Slightly Off the Mark

Note: This was written before our dog Beowulf passed away last July.

Most people over the age of fifty can testify that growing old sucks. I mean, older. Growing older sucks.

One of the things that sucks is medication. Now, a person can avoid going on a lot of medicine by staying fit, eating right, exercising, meditation, yoga ... you know, all that stuff you didn't want to do, even before you could predict the weather with your knees.

Of all those things, the only one I came close to doing regularly was exercise, if by exercise you mean walking. I always loved to take hikes, and walks, the main difference being how far from civilization you are. I was going to say you could define hiking as walking on very uneven ground, but I've been on some sidewalks that made me think I was returning the One True Ring to Mount Doom.

(Why would someone name a mountain Doom, anyway? Is that where they met their future ex?)

You can see some neat things on hikes, though.

The walking by itself wasn't very helpful. First I had to take medicine for my cholesterol, which is a reaction to the human desire to intake things that are bad for you. Apparently there's a thin line between cream-filled donuts and ingesting high-test gasoline. My drug of choice is chocolate, which is the cocaine of foods. I never tried sniffing it through a straw, though.

Maybe next vacation.

Then they put me on a stress pill because of my job, which I couldn't quit because I had to pay for the stress pill.

Then, I discovered I had high blood pressure--while waiting to have a colonoscopy.

Well, duh. Of course I did--a whole room full of people were about to send a sewer router into a place where stuff's only suppose to come out. Just the same, I ended up on a pill to keep my blood pressure numbers below the height of the Empire State building. (In meters. Look it up, I'm not your accountant.)

Then my prostate blew up like a Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.

Eventually an entire shelf in the medicine cabinet was filled with drugs, and not one of them a fun drug. This doesn't include pain relievers ... we have another shelf for them. It seemed a good time for some kind of organization. Luckily, like many men who own homes, I had several stacks of empty cardboard boxes laying around.

No, I don't know why, but apparently it's a thing.

So I liberated a small cardboard box and put it on my desk, where I could spend half an hour every morning taking my meds without disturbing my wife. Well, she's disturbed by all the empty boxes, but never mind.

At about the same time, our dog fell over. Then he continued to fall over. He had developed a nerve related condition called ... well, I can't pronounce it, but we had to rush him to the doggie hospital. He got better, or possibly I got lopsided and he only looked straight. The vet also prescribed Beowulf medication for joint pain because--well, we grew old together, and it was his time. Emily left his bottle of meds where she could easily find it.

On my desk.

"Since you started feeding me those strange hot dogs I've been seeing ... strange things."

When I get home from work I race around in a half-unconscious state, trying to get all my 6 a.m. stuff done so I can go to bed and pretend it's night. (See above about stressful jobs.) The meds are an important thing, of course, although unlike Beowulf I don't get mine inside a hot dog. Lucky dog. I mean the dog, not the dog. The meat one. The other meat one. Never mind.

Trying to do three or four things at once, I got one of his pills, filled a cup with water for my pills, walked into the kitchen for a hot dog, then back to the desk where I discovered, of course, that I had swallowed the dog's pill.

The dog's pill is a narcotic.

Now, I should have done what Emily later said I should have done: Called the vet. "Hi, I took our dog's medication ... well, yes, I am a dumbass, but that's not why I called."

But I didn't want a bunch of people laughing at my dumbassery. At least, not until I could get a blog out of it.

Instead, I stayed up to gauge what kind of reaction it had on me. Let me assure you--it did have a reaction. It was, in fact, the same reaction I used to have to drinking alcohol, and illustrates the reason why I don't bother with illegal drugs.

I felt weird. I got drowsy. Then I fell asleep. Then I slept for a long, long time.

"So, listen ... since you got to try mine, do I get to try yours?"

It's the same thing that happens when I take melatonin, and that's perfectly legal. It just happened faster, and I didn't have the nightmares. I get half my best stories from nightmares.

