The Birthday, The Bald Dog, and the Billy Goat - Conclusion

By now you have to be wondering about the goat. I almost feel like it didn't really happen, like maybe it was one of my crazy narcolepsy-induced nightmares. But, yes, there really was a billy goat. It all started when I let my two Siberian huskies out for their morning "constitutional," as I like to call it. When I opened the front door to let them out, I figured by the way they shot out that door that there was a squirrel, a rabbit, or maybe some geese or an egret in the front yard. Because their invisible fence only goes so far, giving any kind of animal they might chase a chance to run to safety, I didn't think much of it at first. But a moment later I heard something that reminded me of a viscious wild animal attack from the Discovery Channel, and I saw a flash of black fur at the back window. A feeling of dread went through me like a cold chill, and I knew the dogs had gotten into it with some kind of animal...a racoon maybe. Still in my pajamas and bare feet, I ran out the back door.

Much to my surprise, the dogs had cornered a billy goat of all things, and he was behind the grill making the strangest noise, eyes bugging out with fear. I yelled to the dogs to get into the house, but instead they both lunged for the goat, who made it several feet into the landscape bed before one dog grabbed it by the neck and the other by the throat. My dogs were going to kill this poor animal right in front of me! I began yelling as loudly as I could and banging on the patio furniture, but I may as well have been whispering. My dogs were completely focused on one thing only: this strange animal that dared enter their territory must be destroyed. Then I remembered reading once that if your dog ever gets into a fight with another dog, the only way to safely intervene is to pull your dog by the back legs. So I grabbed one of my dogs and pulled as hard as I could, landing on my rear end but succeeding in getting her away from the goat. She lunged for the goat as I reached for her collar and fought her all the way into the house and into her crate.

I could feel my legs turning into jell-o as I stumbled back outside to get the other dog. Narcolepsy attacks are often caused or worsened by strong emotions and/or exercise, both of which I was experiencing at that time. I knew that any moment my legs and probably my other muscles were going to completely give out; I was just praying it didn't happen until both dogs were safely inside and away from this stupid goat. It was much easier for me to extricate my male dog from the goat as he is much more mild-mannered, especially when his sister is not around to rile him up. Just as I got in the door with my other dog, I collapsed on the livingroom floor. I was worried the goat was hurt, but there was nothing more I could do as my legs were completely out of commission. I reached for the phone and dialed Animal Control (thanks to our puppy's father, I had the number stored in the phone). As the hopeless Animal Control officers made their way to my house to get the goat, I had to just lie on the floor listening to all 3 of my dogs howling and trying to break out of their crates. Of course, the officers never found the goat, although they thought the giant pile of hair in the yard that came from my dog was from the goat fight, and that gave me a good laugh.

A friend of mine who has a pet goat reassured me that goats are tough, resilient animals, so I finally stopped worrying that it had a broken windpipe and was off somewhere dying. And even though the excitement of the incident caused prolonged cataplexy that put me in the wheelchair the rest of the day, the dogs finally calmed down and quit trying to find the goat in the yard. Goats are apparently very stupid, however, because the next afternoon when I let my male husky outside to do his business, I heard a loud thud against the front door and thought "here we go again." When I opened the front door I saw that the goat, much braver when faced with only one of my dogs, was back and charging my dog with his horns. I called for the dog to run inside, but instead the goat ran inside my house! Not knowing what else to do, I just slammed the door behind him so that my dog was still outside. So now there's this angry goat in my house, and both big dogs are going crazy. But then my Watch Kitty comes running right up to the goat, fur all puffed out, hissing and growling, and the goat lowers its head, stomps its feet, and starts snorting. I'm thinking, "Great. My cat will be gored by a goat and the whole house is gonna be torn apart."

So I grab the phone and start calling people. First call to Animal Control: "INSIDE your house? How did it get in? Why did you let it in?" Then my friend who has a goat: phone number unlisted. Then the vet: INSIDE your house? How did it get in? Why did you let it in?" Then my friend in Pennsylvania whose huband grew up on a farm: "INSIDE your house? How did it get in? Why did you let it in? It's gonna tear up your house!" Then to my husband: "What do you mean INSIDE the house? Why did you let it in?" Click. People, your comments are not helping. Then my friend calls back after speaking to her husband. She tells me to get a water bottle and squirt it if it tries to charge. She says I can possibly calm it and distract it with some food. I try to give it lettuce and carrots, but it just gets angrier because I'm getting too close. So it just stands there in the corner of the room, stomping, eyes bugging out. And I'm waiting for the dogs to break out of their crates and my cat to attack any second. We stare at each other for what seems like an eternity until finally the animal control officer shows up at the door with one of those poles with a "noose" on the end that you see on Animal Cops: Detroit. I just pointed to the goat. He hooks it around the neck and starts pulling as the feisty little guy, who's actually pretty cute, is pulling back the other way. The officer can't believe I have a goat INSIDE the house. Can't believe I opened the door and he just ran in. Yeah. But that's what happened. I'm laughing now, but it was actually kind of traumatic at the time. It took my dogs like 2 hours after the goat was gone to stop running through the house sniffing and looking out the windows.

