Author's Note: The Loss of Tipsy

Author’s Note:  I apologize for the very long hiatus in this blog…In fact, I’m very hangdog about the whole matter, and it’s all because I need to tell some tough truths. 

On October 26, 2011, my best Vizsla friend, Tipsy, died suddenly from hemangiosarcoma.  In typical Tipsy fashion, she didn’t complain and didn’t say anything was bothering her.  She appeared fine on Saturday at the Mom’s Agility Fundraiser, and she slept most of Sunday in the sun with Shadow while I went to the 5K with Mom and Dad.  Monday she seemed a little down, so off to Dr. King, and then she got very sick on Tuesday.  Mom and Dad took her to the Emergency Room on Wednesday where they learned how sick she really was - so sick that we needed to let her go.  She died in Mom’s arms, wagging her tail and all curled up as if she were taking a nap. Dad and MomZ there talking to her and sending her across the Rainbow Bridge to meet all the all other Zsoldos Vizlsas:  Minnie, Kicsi, Rebel, Janci and Zsuzsa all supervised by Laszlo Zsoldos, Mom’s Dad who died in 1984.

I don’t think I know where and what “dead” is.  From my view, Tipsy left in Dad’s arms and we didn’t see her ever again. How could she just leave the house and never come back?  It’s a mystery to me.  Mom and I have talked about it a lot.  She wanted me know to know though Tipsy was gone, she still loved me very, very much. 

Tipsy was Mom’s special dog. Although she was only with the pack for four years (she came to Mom’s home a year before I did), she and Mom became one heart. 

Tipsy always knew when Mom wasn’t feeling well. Tipsy was Mom’s napping dog.  She loved sleeping in the sun on the floor, and on Mom’s bed.  There was nothing both of them loved more than to curl up around each other and sleep. 

One thing I remember about Tipsy is that sunlight loved Tipsy.  On fine days when the door was open, the sun seemed to slow its march across the sky so that Tipsy could revel in it either curled up in a tight ball, lazily lying on her side where she could keep an eye on Mom, greedily offering her entire tummy up to the sun’s warm splendor.  The sun, itself, dimmed briefly in mourning when Tipsy left us.

To be with Tipsy was to experience love and life at its fullest.  She never met a person she didn’t like.  Trips to the bark park found her ignoring other dogs (unlike yours truly), but going from bench to bench, jumping up next to strangers, laying her head on their shoulder while her eyes caressed the new person.  You could see her saying, “I’m Tipsy, and I’ll be your social director during my stay here.”

Tipsy shared her love freely with all.  She allowed others to see the world through her eyes; her world was simple – eat, love, eat, roll in the grass, roll in goose poop (always a rare treat), roo-roo-roo for dinner stinky treats, put her head on someone’s leg and moan with deep content.

For those of you who have been lucky enough to have been owned by one of us Vizslas know that there as many reasons to love us as there are pieces little red hair that we leave around.  Our little red hairs have a magnetic attraction for any textured surface.  Our hair is impervious to removal by vacuum cleaners, masking tapes, lint rollers, and dog hair sponges.  MWHAHAHA

Tiny, little barbed hairs all over – Mom and Dad and every Vizsla humans wear them with pride as a reminder of the love that a little red dog brings.  We  all miss you, Tipsy.

TOOOOO much going on....

I am ashamed of myself...really.  I'd like to say that I had writer's block, or that I was bored with blogging or even that I hurt my paw and couldn't type, but I'm a vizsla - we are truthful and earnest, but I am not well organized (you've seen that I'm easily distracted) and I'm just a little overwhelmed by everything that's gone on recently.  There was the Show and Go, The 5K, some emotional upheaval in the pack (I can't write about it now; I'm totally depressed and grieving about it) and now there's a beef and beer on Friday...busy, busy, busy.  It's all for a good cause, I LOVE my mom, but this is how I feel...

 I'm under here, really.






























See? 

    




What's that?  What's that?   The Great Pumpkin?

Mmmmm....Yogurt!  I guess I"m not too tired for that.






















But, as you can see, even for yogurt, I can't lift my head too far.  Phew!  Tired, worn out, exhausted.  Canines don't cry from exhaustion, so that's not happening, but I am looking forward to a nice long sleep this weekend.  Research shows that dogs sleep 80% of the day; maybe I'll sleep 81% of the day.  After all, there are still squirrels to eradicate....

