Difficult Decisions

Andy Gibb (of Bee Gees fame) during his solo career once said, "Love is higher than a mountain, Love is thicker than water." He was right, of course. Love really does hold us all together, and it really does make the world go around. Love has certainly kept my head above water, and kept me moving in the right direction on more than one occasion.Were they only dependent on love, many decisions would be a lot easier to make.

I was talking to my father the other day and he told me the story of how their beloved cat died. Tigre' was a fun-loving tortoiseshell tabby that my sister got when she was still a girl. It was her cat, and even though there were two russian blues in the house as well, Tigre's outgoing personality really made him the center of attention. He had been diagnosed years ago with diabetes, requiring insulin injections daily. 

As my father put it, the insulin was no big deal. Catch the cat with the needle in hand and it was over in a second. It guaranteed his health. It was an easy thing to do. When, Tigre oddly stopped eating, the family kept a close watch on him to see when his appetite would return. A day passed, then two. Finally he brought the cat to the vet. 

Let me stop here and say that I have tremendous respect for veterinarians and vet-techs for their training and expertise. They are important members of our community, and I value their advice and the care they provide our pets. 

In the case of Tigre, the vet ran some blood tests and did everything possible to find out why Tigre was not eating. They sent my dad and the cat home feeling better, but still worried. He was dead the next morning. Everyone was hurt by the loss of a beloved member of the family. Tigre will be missed. 

What won't be missed is the vet's bill. The final visit ended up costing nearly a thousand dollars. It did not change the outcome. It couldn't. Still, they needed to be paid for the work they did. And they should be, it was owed to them. But it left my dad wondering if it was right.

Some of the most difficult decisions we ever have to make are regarding our pets. Pets are not people, of course. They are covered with fur, have tails and cannot speak and tell us what is wrong. They are animals, and we love them, but they are animals. 

MACY

Because they are animals, I have never been comfortable treating them like they are people, whether they are a loving member of the family or not. I have endured doggy-breath, never taking the vet's advice and having their teeth cleaned. I know that lots of folks swear by the process, and that is their right, but I have never, and probably won't in the future. When my dog locked jaws with a pit bull and proceeded to break her teeth, the vet offered to take them out, but sensing no suffering in the dog, I declined that as well.

I always make sure my dog, Macy's, vaccinations are up to date. I always give her heartworm treatments in the summer (it is Vermont - no bugs in the winter). I have kept tabs on her weight, and made sure she got plenty of exercise. I do take care of Macy, but I am forever conscious of the fact that she is a dog.

So when she got a lump on her chin, I did my homework, looked online and followed the home-therapy advice. I cleaned it and disinfected it, and watched it to make sure it did not get worse. It did. So I took her to the vet in town to get it checked out. They recommended just removing it before it got any worse, and I agreed. Then I got the bill for the visit, and the estimate for what it would cost to have the procedure done.

Wow. (That just about covers it.) The estimate was between $400 and $700 to take a thumbprint-sized mass off of her chin. It was a difficult thing to see as the receptionist went over it with me. Our family is not sitting on so much disposable income, that a bill like that is easy to pay. In shock, I went home to talk about it with my wife.

The vet had said that it might be cancer, and that they would have to send it out to be tested to make sure. They needed to keep her for the day, give her pain medication and put her under for the mass removal. We were forced into the discussion of what we were willing to pay for our dog's health and comfort. We discussed her age (10). We talked about whether or not we would actually give her cancer treatment should the lab tests lean that way.

It is hard to talk about restricting care for someone that you love, but, unfortunately, love is not the only thing to think about. Am I a villain? Is it wrong to vary healthcare by species? Will I be looked down upon by those who might use feline acupuncturists or doggy dentists? Perhaps my view, that my dog is a dog first, then a member of the family, is antiquated. My view might date back to the time when euthanasia of an old dog might be carried out in the back yard with a shotgun. I am nowhere near that savage, but I must admit that paying the bill after losing a friend seemed wrong when my last dog needed to be put down.

Pets are blessed with short (relatively), happy lives full of catnaps and bouncing balls. They are treated like the emperors of the household. They never have to work, or worry. They only need to love us. If care for elderly animals were dependent on only love, they would have enough stored up in the bank for specialists to be brought in from abroad. Unfortunately, it isn't. Unfortunately, these decisions also factor in money and life expectancies. Does that mean that we love our pets less, absolutely not. Does that make us mean?
Maybe.


To let you know, Macy is undergoing the mass removal, but we don't want to know if it is cancerous or not. We decided to let her live out her remaining days with as much happiness and love as possible, and meet her end, if God decides, naturally. We are having the lump removed once. If it comes back, we will love her just as much with it on her chin.

Bring It On!

