Slightly Off the Mark

 Just for fun, I looked up the blog about my original allergy testing, to see how it compared to this time. I'm reprinting part of it here, partially because I needed to be working on the Haunted Noble County, Indiana manuscript instead of writing blogs.

But also because I went through that first testing in early 2013, well over ten years ago. What has changed since then? Basically nothing:

           The allergy tester looked away (after injecting numerous allergens under my skin), and when she looked back my forearm had swelled so much I resembled Popeye right after taking the spinach.

           To her credit, her eyes bulged out only for a moment. Then she calmly opened the door and called to the medical staff:

           “Red alert! I need 50 cc’s of all our antihistamines, a gallon of decongestant, hydrocodone, ice, oxygen, codeine, epi-pens, and an extra copy of that release form he signed, in triplicate. Also, cancel lunch.”

           From the next room I heard a puzzled voice: “Just how many patients do you have in there?”

If there's a flower, there's a good chance it makes me sneeze. But if you look really closely you can see a bee--and since the allergist doesn't test for that, bees worry me more.

           Then the tester lady put twice as many pokes into my other forearm.

           A little card, with round holes in it of different sizes, measured my reaction. After a few tries she tilted her head and said, “I think we’re going to need a bigger card.”

           Then she started poking single needles into my shoulder, one by one. Those reactions, by the way, held on for over a week.

           “What’s the verdict?” my wife asked, while I huddled, slobbering and shaking, in a fetal position on the floor.

           The tester shook her head. “Do you have any plastic bubbles?”

           “Um, we have bubble wrap.”

           “I’m not sure you can sterilize bubble wrap.”

           It turns out I’m what they call severely allergic, which is a medical term meaning … well, I guess it’s pretty straightforward. I’m seriously allergic to … let me take a breath:

           Dogs, cats, indoor mold, outdoor mold, dust, grasses, ragweed, pollen, politicians, insects, dust mites, urushiol, fungus, feathers, and cottonwood.

           Here’s a fun irony: Standing by the entrance to the allergy doctor’s office are two big cottonwood trees.

I LIKE trees. But I also like birds, and I'm allergic to feathers, too. This one was making fun of me right by the front porch.

           Oh, Urushiol? Poison ivy. I already knew about, through sad experience.

           The tester explained that, while medications might mask some symptoms, my body was still fighting the allergens every moment, every day. Imagine, she said, being in a boxing match in which you’re hitting at an opponent constantly, without a break, for years. How would that make you feel?

           That explained a lot. Not just the typical allergy symptoms, but sleep problems, depression, headaches, irritability, itchiness. I'd been sick my entire life, constantly, and because I had no period of wellness to compare it to I thought it was normal.

           When we met with the ENT doc again, I asked what treatment we could try. Anything, I said – anything to give me a chance to feel awake and alive for the first time in my life.

           “Since you have so many allergies, we can’t fit all the treatment into one dose. So, you’ll have to have two allergy shots, one in each arm every week, for the rest of your life … or at least, it will seem like the rest of your life.”

           I nodded, and pretended to consider it. Then I said, “On the other hand, I don’t know what I’m missing, so it’s not really that bad, is it?”

           But my wife encouraged me to try the shots, anyway.

           By encourage, I mean “made me”.

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Remember: Every several dozen books we sell pays for an allergy shot. Save the Kleenex.

 One stressful thing about being a dispatcher is that when the phone rings it could be anything. Many of us play Dispatch Bingo. A UFO report? A herd of cattle blocking the roadway? Lunch, interrupted? A couple arguing over who gets custody of their dog? That's a row--bingo!

For some dispatchers this is one of the perks of the job: the challenge and variety. For others, not so much.

Years ago the business line rang and, in a calm voice, a man gave me his name and home address, so we could notify his family. Then he gave me the location where we could find his body. Then he hung up.

Often, when a suicidal person reaches out, it's a cry for help. Not this time. When our units arrived they could only confirm my certainty: Immediately after hanging up the phone, he shot himself. I was the last person he ever spoke to.

It messed me up.

Word got around, and my boss called to check on me. I told him I would be okay, which was true in the long run. I don't know if I told him that in the short run I wasn't okay at all, but my wife was with me, and I hung in there.

I've served in three branches of the emergency services: EMS, Fire, and 911 Dispatch. If anyone mentions PTSD or critical incident stress, I immediately flash back to one particular call in each of those three areas. But a lot of time has passed since those incidents, and although they still dwell in the dark corners of my brain, they don't control my life.

Usually.

Earlier this year we received a report of a person threatening to kill themself with a gun. I didn't take that call, but the moment I heard the details my body chilled, I could barely breath, and my mind went numb. That suicide from so long ago crashed out of the cage I'd trapped it in and rampaged through my head.

It turns out the person in this case did not have a gun, and the whole thing ended peacefully. Still, it was a wake up call. A jangling alarm that took about five years off my life ... and after three decades at this job, I've already lost enough. It's one of the reasons why I've been pushing my writing career: Not only because I have a lot of stories to tell, but because I'd like to spend my time writing them instead of screaming into a pillow after work every morning.

(This is one time in this blog when I exaggerate: No, I don't scream into a pillow after work. I kiss my wife, hug the dog, and hit the bed, where I usually get a good eight hours of sleep in between the weird dreams.)