Brisket

I know, I know.  I haven't been online and writing for TWO weeks.  There's SO MUCH to tell, but right now, I am completely riveted to something really important....

Mom and Dad made 45 pounds of brisket yesterday and today for Mom's last Fall fundraiser - the Beef and Beer.  It has been TWO DAYS of torture for Shadow and Me.  Really...the smell of braising the meat, the odor of slow roasting, waiting while they pulled it all apart and collected the juices, and then, they have the audacity to leave it in PLAIN SIGHT and SMELL.

Isn't there some kind of law against this?

I mean really, this is torture!

But...check me out here...

I snuck a piece anyway.

Like the invitation says...eat more beef.

Operation Save Hepsi's Garage Sale

I like garage sales.  I'll bet you like them to for the same reason...they're FULL of all kinds of new smells.  What?  You don't go there for the smells?  Hmmmm....humans are odd.  You like STUFF...and there's plenty of stuff here.  


****Before I go on, the garage sale, Part 2 is Saturday, October 15, from 8-? at Lynn's.  Check the website for address.  Last week was so successful that we needed to have a Part 2!****

I'm NOT, I repeat, NOT for sale.  I'm just posing as any good spokesdog should.

So, stuff and stuff and stuff...

Colin and his amazing Tie-Dye shirts.  Come and get one.  (No canine styles...yet.)


And no sale is complete without bling.  

And the Bling's creator - Debra (and ME.  No photo is complete without ME).

The bottom line?            $1850 !!!!  Holy Mackeral!

So the saying is true:  One man's junk is really Hepsi's treasure.

If I had any energy, I'd wonder if we'll do as well this weekend.  Why worry when you can sleep in the sunshine?

Happy Birthday....

..to ME!  Yesterday was my birthday!  (Actually, by the time I get this posted it will be way past my birthday, but Hey! I do a a problem with the whole time concept.)  So, I just had my birthday, and I had a really special and busy birthday!  First thing in the morning,while the grass was all dewy and cool, Mom and I went to an agility competition.  It was Day 2 of Lums Pond and it could only be better than Day 1.  I had fun, but I DID NOT LISTEN WELL to instructions on the course, so we had three NQ's (did not qualify).  Mom blamed herself (like all good handlers) and hoped to go better on Sunday.  (actually, she was so frustrated by our performance on Saturday that she thought about skipping Sunday altogether.  That's VERY UNLIKE HER...but truth to tell, she got overly tired and it wasn't fun competing later in the day.  I cold see she was hurting badly, and I think she paid more attention to her body's aches and ills than to me.  Consequently, I lived up to my Moussechief nickname).


I'm so glad Mom opted to go Sunday morning.  She told me all the way out to the pond that we were just going to concentrate on having fun and more fun...no matter what the course presented us with.  Just fun...And fun it was.  A fast course that showed off all the distance training we've been doing.  There was no way for mom to keep up me after the tunnel, but she hit all the verbal commands perfectly, and I listened perfectly.  Here's what it looked like:

Lauri and Gusto were at the end to say congratulations to us.  Lauri also let mom cry and cry cry and cry and cry.  This was her last competition with me as my handler.  She decided that no matter what the happened today, it would be the last until she's better.

Friends that hold you when you cry are The Best!

How did we do?  What was the result???? Check this out.

TaDa!  First Place and a Clean Run!  Mom couldn't be happier.  What a way to go out!

It was a Blue Ribbon Day for us both!

Steroid Bully (or I'm sorry Mom Z)

Mom is on a tear...really.  I don't want to get off on a rant and you know I don't bark trash about her, but she is Out of Control.  Since the only way to resolve the muscle weakness is to cut back on the steroids, that's what she's done.  You'd think that cutting back one little, bitty milligram wouldn't be a BIG DEAL, right?  What's the hassle with going from 10 mg/day to 9mg/day?   


It's the difference between being kind of normal and wanting to rip everyone's head off.
Kinda like when I'm roughing housing with Shadow.

Grrrrrr...I ain't playin' with you, Shadow.  I'm trying to rip your lips off.

Remember, steroids can cause mood swings (see previous post on the joys of steroids).  If you take a lot of steroids, you can turn into a BULLY.  And when you cut back, you can turn into a BULLY.  Throw in a full moon, and you'll have a howling good time  (sorry, that's a little dog/werewolf joke).


