Moan
I turned my light out at about 2:45 last night/this morning.
At about five there was anguished howling from the kitchen. Chaos.
And again at about 6:30.
And again at about 7:30.
And again at about 8.
At 8:30 or so I rang Jenny to cancel riding Connie . . . again. In the first place I’ve had no sleep*, and in the second place I don’t dare leave for two hours to go riding. I went back to bed, just for laughs, and was promptly routed out by the postperson with a package that had to be signed for.
I rang the local vet at 9, but they couldn’t give me an appointment with the, you know, good vet, till 5:15. One of the peculiarities of my hellhounds, often remarked on by all who know them, myself included, is that they always look great: bright-eyed, shiny-coated and alert. So what’s a little diarrhea?** So I said okay, 5:15.
And then I took them for a walk. It’s what we do, mornings, we go for walks. And they look fine. And they canter over the landscape like they’re fine. Except Chaos continued to stream. For a 40-pound carnivore, ie with a short bowel, he can sure produce it.
By the end of the walk he was passing blood.
I rang the vet again. They tell me I can bring him in to the afternoon surgery and take pot luck on vets.
Finally a little good luck: the vet I wanted got back from rounds and was seeing patients at the surgery. I went in and said, this has been going on two years and I am past the end of my rope. I would be glad to be only at the end of my rope. We get so far and never any farther with it, and then it breaks out again. They only just had a course of antibiotics, two months ago or something? And it did nothing, barring, presumably, ruining what gut flora they might have had, and the probiotics don’t seem to have restored it. And then what, a fortnight ago?, Darkness had this same streaming and streaming till he was passing blood, and I brought them in to the vet then and spent a cool £110 on two jabs*** per hellhound and some stuff to give them at home. . . . Which worked till it ran out. And pretty much the minute it ran out . . . well, it’s Chaos this time, leading the way. Have I mentioned that I haven’t been out of town for more than a few hours at a time in over two years†? Because I have hellhounds with diarrhea.††
The vet made soothing/interested noises and gave me some different stuff††† for Colitis of Unknown Origin–which to my horror I gather is a not enormously unusual non-diagnosis–and some Specialist Veterinarian-Available-Only Sensitive Gut Dog Food‡.
And on their afternoon walk, after the first dose of the new stuff, Darkness had the yellow streamings.
Meanwhile . . . I’ve had toothache for several days‡‡, and it’s getting worse, and at this point I’m pretty sure this is another root canal slouching toward Hampshire to be born.‡‡‡ Tomorrow I ring the dentist. Joy. More joy.
Meanwhile . . . Computer Men are coming again tomorrow. There are various jolly little continuing issues but the real piranha in the bathtub is email mayhem. This machine–it varies from computer to computer–is downloading hundreds of multiple emails . . . but I only realised in the last day or so that this does not necessarily include downloading even one copy of all the new ones. I seem further to be in the process of discovering that not all the emails I’ve sent have actually gone anywhere, like to the people I sent them to. The system also takes random bites out of my contacts list. Just for laughs. I have no idea how many people I may have lost permanently.
And now, if you’ll forgive me, I’m going to bed early. Having lit a candle to the Efficacy of Pills For Colitis of Unknown Origin and Sensitive Gut Dog Food.§
* * *
* And the way you feel on no sleep is way too similar to how you feel during an acute attack of ME. It varies enormously, of course, but I’ve talked to other people who say the same. That sort of grey, achy, stupid, listless, pointless, half-sick feeling when you’re bored to death with how you feel but have no energy to do anything either. And too little sleep is also one of the things that will bring the ME back for a visit. And have I mentioned recently that insomnia is very common among ME-ers?
** A lot. It’s a lot, and it’s also a lot of yellow squirting.
*** One of which hurt so much they both went briefly crazy–and Chaos is now afraid of the vet. We were in the same treatment room today and he was slinking around the walls like the heroine of The Yellow Wallpaper http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_gilman_yw.htm, speaking of going crazy, instead of making friends with the nice young vet-smocked woman who was trying to blandish him, which is utterly unlike him, he loves everybody, and I’m thinking, great, swell, now I’ve got a neurotic hellhound with chronic diarrhea, that’s progress.
† Almost. There was a single disastrous overnight, using one of these national pet-sitting firms. Never again.
†† They throw up too. Especially when the diarrhea is bad.
††† Cheaper. Pills. Painless. Except for inadvertent collision of teeth with hand while poking pill down throat. They’re actually very good about the poking, but accidents happen.
‡ Which to my amazement doesn’t seem to have a huge load of crud and gruesome additives in it. But I’d better reread the ingredients some day when I’ve had some sleep.
‡‡ Yes, I had toothache on my birthday. But I was still ignoring it. Like I was still ignoring a certain slushy yellow quality of hellhound extrusion.
‡‡‡ Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
http://www.metalvortex.com/poems/secondcoming.htm
But we’ve got Barack.^ Which maybe means there’s hope for hellhound digestion too somehow? I told you, I haven’t had any sleep. . . .
^ I hope we’ve got Hillary. Say yes! Say yes, damn it!
§ But it’s still not an answer, even if it works. What’s wrong with them? And what can I do to fix it? And why, out of eight puppies, is it only my two? I think in the nonexistent cupboard under the stairs at the cottage there must be a Gut Demon. Possibly cohabiting with a Tooth Demon.
Whimper.
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