I'm not writing this to get sympathy for me. I just wanted to remind everyone that the person you think is strong and "normal" may be battling monsters inside. In fact, they may be the most cheerful people you know, always with a smile and a joke. But the effects of stress are real, and the challenge of maintaining our mental health is a stigma that still remains, even today.

Look after yourself. Look after your friends. And if someone says they're having a problem with their emotions or their mental state, take them seriously. Sometimes we make it look way easier than it is.

Now, I'm off to write some humor ... we all have our ways to cope.

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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.

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!"

This belly won’t rub itself:

http://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2015/08/bellies-to-rub.html

Yes, I know I’m late for National Dog Day …

Check me out at the Kendallville Mall:

http://www.4countymall.com/mark-hunter---slightly-off-the-mark/im-dreaming-of-an-evergreen-christmas-slightly-off-the-mark

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

When we put up the Christmas tree last year, our dog became very puzzled.

“Dude, there are all kinds of trees surrounding this house already. Seriously, just come outside with me next time. Mind the yellow snow.”

Amazingly, he said all that with a glance.

If you take an objective, dog-like look at America’s Christmas traditions, you quickly realize we’re a little crazy. We bring a tree inside; we haul electric lights outside. People who refuse to listen to music that’s not still in the top 40 happily sing carols that were written by people who thought the Earth was flat.

(It’s a sphere; just thought I’d throw that in.)

And we celebrate Christmas on December 25^th, even though most experts agree Jesus was actually born in the spring. Why? Because it’s close to the shortest day of the year. What else are you going to do in late December? Go to the beach? Get that garden in? Take a road trip to Buffalo, New York?

I doubt very much if Jesus would care when we celebrate His birthday, especially since the truly important Christmas holiday is Easter. By then the days are much longer, so we don’t need the pick-me-up.

The Christmas tree is one of the most interesting and puzzling aspects of Christmas decorating. It’s also big business: Trees in all fifty states are grown for the express purpose of being chopped down in a celebration of life. I used to drive through an area of Michigan that had more trees than Indiana has deer on the roads.

The origins of that tradition make sense, though: In ancient times, anything that stayed green all through winter held special significance. Without evergreens, people in past winters would sometimes completely forget what color was. It was like being stuck in a 50’s TV show, without the laugh track.

Evergreen boughs, hung over doors and windows, were reminders that spring would return. They also helped keep away witches and evil spirits, and as a bonus could be garnished with garlic to fight off vampires. So far as I know, they did nothing against banshees or marauding politicians.

But it was the Germans who, with ruthless efficiency, decided to just bring the whole darned tree inside. Martin Luther added lighted candles to the tree, bringing us the Christmas tradition of homes burning down.

Christmas trees didn’t come to America until the 1830’s, when German settlers arrived with the tradition. Naturally, the neighbors were curious:

“So Hans, why did your house burn down?”

“Oh, I brought a tree inside and hung candles on it.”

“No, seriously.”

A lot of Americans were against anything like carols and trees anyway. People in New England got fined for hanging decorations, although it was legal to hang witches, as long as you didn’t decorate them.

Then, in 1846, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (of “in the can” fame) were seen standing around a Christmas tree. Suddenly it was all in fashion, even though hanging witches didn’t catch on at all. They were often decorated with popcorn, berries, and nuts, a great idea to guard against food shortages. (The trees, not the witches.) Rodents were a problem. (With the trees. Well, maybe both.)

Then, in 1850, Christmas trees went up for sale commercially in the United States. Next thing you know the early version of Wal-Mart, then known as “Mart”, got ahold of it, and the rest is history. They went up in Rockefeller Center, at the White House, and in Woodinville, Washington, where a 122 foot tall, 91 year old Douglas fir does not get cut down every year.

I like that idea, of leaving the Christmas trees alive. I don’t like the idea of going outside in December to look at them, so never mind. Besides, since 77 million Christmas trees are planted each year in an industry that employs a hundred thousand people, closing the business down would result in an unhappy holiday for many.

I used to love having a live tree. The wonderful scent, the look of it. Then I grew up, and after that I loved it for three days: From after it was up until it started dropping needles.

There’s a reason they’re called needles.

Now I have an artificial tree. I love my artificial tree. It looks exactly like a real tree if you squint a little, and I’ve never had to tweeze a single needle out of my foot. The dog, while still puzzled, doesn’t harass it. It has never burst into flames, not even for me, and I can break anything.

It doesn’t dry out, or spoil, and I don’t have to dispose of it every season. It’s durable and doesn’t wear out for years.

It’s a lot like fruitcake.

Ah, but that’s another puzzling tradition.

My wife and I sometimes confuse Christmas with Valentine's Day, but a tree's a tree.

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

            “Let’s get a dog,” my better half suggested.

            “No.”

            I love dogs. But I also love helicopters, and I didn’t want to spend the time or money for one of those, either.

            But at the moment Emily spends a lot of time at home without me, and she wanted some company. We’ve both had pets most of our lives; there’s nothing like a loving dog to bring a little brightness into your life, along with vet bills and various forms of bodily waste.

            She does have her snake, Lucius, but have you ever tried taking a snake for a walk? A collar won’t even stay on those things. Also, when a dog starts cuddling you, there’s rarely a worry that it’s thinking “One squeeze and you’re dinner”.

            After awhile Emily started giving me gentle little hints, such as sending me photos of sad-faced dogs with the caption “If they’re not adopted, they’ll die!” I’d send her back photos of our bank balance sheet.