 Here's the problem; once you've taken steroids for a long time, your body gets habituated to them.  Your adrenal glands don't produce as much natural steroid while taking steroid pills, and your body gets used to this state of affairs.  Withdrawing from steroids slowly is a way to "trick" the adrenal glands into doing their job again.  The trick's really on the body: while waiting for the adrenal glands to wake up and go back to work, mom feels very bad...crummy, poorly, rotten, like she has the flu all the time... and that's just the physical part.


The emotional and mental part is harder.  She's prone to crying for no reason and seems to have very little control of her emotions.  She's also temperamental and is easily overwhelmed by the littlest thing.  I mean little...like picking up a pillow to make the bed this morning, hurt.  So she cried...not so much from pain, but from frustration and steroid withdrawal.  Her printer stopped working, so she yelled at it, uttered a few curse words (unfortunately not under her breath) and burst into tears.  


And worst of all, when her mom came in, (that's Mom Z), little mom went nuts...crying and babbling incoherently about "How overwhelming it all is".  There's too much to do...and not enough people to do it all.  The campaign is working flat out and still, it seems like it's not enough.  It's too hard and everyone just has to stop...how long will it all take?  And let's not even start on Workman's Comp.  


Boy, she said some harsh things and was aghast to hear those things come out of her mouth - she's usually optimistic and pretty cheerful, but poor Mom Z really took some abuse from her today.  Not all of it can be related to steroid withdrawal - there's a lot of stress in a campaign to raise funds, but it seems that the lack of that one little bitty mg does make a BIG difference.  It removes the ability to control your emotions and stop yourself from saying some very hurtful things.

I'd offer to share my bone with her, but in her current mood, I'm afraid she'd rip off my lips, and I need my lips.

I wouldn't be nearly as cute in this photo if I had no lips.

I think I'll just curl up in her pillows and wait for her to come and cuddle up with me.  Tomorrow will be better.  It certainly couldn't be worse.

Decisions, Decisions - Piriformis Syndrome

Nothing simple ever happens to Mom.  One side effect has lead to another.  It's called Piriformis Syndrome.  Yup, ANOTHER one of those mysterious conditions.  I love Wikipedia for a quick understanding of this..."Piriformis syndrome is a neuromuscular disorder that occurs when the sciatic nerve is compressed or otherwise irritated by the piriformis muscle causing pain, tingling and numbness in the buttocks and along the path of the sciatic nerve descending down the lower thigh and into the leg."

Basically, it's a pain in the ass (oops...butt).  And leg, and hamstring, and calf, and foot.  It's excruciatingly painful and has really made Mom cry.  She hates crying about pain, but this seems to be different.  This morning, she was making coffee and while the water was boiling, she had to go lie down and stretch the leg THREE TIMES.  She wouldn't even laugh when I stood by her and wagged my tail and acted concerned.  (It wasn't an act...I was concerned.)

Where did it come from?  GUESS!!  Go ahead....GUESS!!

Yup...it came from the Proximal Muscle Weakness caused by the prednisone!!

I don't get it.  How can this happen?  What does it mean for me Mom?

Here's the theory. This proximal muscle weakness (PMW) started sometime in the early summer and crept up all unknowingly.  In the meantime, because Mom is stubborn and loves to walk us, she kept to her routine as much as possible not knowing that she was changing her gait to compensate for the muscle weakness.  Her left foot starting pronating, causing muscle strain, and by the time September rolled around, what she and her doctor thought was just lower back pain turned into a very bad case of Butt Pain (and hamstring and leg, etc...)
Let's fix it!       Turns out it's not so easy to fix because a very difficult choice has to be made.  I can explain it like this:

Squirrel to the left; squirrel to the right.  Which one to go after?  I hope the outcome is the same (eradicating our birdfeeders of these pesky little gray things), but which WAY is better? 

Choice 1:  Mom has to lower the dose of steroids to help resolve the muscle weakness.  (Remember steroids help control inflammation, so she's courting a flare). But, it's possible that the steroids are helping keep the piriformis muscle swelling down a little.

Choice 2:  See a specialist and get an injection into the bursa of the muscle.  What's IN the injection.  Ohhhhhh....just liquid steroids.   

RATS, doesn't that negate the whole "lower the reduce the steroids - to get rid of the muscle weakness -  that led to the change in gait and -  to the strain of the piriformis?" thing? 

What a conundrum.  Let's just sleep on it for awhile.