But I know better than to ask the question: "What ELSE could possibly go wrong?" Because I know the answer. During this "series of unfortunate events," I had been reading a Christian novel where the main characters were going through a lot of bad circumstances in their lives and were struggling, as I often do, with that same question, wondering "what else?" But then they remembered John 16:33, "In the world you will have trouble. But be of good cheer! I have overcome the world." It's pretty much guaranteed we will have trouble in this life. But we can encourage ourselves with this fact: Jesus has overcome the world. There's nothing that can happen that is more powerful than that - not a bad birthday, a bald dog, or a billy goat. Nothing. So cheer up! :o)

The Birthday, The Bald Dog, and the Billy Goat - Part II

A little over 6 weeks ago our purebred Siberian husky gave birth to 3 husky/rottweiler puppies. Obviously this was not planned; it was a result of having a neighbor down the street who refuses, despite repeated calls to Animal Control, to keep his unneutered dog in his own yard. The whole process of the birth and the next couple of weeks was a nightmare that included two of the pups dying, several emergency trips to the vet, and a LOT of lost sleep. Just as we started to actually enjoy having a puppy around, I began to notice the mother was losing a lot of hair. I would vacuum, and then a few minutes later I would notice clumps of hair blowing across the floor like tumbleweeds. At first I figured it was hormomal hair loss from the pregnancy and nursing. But when I asked my husband to take her outside to brush out the loose hair so I wouldn't see it all over the house, I realized it was much worse. I came outside after a few minutes and saw this absolutely HUGE pile of hair in the front yard. I was shocked. And when I saw that my beautiful Siberian husky had lost about 85% of her hair, I began to cry. My husband said that the hair was just coming off in sheets, like he was peeling off velcro.

After more research, I discovered the cause: we had been told by the vet to shave her belly so that the pups could find her nipples to nurse. She had already lost a lot of hair on her belly in the days before she gave birth, but if you're familiar with huskies you know that they have a thick undercoat of fur that made it very difficult for a blind puppy to locate the source of the milk they desperately needed in the hours following their birth. So we got an electric razor and shaved around the nipples. BIG, BIG mistake. Apparently huskies, as well as a few other "cold weather" breeds should never be shaved. It causes the hair follicles to die all over the coat, which causes the hair to fall out. Apparently the vet didn't know this, probably having never come across it in Florida where huskies are rarely seen. So now we have a bald dog. I feel like crying every time I look at her. And now she's losing hair on her head, neck, and tail...I'd been holding out hope that this wouldn't happen.

I had a friend go to the health food store for me (since cataplexy keeps me from being able to drive) to get cod liver oil, as the Omega 3's should help her get her coat back, a process I'm told usually takes 6-12 months. And I also ordered some multi-vitamins to supplement her nutrition even though we have the dogs on a very high-quality food. You should have seen me trying to give her the fish oil with a medicine dropper. I felt like I was wrestling an alligator or something. It finally took both me and my husband holding her down/sitting on her to get it down...or at least most of it. Then I realized I could just pour it on her food. Duh! So much easier.

I just ran the vacuum cleaner last night, and as I look at the living room carpet I can see about 5 or 6 clumps of hair blowing across the room. The dog just walked by looking more bald than yesterday, with clumps of hair hanging off her body, ready to fall off all over the house. But I won't ask - I dare not ask the question: what else could possibly go wrong?

To be continued...

