention, and Cassandra got into the Christmas spirit with him. We all cracked up, Gus is the spirit of Christmas Now. And we so appreciate the loving and very competent staff at the Cambridge Valley Vet. Gus was diagnosed with a potentially chronic medical condition today, I’ll write about that later. Nothing we can’t handle.

Suzy (named after our friend Suzy Fatzinger) could care less if it is snowing. The only weather that really bothers sheep is hot and direct sun at mid-day. Their thick, lanolin-coated coats keep the wet and cold off of them, they do like shelter in ice storms.

I often see them out in the snow chewing their cuds (sheep have a four-part stomach, the cud is a food bolus that has been regurgitated).  They love grain and will knock us over to get to it if Red isn’t around. We feed the donkeys grain in their own pan and the sheep in their feeder.

In cold weather like this, we warm them in a number of ways: First, they have thick coats. We shear them early so their grows are heavy for winter. Secondly, we keep the water heated, and water will keep them warm. We feed the grain, which gives them extra energy. And we feed them rich second cut hay which also warms their bodies. Finally, they always have access to shelter, to get out of the weather and the wind if they need to. The dirt in their is always dry and soft.

Sheep are sheep, they rarely change their demeanor, and storms are generally just another day for them. This one is cold and icy, but we check on them often, and they rarely lose their cool.