Pamela Harris

Uncertainty September 3, 2013

I'm writing this post and I don't know how it will end.

Four months ago we noticed a bump on our puppie's jaw. It was hard, like bone so we took her to our vet. She hesitantly said it could be CMO - craniomandibular osteopathy - and she sent us to an emergency dog hospital to rule out cancer. CMO is a juvenile bone disease that almost exclusively effects West Highland Terriers and sometimes other small terriers. It's a show dog disease, not something that a pitbull ever gets and no matter who gets it it's very rare.

CMO effects the jaw and head of the dog by laying down new bone on top of existing bone. It's often called Lion's Jaw, since the lower jaw can get very big. It can be fatal and almost always is when it gets into the base of the skull. Excess bone there slowly locks the dog's jaw closed and they starve to death. There's no cure for CMO, though the bones stop growing when the dog hits maturity and sometimes the excess even gets reabsorbed.

When the specialists took x-rays, it confirmed that she had CMO, and once I got through the panic and terror I began researching it. All I could find were cases where euthanasia was the end result, and then I found one paper that was more optimistic. I reached out to the author, Carole Owen, who assured me that CMO is something a dog can live through, and I also exchanged emails with a human geneticist, Pat Venta, who is involved in a CMO research project. There isn't much clinical documentation on CMO outside of a few vet school papers, both because of its rarity and because breeders of high end show dogs didn't want to let it be known if their dogs had CMO, given the financial consequences. This seemed to change in the '80's to a more 'let's see what we can discover to eradicate this disease' and a little more literature became available.

Our vet had never seen a case and researched it and reached out to other vets and mostly found what I did. She understood the tech end of things and came up with a med plan for treating it. CMO is very painful when it's active, usually during a growth spurt, and the meds minimized the pain. We started to watch for signs and could usually tell when it was up, and our dog began getting through the spurts as best as possible.

The CMO wasn't migrating to the back of her head and she was doing great. Then over the last six weeks we noticed that her jaw was getting really big, and the top of her head was starting to bulge. We knew it was on the top of her from initial diagnostic x-rays, and though we were dismayed we weren't surprised. We had put her on a more powerful med and all was still okay, though she'd have occasional bouts where we'd have to up her pain meds.

A week ago Friday we took her to the vet hoping to change her meds (to get her off a steroid she was on) and when we started the new med plan she got listless. Her eye got infected and we treated it. Her ear got infected and we treated that. We saw blood on the carpet on Wednesday and ran a urine sample to the vet and discovered she had a UTI. That night she perked up, but Thursday morning she barely ate so we scrambled some eggs and hand fed her. That evening she wouldn't eat and the vet suggested taking her off all her meds to see exactly what we were dealing with. By Saturday we were back in the vets office pumping her with fluids and antibiotics. The plan was to see how she did and if she didn't improve we'd take her to the emergency dog hospital Sunday. All week she'd be listless, her eyes almost rolling around in her head, then she'd revive and suddenly want to walk. Sunday morning we tried to feed her and her head started shaking, like she had Parkinson's and that was it. We got her in the car and took her to the emergency dog hospital.

She's been in the ICU since then. She was zonked on painkillers Sunday when we went to visit her, but yesterday she fought through the daze when she heard our voices. Joe knelt next to her kennel and she immediately lifted her head. He cracked a jar of peanut butter and her nose started, then she laid back down. She moaned when I patted her head, which felt like hello, though her eyes barely opened since she has no strength. She still hasn't eaten (they give her electrolytes, etc.), she's hooked up to monitors and IV's and is undergoing all kinds of tests. Sunday the doctor worried that the CMO had effected her brain and told us to prepare for a hard decision, i.e. putting her down. Monday a whole new host of issues began and she started to jaundice, but the attending doc didn't think it's related to her disease. They can't find the source of what's going on, yesterday they did more tests and an ultrasound, and early today they'll do a liver biopsy. Our vet and the attending are leaning toward cancer.

When I started the freelance gig Joe would often meet me at the subway after work with the dog and we'd walk home together, then later we'd go out at night and do a long family walk. Our mornings were mostly spent at dog runs and we'd spend a good part of the rest of the day coaxing her down the stairs to get out then coaxing her back in and up since she never wanted to be in. We'd run to the butcher to get her marrow bones, we'd go online to buy her beds and order her food, and roaming the city we'd find great toys and treats to train her with. We'd meet our neighbors with her favorite dog on the stairs or out in front of the building and we'd kibbutz while the dogs wrestled and finally konked out together. We'd walk her down the street and people neither of knew would yell her name. A doorman around the corner fell in love with her and always had us in for treats. With both of us working from home our dog made us much more social than we'd normally be during the day and at times it felt very 19th century as we made our way through our 'visits.'

Neither one of has had a dog in over twenty years and having this dog, our dog, a living, breathing animal with a strong personality, has changed every inch of our lives. Even work - the dog lays on her bed in the kitchen and watches Joe work, then when she gets bored she plods into the living room and lays under my chair. When we open the fridge she pushes her nose in to sniff out watermelon or chicken or steal a lick off a yogurt container. At the dog run she runs amok, then will suddenly run through our legs because she can. That's the other thing to having a dog -- watching trust start to build. I remember the first time she looked up at me while I walked her - I mean really looked at me, like we're doing this together and I hope I'm doing it right. Soon after she started putting a paw on our foot when we stopped. If we stopped longer to chat she'd sit on our feet, even at fifty pounds. We became her pack and she became our family. Though I knew I'd get attached to this dog when we got her, the depth of the attachment is profound.

