Old Dogs and Old Men

Her heavy hips remind Angel Girl not to rise needlessly, so she lies on one side with her front paws splayed around her water bowl, lapping the cool liquid greedily.  Her thirst hasn’t changed over her long life.  Nor has her epicurean delight in all things food related.  Whether it’s a meal that’s devoured in a flash or the rhapsodic sniffing of tantalizing kitchen aromas, the old girl hasn’t skipped a beat.

The same can be said of Dale.  Give him a well-done steak and a baked potato, or a juicy cheeseburger and fries, and all is right with the world.  I’m grateful for this because I know that the difficulty with swallowing, a prominent symptom of PSP, is possibly lying in wait to make our lives more miserable.

Over fourteen years ago, I tucked a little 1 ½ lb. mutt inside my hoody after finalizing the adoption with the ASPCA.  Dale proudly drove Mother and baby home where we immediately bathed the new addition because she smelled like she’d lived her first weeks in a compost heap.  Our only regret about that day is that we didn’t also adopt her yippy brother.  They would have been fast friends during those early years of chewing up all un-closeted shoes or pulling unguarded toilet tissue rolls from their dispensers.

Without a playmate, we tried to make up for any loneliness our 8-to-5 schedules caused by creating an environment of entitlement for her.  We often, of course, rued that decision.  In fact, a friendly observer once remarked, “After I die, I want to come back as a dog in the Shorts’ household.”  She took our largesse and our love for granted and in turn offered total devotion and frequent wet kisses.

On many a summer day I’d admire them from the kitchen window — my bronzed, shirtless husband striding across the expanse of our backyard with a short-legged ball of fur trotting behind.  I couldn’t imagine life without either one of them.  (Actually, I think Dale was a forerunner to today’s hip-hoppers who carry their dogs as accessories because his full head of near-black hair was complemented by Angel’s ebony plumed-tail.)

When Dale would pause for a dip in the pool, a frenetic puppy would follow him around the deck, never diving in, but begging to be splashed.  It tickled us both to watch her gleefully jump and lap at the explosion of droplets raining down on her — quality time with her Da.

But that was the past.  That was before a milky cataract obliterated vision in one eye, and now threatens to do the same in the other.  That was before arthritis invaded her joints, making jumping impossible, and walking painful.

These days, Angel spends the better part of 24 hours sleeping, sometimes deeply with a distinctive little snore, sometimes a light snooze with her good eye cocked for activities around her.  She goes outside reluctantly to potty and occasionally to lie in the shade for a few minutes while I garden.  When she’s ready to go back inside, she hesitantly extends one paw as a feeler toward the back stoop, ensuring it’s there and gauging its height before clumsily hopping up and through the door.  She limps toward her next nap, often beside Dale who regularly “rests his eyes” while his broken body leans over the right side of his chair.

After a good afternoon nap, all three of us will parade to the bathroom for Dale’s shower – he on his scooter, Angel limping up the rear.  No matter what, she’ll never retreat from her perceived duty as shower guardian.

I often wonder, “Where did the days go when I watched my husband ‘stride’ or my puppy ‘trot,’” movements once as natural as breathing.  The images are fuzzy now and I question my memory.  Did I hallucinate that these two loves were once so vital?  From a distance Dale’s hair is still near-black.  Upon closer inspection, the strands of silver are evident as are the myriad facial lines reaped from a life fully lived.

When the two are napping together, the rhythm of their snoring duet fills my heart with a mixture of joy and sadness.  Is he dreaming that he’s still behind the wheel of his macho truck?  Is she dreaming of the mischievous antics of her puppy days?  I hope so.  In dreamland, they can re-live their days in the sun for a while longer – at least, until the Sandman’s last call.

 

The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strain’d (It’s Simply Hiding in Some of Our Modern Institutions)

I feel like Diogenes would have, I’m sure, had he ever found an honest man.  I am incredulous and oh so grateful to Peggy Brady at Arlington Memorial Hospital.

In my continuing battle with Medicare over Dale’s $1267 ambulance bill from April, I wrote to several people in the public and private sectors, including the president of the hospital.  He, I presume, delegated my request for assistance to Ms. Brady who has a number of alphabet designations after her name, and holds a lofty multi-syllabic title.

Ms. Brady responded to my request with two letters: one to me, and another for the Medicare bureaucrats, should I choose to use it.    Indeed, I’ve already stamped the second as an addendum to my most recent appeal and will post it in tomorrow’s mail.  It’s a synopsis of her professional conclusions after reviewing the hospital records of Dale’s admission on April 1 of this year.