So, now I can say I know how the dog feels, except that I can't lick my private parts--and my back is too stiff for that, anyway. Maybe, someday, some doctor will put me on a pill like that for some age-related discomfort I haven't even though of yet. If that happens, hey--the side effects from the other pills will no longer bother me.

I'll sleep through them.

Another note: Ironically, my doctor did, indeed, respond to my increasing chronic pain by putting me on the exact same med Beowulf was on.

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I'd planned reruns and pre-written blogs until the Haunted History project was finished, but I popped in to tell everyone the source of my constant head pain and sinus infections has finally been isolated.

It was in my sinuses.

Maybe I should be more specific. Various allergy/sinus/head doctors have poked and prodded me for years. A sleep study revealed I do, in fact, sleep. My allergy tests showed I was, indeed, allergic. To everything. I even had surgery to unclog a lower part of my sinuses that seemed to be causing the trouble. Still, in recent months the pain became sometimes debilitating, although I think I did a pretty good job of hiding it. Witnesses may disagree.

While typing this I realized I should have taken a medical leave from the fire department, for all the good I've done the last couple of years. What a headache.

"You expect me to sleep with this thing on?"

I found out after we got Beowulf that I was allergic to dogs, but refused to give him up. Now that he's passed you'd think maybe it would get a little better, but instead my sinus infections kept on coming and the headaches got worse and worse. The truth is, many days in recent months the headaches were so bad I was incapable of doing much of anything ... but I could still write, so I told myself it was all good.

It wasn't.

So the allergy doctor suggested a CAT scan. I patiently (because I'm the patient) explained to him that would be bad, as one of my worst allergies was to cats. I hugged Beowulf every day, but if I came within a block of a cat I ended up looking like patient zero in a zombie outbreak.

A brave photographer caught this assassination attempt.

Turns out I got my dander up for nothing: CAT is an acronym, which stands for ... um ... something medical. Not only that, but it took all of five minutes, and the doctor would be waiting to show me the results right after.

Only the doctor was called away to unplanned surgery, and I had to wait a week and a half. Just to let the imagination simmer a bit.

When I finally saw him, Doctor Herr, who's a he, didn't even bother poking and prodding much. "Your two uppermost sinuses," he explained, "are completely blocked. Nothing can get out, and that's where your sinus infections have been hiding."

My sinuses were constipated.

Dr. Herr (who's a he) didn't explain to me how the infection itself got out, but maybe it has a special pass. In any case, we could try another course of the same antibiotics that didn't work last time, or he could go down to Doc's Hardware, rent a roto-rooter, and dig that sucker out.

That's not exactly the way he described it.

"Dude, I may be a doggie angel now, but I can't protect you from a mad doctor with a post hole digger."

So at the end of September I'm going under the knife, and also under the needle and the drill, and possibly the hammer and chisel. It's more major than my other sinus surgery, but Dr. Herr (who may be a her, I didn't ask) told me if he drills through to my brain, he'll just switch to reverse. Maybe I'll come out of surgery able to speak Latin, or play the violin. Or play Latin violin music.

Hope to see you at my first concert.

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No one knows where Beowulf came from.

He was very serious, and also very curious. I suspect he was mistreated by his former owner, because he would whine instead of bark, and was a little jumpy when touched. We did our best to make him feel at home, and I think it worked: One day he got off his line in the backyard, and when I started a panicked search I found him patiently waiting at the front door.

Gradually he relaxed and, as will happen, became family. He never chewed on anything unless he knew he was allowed to, and when someone passed by he would bark at them for one reason: He wanted us to let them in so he could make friends. (Having said that, he saw any animal smaller than him as food, giving us some insight into his former life.)

He loved every kid who came around, and most adults--unless he detected alcohol on their breath. Then he'd start to growl and become protective, which perhaps gives us another look into his past.

Like us he loved to travel, but he also loved to get home.