Rain, Rain, go Away.
It has been a wet weekend here in Vermont. The rain coming off of a warm coastal storm drenched southern New England. Then it drifted north and hit us too, though less severely. It did, however manage to melt most all of the snow left in the backyard. With  the snow gone, I made a few discoveries.

I discovered about a dozen lost dog toys. Tennis balls, and squeaky toys lost throughout the winter. It was like Christmas morning for my lab. There were lots of "other things" left behind by the dog over the course of the winter as well. (I'm not looking forward to collecting those presents from under the tree, though.)

I also discovered all of the little gardening projects that I didn't finish last fall. No magical gnomes came to finish them over the winter, though I keep hoping. The flower gardens that I abandoned at the first snowfall still need work. The dead tree branches blown down by winter storms are still there. The blanket of white erased them for a while, but they never really left. We have the normal mole activity beneath the snowpack that I will need to rake out, but we also have a few areas that the frost decided to push and pull on.

Ground frost is a powerful thing. You won't find it everywhere. There are lots of areas in the northeast that are free from ground frost. Perhaps they have better drainage. Perhaps they clear more of the snow. Whatever causes it, ground frost is a formidable force her in Vermont. We even named our basketball team after it.

Ice is strong enough to expand in the dirt and send sections of earth skyward. Under the pavement of your favorite by-way, frost heaves can make a Sunday drive seem like a motorcross event. One particular spot makes my Chevy jump and change lanes if I drive more than 25 mph across it. Don't ask what it does to my Jeep. That thing is meant for low gear only.

This year, the frost found a few spots in my back yard. It sent a patch of dirt under my grill up about four inches, then it turned an adjacent piece into a shallow pond. I stepped on the paving stones next to the wallow trying to circumnavigate the new landscaping feature, and they shot into the muck like a slip-and-slide. I managed to keep my pants clean that time, but I am steering clear just in case. I was really looking forward to grilling as soon as the rain stopped, but I don't want to pull on the muck boots to do it. I guess those Omaha Steaks will stay frozen a while longer.

Besides the dog's excitement, there has been some good to come of the melt this weekend's rain has brought. In a few choice spots where southern exposure or the warm wind graces it, I can see little green points emerging from the dirt. Our day lilies are alive. Amidst all of the chores, the mud, trash, and dog toys that were found beneath the snow, a glimmer of hope was found too. Those few shoots have really given me hope that spring will one day come. Hope that my son will be able to walk off of the deck without needing a change of clothes. Hope that the dirt will actually drain. Hope that warmer weather will actually let us use our lawn again.

My wife and I have been talking about what marks the first day of spring with my four-year-old. I said the first robin. They are waiting for the first spring flower. We have already found the first bug of the year, and whatever comes next: bird, bud, or black fly; I am glad to see it.

Mud Season / The Trouble with Mud

Flatlanders, that is people who don't live in Vermont... uh, or people who moved to Vermont at some point in their lifetime, might not know much about the many seasons of the Green mountain State.

We have the four regular ones, and then we have a series of less publicized, yet highly important sub-seasons that mark life here.

For instance, between fall's colors (full of white license plates on the highways), and winter's white blanket, (we will take a look at the seasons of winter at some other point) we have stick season (when all of the hardwood trees in the state look like sticks).

Right now, due to a series of unseasonably warm days, The Green mountain State is quickly advancing towards Mud Season. Well, at least in the unpaved reaches, we are. Burlington never really sees Mud Season. The Frost is leaving the ground, and as it melts, all of the ice crystals turn to soup. Cars and trucks steer for themselves across the soggy, rutted byways. Chidrens' shoes are converted from insulated to waterproof, and they are kept strictly by the door if possible.

"Never mind that hat, Jimmy," mom might call out, "it'll be warm today." (42 degrees is warm after winter here)

A warm southerly wind really adds to the trouble with mud when it melts the rain soaked snowpack even faster than the sun's bright rays. That breeze can send a torrent of melt water down the hills. It will face challenges of still-frozen culverts, and ditches full of ice, then escape from the lowlands across your lawn. Formerly firm grass turns to a sponge waiting for the first toddler's knee, or dog foot to soak. If that runoff meets soil, barren of greenery, it waits for the slightest traffic to escape gravity's constraints and move indoors  attached to even the smallest heel, or dragging pant hem (damn my short legs).

Indoors, the soil smears into the cracks between the dry floorboards, across linoleum, or stains carpets. (This is one of many times that I am happy we do not have North Carolina's red clay). Every time the lab comes back inside from barking at the neighbors, my house (and poor sofa) looks like wreck again.A friend of mine just takes up the area rugs and refuses to wash the floor more than once a week. There is wisdom in that.

It is Mud Season, after all.

The rest of the state is muddy, perhaps I can embrace it in my home as well.