In her letter to me, Ms. Brady prefaced her remarks with “…we have no obligation in relation to this billing issue…”  And that’s all right.  Compliance should get its due, especially in our litigious society.  It’s the second clause in the same sentence that caused my jaw to drop in wonder and gratitude, “…we feel the right thing to do is to attempt to assist you in whatever way possible.”  Amazing.  An acknowledgement of “the right thing to do,” in my experience, is anathema to typical bureaucrats who fall back on strict adherence to rules or that old chestnut, “It’s not my job,” to avoid going out of their way.  There’s no guarantee, of course, that Medicare will be moved by Brady’s input — but I am.

Most of us feel dwarfed on occasion by the vast numbers of people who share this planet with us, and by the power of the systems put in place to look after our well-being.  More often than not, those systems put in place actually put us in our place, reducing us to just another “one” in the aggregate and forgetting that “if you prick us,” we absolutely will bleed.

To keep our sanity in check, we shrug off most of the insignificant slights dished out by a seemingly callous society.  Some even make us laugh – like the fact that our county’s property records list me as “Charla” instead of “Carla.”  I attempted to set the record straight years ago, to no avail.  Now, whenever we get junk mail addressed to “Dale and Charla,” we laugh because we know where the soliciting business got their address list.

But there are other times when the utter lack of respect by bureaucrats leaves us frustrated initially, and beaten ultimately.   That’s why the response from Ms. Brady was a refreshing pause in the drudgery of medical paperwork that goes hand in hand with a progressive disease.  The clouds of cynicism parted, however briefly, and the view from the cheap seats was glorious.

Thank you, ma’am, for caring.

 

An Angel Touched Down on Friday

About mid-morning on Friday, I headed out for my weekly grocery shopping.  As I drove out of the driveway, I noted a car parked in front of the house, and a woman wearing a ball cap and carrying a hydrangea walking up to the front door.  I stopped, rolled down the passenger window, and yelled, “My husband’s disabled and won’t…”

The woman turned, shouting, “Carla! It’s Teri!” She started toward my car as I flipped the gear into park.

Teri and I had sung in the choir together before I’d left the Catholic Church.  I hadn’t seen her in years, but we’d kept tabs on Facebook, so her appearance didn’t shock me.  She wore the ball cap to cover the peach fuzz on her scalp, and a baggy shirt to camouflage the concave chest where her breasts had been.  She leaned through the car window, “I read your blog on grief this morning and it moved me so much I had to do something to cheer you and Dale today.”

Words caught in my throat.  I got out of the car, rounded the hood and hugged this dear lady.  Then I held her shoulders and looked into her blue eyes welling with tears and said, “You are still so beautiful.”

She told me she would be returning to work soon, part time, and that her husband is a wonderful caregiver.  We chatted for a couple more minutes, this angel and I, before parting.

I cried all the way to the grocery store, astounded by this generous soul who had been through so much personal suffering herself, yet whose heart spilled with love and empathy for others.  I thought about those who often wonder “What would Jesus do in a given situation.”  And then I thought, “Teri just did it.”

 

 

Putting My Foot in It Seems to be the New Normal

I love my husband dearly.  I feel it.  I know it.  I believe it.  Then why do I take out my irritability on him?

The other day, he was directing me on the proper location of backyard sprinklers.  As he sat on his scooter, he’d coach, “No, increase the distance at this angle, and decrease at this one.”

I thought I’d followed his instruction, but the sprinkler was wetting the concrete thoroughly and little of the grass.  Next he told me to adjust this and that.

Finally, I looked at him and said, “I hope I can be the supervisor one of these days instead of the grunt.”

I know it hurt his feelings, because it also hurts him to watch me tackle almost all the manual labor around here — so just when he feels he’s contributing to a chore by advising me on lawn sprinkling, I snark at him.

The worst was a couple days back when I was helping him get from the shower stool to the transfer stool.  He was telling me about something, but it made no sense.  The words came out, but there was no logical progression from a to b to c in his point.  As a result, I kept asking questions to clarify his story for myself.  After another minute or so, his face screwed up and he whispered plaintively, “Sometimes you make me feel so stupid.”

Those words struck my heart, so of course I cried and apologized, telling him I would never purposely hurt him, and promised to do better.

(This is Carla looking heavenward) “Do you hear that, Lord.  I promised to do better, but I can’t do it without you.  Please give me strength and choose my words for me. Amen.”