But he got old, as dogs do, and people. Neuropathy, hip dysplasia, hearing loss, cognitive problems. We were okay with him sleeping a lot--heck, I sleep a lot. But wandering in circles, steering himself into corners and just standing there, whining when he should have been comfortable ...

Sometimes there comes a time when you have to consider if you're keeping them around for their happiness--or yours. We got him about six months after Emily and I were married. The vet's estimation of his age meant he was around sixteen years old. It was time.

In the last photo ever taken with the three of us together, Emily and I were smiling, kind of. I think I can speak for both of us when I saw they were forced smiles.

He wasn't just a dog. He was family. Now he's crossed the rainbow bridge, to frolic with the family members who came before him (as Emily told him to at the end). There aren't any words to describe how much he'll be missed.

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 The Fifth of March is my eleventh wedding anniversary, so I checked and found out the traditional gift for that particular landmark is ... steel.

So I gave Emily a license plate.

I don't know what I'm more worried about, her reaction or how soon the owner will find out it's gone.

Apparently steel symbolizes strength and integrity, and how hardened you have to be to your spouse's bad habits to last eleven years. 

I think our best mutual anniversary present was the dog. Also, one of the more expensive, but never mind. The truth is Beowulf wasn't an anniversary gift at all, but he's been with us for almost our entire marriage--he's basically our child, and one year I even had his portrait painted (penciled?) as a present for her. The only thing that's lasted longer for us are some of my shirts, although for some reason I keep finding them accidentally tossed into the trash can.

I suspect Emily's given up on expecting a lot out of me on special occasions like this, but hope springs eternal. I freeze up when it comes to preparing for these things. Congress will balance the budget before I get around to planning. I'm also utterly unable to compose a nice greeting card message, despite the fact that I'm an actual writer. I'm sure a good psychiatrist could get that all sorted out, but I have to wonder whether that sorting would screw something else up. I'm a carefully balanced stack of anxiety and insecurity at this point in my life--why take chances?

Just the same, I think she still appreciates me ... I think ... and I know she still loves me, or she'd head back to her home state where winters are milder. (Except maybe this year.) She also knows what I need more than I do myself, which is probably a thing with all couples, and she takes good care of me. I try to take care of her, too. I guess that's the important thing.

As for gifts, what Emily really wants is a horse, of course.

And I think Beowulf would be okay with it--he's touched noses with horses before. However, if we tried to keep a horse in our back yard I'm pretty sure someone would notice, and that's not allowed in town. Unfair, right? Horses can come in handy. But we're on the lookout for a place in the country, so sooner or later I'll get her that horse ... s ... horses.

So Emily, if you're still talking to me--you never know for sure--I love you, and I'm sorry for my fails, some of which are epic. I'm working on them! Well, I'm working on some of them. But I'll always be there for you, even when I'm being there badly, and know this:

I love you more than chocolate.

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 With blogs like this I've learned to make it abundantly clear: He's OK.

Beowulf is about fourteen, as near as we can figure, which is Methuselah in human years. According to the Bible, Moses lived to be 120; Beowulf is that close to making it to the promised land. What that brings with it, at least for owners, is worry. After all, we've had him for ten years. That's way older than anything ever found in the back of my refrigerator. Except that one time. Let's not talk about that.

So when the side of his face started to get sensitive, we worried. When his snout swelled up to grizzly bear size, it was time for a run to the doggy ER, which does indeed exist. It turns out he had a tooth abscess, which is every bit as horrible as it sounds. He had to be on antibiotics for weeks before they could even think about treating it.

We thought about it, of course. A lot. For three weeks.

I felt guilty about that. Dental work and I have a long history, and there's no "good" about it.

He had a tooth removed, and ended up with stitches where the abscess was, um, abscessing. The first day that didn't bother him much, what with how very, very drugged he was.

"Duuuuddddeeee .... good, good stuff ...."