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Reality Bits September 2, 2013

A very good friend, Mike Indursky, can be seen on 'The Pitch' on AMC this season (Season 2). He's the president of Bliss and is in Episode 2, 'Bliss.' You can watch it on demand. Click here for more info.

Another good friend's sister, Joanne Distefano (who's great) is in 'The Great Food Truck Race' on the Food Network. She had a restaurant on the Jersey shore and lost it in Hurricane Sandy. She's competing on the 'Boardwalk Breakfast Empire' truck. Was competing; her truck was eliminated in Episode 2, but you can read their exit interview and see stills here.


Tug August 26, 2013

It's so nice to be home this morning. So nice.

The other spotted dog has German Short Hair in him too. It must be a strong characteristic, that coat.



Stay in Your Lane August 25, 2013

I just finished this freelance gig and am bone tired. I used to crew on low budget features which meant 5 a.m. call times and 6 day work weeks and I loved it, working without a break for months if necessary. This job had a mind numbing quality, a repetitive sameness with no end in sight where you come in every day and do the same thing with little variation. When I couldn't sit there for another second I'd do book runs , but I'd also cruise around and take the temperature of the place. I was working for a large white collar corporation and it takes a ton of cogs to keep it moving. In this environment the jobs are very defined if your not the bosses bosses boss and the 'stay in your lane' mentality as a friend perfectly put it is paramount to thriving here.

What I liked about the job is it got me out of my life for just long enough to see what I'm doing with fresh objectivity. I also got to learn new business practices and apply them to what I do. Stepping away from my routine lets me see and burn out any dead wood I might be sitting on. Plus, given it was a publishing house, I got to rebuild part of my library and meet interesting people. This job made me very grateful for what I do and I can't wait to dive back into my routine tomorrow with Joe, with the dog and with my work.


Heart Heart August 12, 2013

This freelance gig is at the same publishing house as last year's gig, but the project I'm on is very different. I'm looking at ebook versions of the publishers backlist, i.e. books that have already been on sale in print. There isn't time to read each book so I look for anomalies in patterns, i.e. font changes, style changes, punctuation and spelling errors, credit or title errors, etc.

Skimming books versus reading them means that by the end of day I have all kinds of bits and willies stuttering through my brain. I did a book on Einstein and didn't realize what a pacifist he was; did a book on the Partisans of Vilna, which was where my stepfather was from before he went into the camps. I did a book on chastity and why girls should save it for Jesus until marriage and followed it with a romance novel where basically everyone was giving it up to anyone named Cade or Buck or Chastity or Freelance.

I'm getting a wide view of the bread and butter of publishing, or what makes the presses turn (or used to). Death shows up repeatedly, mostly in how to avoid it, and every few books I do seem to have the word 'Heart' in the title. Though so far there's no 'I Heart Death,' so I'm planting that in my file to use it on a future project. I Heart that title.

I still need my book runs to clear my head when I've been staring too long at the screen and this go around I'm finding hard copies of a lot of the cookbooks I did last time. It means I'm building a kick-ass cookbook collection, which I mindlessly flip through when I miss the dog.

Speaking of the dog, a new run opened and we took her there this weekend. Joe's taken her there during the week, but it was nice to walk the piers and then walk along the water.


Sisters August 5, 2013

We keep in touch with our dog's foster mom. She kept our dog's sister and we occasionally swap pictures. The top pic is our two dogs and their brother when she took care of them all. The bottom is her dog now. It's uncanny how much our dogs look alike.

I love writing about the dog, but I'm eager to write a longer post. This whole working full time out of the house is discombobulating.


Three-Quarter Birthday July 29, 2013

Nine months today.


Fruit Bat July 22, 2013

Canteloupe? Cantaloupe? As God is my witness I will trample a chihuahua for cantaloupe !

I started a freelance gig two weeks ago and am just catching my breath. It's short term, but full time. I write early mornings or late afternoons, so my morning routine with the dog is now an evening routine. Yesterday we did our usual out early dog run and were both the better for it.

Thursday morning she came into the bedroom as I was getting dressed and put her paw on my foot and rested her head on my knee with big sad eyes. I can't even look at her when I leave.


Pool Balls July 14, 2013

Hot weekend. Lots of swimming.

She likes to enter a bench from behind. She's a dog, so I don't ask.

Balls in the pool. It's how we get her in.

The last photo is chasing dragonflies.




Bad Dog July 7, 2013

It's hot. We take her to the dog run early, before the sun gets too high so we can get her home by 9:30 a.m. Other dog owners think the same thing so it was crowded this morning. Twenty dogs running from one end to the other, stopping only for a run through a fountain. Mine chases or gets chased for an hour and a half, then we walk home. She'll chew a toy and sleep for a few hours, and the rest of the day she's mellow from her morning romp. Except for this morning. She came home and slept like a cute little bunny, then woke up, stretched, and from nowhere she grabs my camisole off a chair and rrrrrip - she splits it down the middle.

I'm out of my chair as she grabs the socks out of my sneakers and then she does a drive by where she grazes my knee and waves the sock as she runs across the room. I get the sock from her and she runs down the hall and half leaps onto the bed to grab something off there. I manage to block her and bam! She's back down the hall and swipes a Netflix envelope off the table. It's shredded in four seconds and as I wrestle it away she's back in the kitchen grabbing a sock. Shirt, sock, pants, sock, shirt - we both got a workout. I finally took her outside for a walk around the block and that seemed to do it.