The Birthday, The Bald Dog, and the Billy Goat - Part I

I'm sure there's been a time in your life when you thought, "What else could possibly go wrong?". I quit asking myself that question a long time ago because there always is something else. It seems like the month of May has ushered in a whole series of "something else" for us. First, I took my husband out of town for a little birthday weekend, a much-needed time of rest and perspective for him during the busiest, most stressful time of year for our business. While we were gone, our most experienced employee decided he didn't want to work for us anymore. We had already paid to stay in our hotel Sunday night and planned to check out in the morning, have a nice breakfast, and start a leisurely drive home. After this bombshell hit on Sunday evening, we had to rush home to make sure we had a supervisor to take over that crew, especially since another of our key employees was to be on vacation that whole next week. So we got home at 3am Monday, feeling stressed, emotionally spent, and angry that our special time together had ended so badly and abruptly.

During the next few days, we were also hit with a family-related situation that added another level of anxiety. It was one of those situations where people feel caught in the middle of a drama that was caused by someone making an ill-timed, poorly-planned decision that had devestating effects on several family members. I was particularly hurt by the way things happened and went through a whole range of emotions. Because stress, lack of restful sleep, and strong emotions can cause cataplexy (an aspect of the sleep disorder narcolepsy, which causes loss of muscle tone, often leaving one temporarily unable to use some or all of the body's muscles), I have spent the past 9 days at least partly incapacitated and had a few prolonged attacks of cataplexy that lasted hours.

I don't know if the animals have been responding to the stress, but it seems they have all begun acting out in ways they haven't since they were babies. One of the cats has begun urinating in one corner of the dining room every morning, which is a lovely thing to wake up to and step in while still in a morning stupor. And then I discovered that one of the dogs had been going "potty" on the guest room carpet for a couple days, which we didn't notice until I was in there putting guest towels away. We also have a six-week-old puppy that is kept in an area where there is only tile floor, but that area requires clean-up every day to refresh the bedding and the newspaper where he "goes" until we can begin potty training. And of course he needs a lot of attention and care throughout the day. So in the midst of everything, I feel that the house is in a constant state of chaos, which of course leads to more stress, which leads to more cataplexy.

To be continued...

Waiting

John Waller - While I'm Waiting (Official Music Video) from Provident Label Group on Vimeo.

Waiting is never easy. I remember how difficult it was to wait when my husband and I were dating. For 18 months of our four-year courtship we lived apart and had to rely on telephone calls and letters, not emails, to communicate with each other. We literally wrote letters almost every single day and spoke on the phone a few times every week. In the days before cell phones and unlimited long distance plans, it got very expensive to have lengthy phone coversations, and my husband would easily pay $200-$300 each month in phone bills. Waiting for the mail to come or for the day of our next scheduled phone call to finally arrive would seem excrutiating.

We didn't see each other very often during those 18 months, so a face-to-face meeting was a very precious experience to us. My husband had a client that worked for an airline, and that client would sell him "buddy passes" which allowed airline employees and their friends and family to fly stand-by on flights for a small fraction of the cost of an airline ticket. When he told me that he had gotten a pass, we would count down the days, hours, and minutes until the day came when we could be together. That time of waiting would seem to drag on forever, but we waited with eager anticipation for the moment we would be reunited.

Although the wait was difficult, our love and faith in each other kept us going during those long days apart. People would often make remarks to us about how long-distance relationships rarely work out, how couples drift apart when they don't spend time together regularly, and how our hearts would stray as we met other attractive people who could be more present in our lives. But what these naysayers didn't realize was that our relationship had already been tested in ways many people don't experience even after years of marriage. We had faith in the love, loyalty, and commitment that had been forged through life's difficult challenges, and we knew that in the end, the wait would be worth it.

I've been on a quest for over 16 years to discover the cause of numerous health issues that have grown exponentially in both severity and frequency. I have been to more doctors and hospitals, had more tests, procedures, and surgeries, and done more research on medical issues than I could ever count. Since the fall of 2007, my search became much more intense and desperate as my health condition swiftly declined, and I began to pray for God's wisdom and for Him to show me "great and mighty things that [I] do not know (Jeremiah 33.3)." And I believe that my prayers have been rewarded with God's leading toward a completely different philosophy in treatment and diagnosis as it relates to my Hashimoto's thyroid disease. I was even able to find a doctor in my area who specializes in this treatment and is a provider in my health insurance network. However, the first available appointment is not until June 10th. When you've been ill for so long and you feel you're on the cusp of a major breakthrough, a month is a LONG time to wait! And I first became really irritated that I came this far and was now forced to wait some more. Then God spoke to me in my heart and said, "I've been with you and have brought you this far; can you not trust my timing? I know how long the wait has been because I've waited with you. Just wait on Me, and continue to worship Me while you wait.

"I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning." -Psalm 130:5,6