It got a little harder after that, although we were given pain pills that, it turns out, were for him, not me. Not that he was hungry, but a roll of turkey lunch meat with a lump in it goes a long way.

Every time we coaxed him close to the food he'd lay down, and just look at us. Since getting him in the car for our Pet ER trip is probably how I screwed up my knee a few weeks ago, you can imagine how anxious I was not to move him around. So mostly we let him sleep, although he would periodically stagger to his feet and do his regular patrol.

I know what you're thinking: "But Mark, aren't you taking advantage of Beowulf's medical problem to put out a cheap blog?"

Well, yes. But in my defense, it's not cheap, it's free ... and the subject remains cute and photogenic.

Besides, it's compensation for how I completely freaked out when Emily took the bandage off his leg and I thought I was looking at doggie bone. (I wasn't--they'd just shaved him down to his skin, and I've never seen his skin before.)

The important thing, and let me stress this: He's improving.

 Let's talk about pain.

Young people tend to be reckless because they haven't experienced real pain. There was a time when, one a scale of one to ten, I would have rated my chronic back pain as a nine, but I'm old(er) now. Chronic back pain is a four. A pulled back muscle is a nine, as is a migraine. A kidney stone is a fourteen out of ten.

I've talked to people who suffered through both a kidney stone and childbirth (not at the same time--wow), and it appears childbirth is a fifteen out of ten.

And there you have it: Older people need a whole new rating system.

 When you get old(er), you realize why older people didn't want to do stuff back when you were a kid. You could find out the same thing by just listening to their conversations:

"My knee says it's going to rain."

"Really? I can't feel my knee because of the lumbago."

"Oh, I haven't been able to lumbago since I was twenty."

"That's limbogo, moron."

Enjoy it while you can, kids.

(By the way, I Googled "lumbago" to make sure I got it right, and found out ... I got it.)

I told you all this to explain how I injured my neck by--wait for it--turning.

I once fell all the way down a set of stairs inside a house that was on fire, and all I got was a skinned knee. The next day I danced the lumbago.

We got a new radio system at work, and because I wasn't familiar with it I turned my head a lot more than usual to make sure of what I was doing. There are seven screens at my dispatch console. You have to be an owl to see everything.

"As long as I pay, my chiropractor doesn't give a hoot."

Neck pain level, after ibuprofen: maybe six, as long as I didn't actually turn my head. But I'd forget--and turn my head.

The neck pain caused head pain, and I was down for about a day. The day after, my wife and I decided to move furniture. This was a coincidence, but also related to pain: The dog's.

Beowulf is around fifteen years old, which in human years is something like 90. So he has trouble getting up and down stairs, but when that's where we are, that's where he'll be. The obvious solution: Move our bedroom downstairs, to where our office used to be. Let's face it, I do most of my writing work on the couch, while icing down various body parts.

My bed hasn't been moved in fifteen years. Why? Because, although we now use air mattresses, the frame is designed for a California King waterbed. Picture something the size of an aircraft carrier, strong enough to hold the contents of Lake Michigan.

It took two hours just to take it apart. Then we had to make multiple trips carrying pieces up and down  those narrow 1879 stairs with the sharp turn at the bottom, and now I know why the dog kept wiping out.

But we did it, and I once again got to dance the lumbago. When it comes to pain, how high can you go? Also, I can now tell you exactly what muscles are needed to haul something up and down stairways. The first day the pain level was about nine, but only when I moved, and as I write this it's down to a much more manageable seven. Ice is my friend.

And that's why none of you have seen me all week. Or Emily. Or Beowulf, who managed to slip by my makeshift barrier and come upstairs to see why we were cursing and throwing things during deconstruction. The next day Emily worked on one of our book projects, while I worked on a different one, and you know what they had in common?

They could be done without moving.

The lesson? I dunno. Buy our books, so we can hire movers? Meanwhile, if you see an older person who isn't moving very fast, cut them a break: You don't know if their day involved a screen, a dog, or a bed.

