Ack.

Do you ever have gas so bad you start to worry a little bit about what might be getting eaten away by MRSA inside your person?

Just wondering. . .

A sneaky suprise Christmas gift

I just had to hack into my wife's account to post this little stocking stuffer for the family.

- Love, the muffin baking heathen.

Staring down the beast

Perhaps "beast" isn't the most appropriate word for Christmas, and it really does make it sound as if I'm not looking forward to it, which is completely untrue--it is my FAVORITE holiday--but I worry about the girl, who it seems is narrowly avoiding an aneurysm each day when she figures out how many more days it is until THE BIG DAY. Tell me, is it possible to teach a 5-year-old about how good it feels to GIVE?

Our big plan for Christmas day (and these plans were made with the girl's consent and even enthusiasm) are to get up around 6 a.m., drive down to the staging area for Mobile Loaves and Fishes, and go with one of the trucks to feed breakfast to the homeless downtown BEFORE opening gifts. I am hoping to convince Zach to bake muffins while we're gone. Being a godless heathen, he's staying home.

I've told a few people that a week or so ago, the sheer number of gifts for the girl under the tree actually embarassed me. The only saving grace is that they're not all from me, and the things that ARE from me are fairly educational. (Well, for the most part.) No Barbies, no My Little Ponies, no princesses. There are at least 4 different science kits, tons of books, lots of clothes and at least 3 music CDs. On the other hand, I also gave her a kit with hair products and another with lip gloss and glitter. With any luck, we'll end up with an astrophysicist who knows how to look good. I'm beginning to think that next year, we will all have to limit the number of gifts she is able to receive for the holidays, although buying them is one of the highlights of my year. Maybe I'll set up a system whereby really worthy good deeds done throughout the year earn her extra gifts on a base amount. I don't know. It just seems excessive. I don't want her growing up thinking she can have anything and everything she wants just because. Along those lines, we've given her her first chore to be done on a regular basis that doesn't bring with it a reward like an allowance--it is simply something that needs to be done, and she's the one to do it. She is now in charge of emptying the silverware rack from the dishwasher. Thus far, she's quite good at it. When she gets used to having a regular chore, we'll add another. I'm thinking pressure-washing the house.

I really surprised her this morning, I think. She was wailing and crying because she had to help me clean the house, and she says, "I HATE cleaning!" My response? "Me, too! I hate, hate, HATE cleaning! It's HORRIBLE!" That brought her up for a moment, and she asked me how I did it without yelling and crying. I had to tell her that I honestly didn't know, but that it was probably ONLY that I'm an adult and have a bit more control over myself. I think it was good for her to hear that there are things I loathe, too, but then see me do them anyway.

Have I mentioned that being a mom is so much easier when you're on the correct drug dosages?

I'm gonna go see if I can figure out how to post a video on here.

Only the greatest dog name EVER

Schweed Mermelstein. I picture the perpetually-stoned surfer-dude son of a Jewish jewelry store accountant. . . in reality, a dog.

A long-haired daschund puppy named Einstein was euthanized today because his owner's well-meaning but ill-advised attempt to coax some semblance of a normal life out of him with MEDICATION for hydrocephalus was failing. Because he had a CT scan some time ago, his owner knew that he basically had enough ganglia in his head to remain alive, but really nothing to speak of, brain-wise. Yes, that's something I would seek to cure with medication . . . if I was retarded. Poor little guy. One of my coworkers teased me for scritching on a dead dog--another said the dog could feel it in Heaven.

Watched the amputation of the left forelimb of a dog with osteosarcoma in the joint analagous to our wrists, and discovered that a dog's front legs are connected to the scapulae, but the scapulae are connected to no bone at all, only muscle and tendon. So taking off a foreleg is really quite simple, once you figure out how to cauterize all the squirting vessels you come across while hacking away. Dr. Caplan did it in 1 hour, start to finish, while I gawked like a tourist. And, luridly, the amputated limb sat on a table in front of me for quite awile, continuing to twitch in spots.

While I was watching the surgery today, I kept thinking about the differences between being the veterinarian and being the tech, and even though people ask me if I plan to be a veterinarian, and seem to think it is somehow better than being a tech, I find the tech job more satisfying in a few ways. One, I don't have the ultimate responsibility--I don't make the treatment choices that could be wrong, and I'll never misdiagnose a patient. And two, the doctors really don't get much time with the animals, but as a tech, today I crawled into a cage with a black lab named Lily to hold an ice pack to the fresh scar on her knee for 15 minutes. In those 15 minutes, she relaxed visibly from her upright position until she was laying in her cage with her head resting on my leg, sighing. I get to talk to them, feed and clean them, basically nuture them, and that's what I want to do, not poke and prod them, pronounce a diagnosis, and go on to the next one.

Someday, I'll be getting paid to do this, and I'm having difficulty wrapping my brain around the concept. Part of me is pissed that I didn't discover how much I love doing this until now, and the other part is pretty certain I couldn't have handled it earlier.

But really, any time a job allows you to meet a Schweed Marmelstein, it's gotta be good!

I'm probably blowing confidentiality all to hell, but this Rottweiler is a reasonable facsimile of Rok, a Rottweiler I sat with this morning as he died. Diagnosed with lymphoma just last week, he was lying in one of our big runs this morning when I got to the hospital. The door of his run was open, and he was urinating on himself, and breathing with effort.

While I was trying to find out if he was an oncology or ortho patient so that I could ask permission to change out his pee-pee pad, I found that he was slated for euthanasia later. As I changed the pad, I gave him a good scritching.

But before he was euthanized, the oncology techs put him on oxygen, and we found out that they were trying to keep him alive long enough for the son of the family to get to the hospital. Slowly, we began to get physically closer to him. It was weird--it was like we were drawn to him, and we all did whatever work needed to be done a little more closely to him.

Rok had plans of his own, though. I had heard of but never seen agonal breathing. Suddenly we were all there, and Dr. H was on the phone to the owners telling them that he didn't think the dog would make it, and that he thought the best course of action was to go ahead and euthanize right then. Even as he hung up the phone, the syringe was waiting to go, and Rok was sent on his way.

I saw a new side to some techs who I had thought of as aloof and standoffish, and actually felt pretty honored to be there at his side as he went. We made ourselves feel better by saying that at least he went with five ladies around him, he wasn't alone.

Later, as I stood in a very chill wind waiting for a cocker spaniel with a perianal cancer to poop, I didn't care that I was freezing, and I didn't care that I wasn't at home, and I didn't care that I wasn't making any money.

I think finally, FINALLY, I have found where I'm supposed to be. And that's a cool feeling.