A lot of what I’m doing lately, I can’t post about. My internship lately is fascinating (that is, when I’m not waiting around), but these stupid privacy laws restrict the blogolicious-ness of it all. In a nutshell, I’ve been beaten up, hugged, gotten confessions of sexual/physical/verbal abuse, and been clung to - all from people under seven years old. I’ve been to more trailers, inhaled more second hand smoke, seen more neglected animals, and seen more of one county than I have in all the 32 years of my life previously. I’ve met women my age who are grandmothers, people who I’d guess were twice as old than their earth age, and numerous addicts and alcoholics and adherents to houses of domestic violence. I’ve learned that if you want to keep the stress off your face, avoid cigarettes, fast food, and for god’s sakes, METH (scourge of the earth). All this after only two and a half months of my internship.
Amidst all that, I think there’s a place for me to work and perhaps accomplish something.
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A little canine spirit has found me, nixing all my plans of going to the shelter to pick out my next dog, perhaps a neglected adult pit bull, a large boy dog. Instead, I find myself with a five pound girl chihuahua mix, about five months old, bounding around my living room. She is overjoyed to no longer be tethered, outdoors, ignored. Her name is Etta.
Pics, of course, at flickr.
With school, internship, work, and new puppy brewing, sweet Shannon has fallen ill. She is at the stage in her life where I wouldn’t make any heroic efforts to keep her here, but her condition was such on saturday that the veterinarian convinced me to bring her to the clinic (staying several hours late to see her). I suspected that Shannon was in serious renal failure (she’d had mild chronic renal failure previously), which we found out was indeed happening, but poor girl also had a raging Urinary Tract Infection.
After having to euthanize my last dog, the reknowned Perseus, my views on euthanasia have changed greatly. I feel my dog deserves to go through a dying process, without her nervous human companion freaking out, and taking her to the vet’s for a cold death in an exam room. My plan has been to keep Shannon comfortable, and let her go at home, in familiar surroundings, when she chooses to go.
However, there wasn’t any way I could NOT treat her UTI, and maintain her comfort, too. I told the vet that we were definitely in doggie hospice mode, that I don’t expect Shannon to live forever, and that I’m (really trying) to not cling to her.* Luckily I can do most of the important things for Shannon at home. Both last night and this morning I put a liter of fluids in to her, subcutaneously, and she absorbed it all, clearly dehydrated from not being able to keep down any food. She ate her boiled chicken this morning (dying at the dellfox household means that you get real meat), and seemed fairly content and comfortable.
But gah, I think I know too much. I’ve seen renal failure cases before, and they SUCK. Luckily (luckily?), I think we’re pretty far in to this, so she won’t have to linger like a lot of animals I’ve seen (know anyone on dialysis? kidney failure is simply crap de la crap for all species). Does kind of leave me in a rough spot as far as my new philosophy on euthanasia, but I think I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it (so to speak).
Who’s got separation anxiety now?
*While sniffling and crying at the vet’s, the most perceptive, fat, and hairy clinic cat, Prince Daniel, climbed in to my lap. He remained there for most of the visit, changing positions for his comfort, putting his paw on my shoulder, or wrapping both paws around my arm. I got tenuous Shannon up to leave, and Daniel resumed his position in the chair by the door. As we passed by him, he made my day by comically swatting Shannon’s ass.