"A Walk? Nah, I'll just wait in the car."

Before we start, let me stress: Everyone's doing better.

So, how has 2022 been for you, so far? A rerun of the last two years? Me, too.

The first week of the year we had to take Beowulf to the animal hospital in Fort Wayne, and we returned just in time to learn my 96 year old grandmother was being taken to a human hospital with a possible broken hip. This was the day my three day work weekend started: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 12 hours each. Some of the kids at work like having more days off, but for me it takes a couple of days after to recover.

The horse was not involved with her fall.

 But never mind that, the important stuff is as follows: Grandma Nannie (Nannie is her real name) did not have a broken hip, although she did bang it up pretty good. She's going to have to have physical therapy, and as a person married to someone who just finished that, I can tell you it's no fun even for someone younger.

But the good news is that for rehab she's been transferred to Lutheran Life Villages in Kendallville, where she's stayed before, and so at least is not in a pandemic overwhelmed hospital.

I found out about her fall when I got to work Friday night. Earlier in the day I'd laid down to take my pre-work nap, but after about an hour Emily woke me to say the dog needed to go to the vet. Waking me and using the word "vet" are not things she takes lightly.

We had a chore getting Beowulf in the car, and they had to take him into the animal hospital on a cot. If you're not a pet lover, you might not understand just how distressing that is. Well ... it is.

He kept throwing up and stumbling into things, veering constantly to the left. He was like a drunk Democrat. ('Cause--left. It's a joke, like when I had a right leaning lawn mower.) The verdict: Vertigo. The Doc said he had a neurological condition (dog, not Doc), which comes in two types: The "In a few days he'll start doing better" type, or the "would you prefer burial or cremation" type. After numerous tests, the Doc thought it was the "good" one.

With me working twelve hour shifts all weekend, which I can only handle with a dose of melatonin and ten hours of strange dreams in between, it was left to Emily to nurse poor Beowulf through the weekend. (It was Emily who took these pictures of him--she would send pics to me as updates.)

Granted that once the meds took effect he slept a lot, but she had to be near him the whole time for when he woke up and tried to stagger around. Also, she had to give him the meds that we couldn't sneak into food, because the meds made him lose his appetite. Personally, I think she deserves a reward other than a good night's sleep, which she also deserves. Cheesecake?

So that's how the opening of 2022 went for us. Everyone seems on the road to recovery, so I guess you could call that a win, although I'd just as soon not have things like this happen to begin with.

Or, for you Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans, maybe midgets.

Do you ever get the feeling that some animals have a death wish? Me, too. Deer running in front of you, birds playing tag with your car--on the interstate.

Then there are the more gentle daredevils.

A family of bunnies has been living in my back yard. I don't have a problem with that, but in both the previous photos the little youth rabbits were hanging out only a few feet from our back door. This would be the same back door our dog comes out of when he has to do his business. There's a cat that's been prowling around that same area.

Have you seen my dog?

He's not small. And I've learned he likes little animals ... for dinner.

And get this: I'm finding the little piles of bunny pellets inside the range of Beowulf's line. (By the way, they're not chocolate candy. Remember that.) It's like they're pooping on his turf just to antagonize them. I'm living on the same property as Bugs Bunny.

My only conclusion is that they're teenage bunnies. You know how teenagers are: always taking chances, thinking they're indestructible. That has to be it.

This one's probably mom, hanging out safely at the end of the driveway. Doesn't she look worried? Yes, she does. If I could speak rabbit, I'd probably hear: "You bunnies get out of that dog's range! You're going to fall down and break your leg and put your eye out, and if you do, don't come running to me!"

I gave the grand-twins a glow-in-the-dark model of the solar system for Christmas, but my daughter tells me the planets won't glow. Now I'm beginning to worry that Bae may have licked the glow material from their surfaces.

But at least he's snuggly.