Lupita, aren’t you glad you get to go home?

I asked her yesterday at 4 pm when she was finally released from the Alameda East Animal Hospital. She peeked out of her carrier with luminous puppy eyes but didn’t utter a word. As we drove home the snow was blowing, the morning’s grapple had now turned into big fat flakes while the temperature dropped to 12°F from the influx of a cold Arctic air mass.

When I went out to shovel this morning, I saw lots of bunny tracks in the snow and the paws of a large animal, either a coyote or dog that might have been chasing it/them. My neighbor tells me she looked out her window late one night after a snowstorm and saw three bunnies in the moonlight, dancing and tumbling together in the snow. So maybe Fido or Wiley came along later and left his tracks after the snow party was over.

When we got in the house Lupita ran all over the place like a little mad person. She had only been in our house for 2 days before we had to take her to the emergency clinic, it was a new place to her then. Nevertheless it was as if she was running around looking to make sure everything she had seen before was still there, just like a little kid. She has four medicines to take throughout the day for the next 7 days and 6 cans of Hills Prescription Diet a/d Food to nourish her during her recovery. Last night the vet told me she would need to have access to food and water all night long. So, I set her up in a big crate in our bedroom, although my inner child was laughing at me the whole time saying, “suuure, you know how this is going to end.”

I put her in the crate, turned the lights off and dove under the covers. She immediately began to cry, scream and yelp shrilly building into an amazing crescendo then diminishing into tragic weeping whimpers, which repeated themselves for the next 40 minutes. I kept thinking, ‘ok, when she quiets down I will just put her in bed with me (so that she doesn’t decide that crying is what releases her from the crate); I will set the alarm to get up and feed her every 3 hours instead of leaving her in the crate.’ She continued to cry for an hour and I tried to keep awake until she stopped. When I finally realized she was quiet, I was barely awake. I thought, ‘Ok, I will just rest for another 2 minutes and then go get her,’ but in 2 minutes I had drifted off into sleep quicker than you can say "Jack Robinson”. An hour went by before she woke up and started her testing her high soprano notes again.

I decided it was no good for her to get so upset since she is just recovering from Parvo, especially since she is scheduled for surgery tomorrow. Poor little thing, will her trials and tribulations never end? They need to stitch together the big abscess on her back (at the site of her vaccination injections) that apparently developed from not having enough white blood cells because of the Parvo virus.

At 11 pm I got up and put her in bed under the covers with me. At 2 and at 4:30 am she started stirring, licking and biting my hand, then crawling upside down under the covers in little spinning circles, using the top sheet as a floor on which to gain leverage. Also it turns out Chihuahuas are big lickers; at night lying on your pillow you are a helpless victim to getting your face and ears washed, whether you want it or not. I got up and gave her some food and water, then took her downstairs to the cat litter box I had set up so she wouldn’t have to go outside in the subzero weather. Although this seems somewhat akin to waking up all night to care for a human baby, at least that baby doesn’t have to lick your face and ears besides. Would anyone want them to?

Taking on the World

Today is my day for personal battles. I had been looking forward to sleeping in this morning, but when you are in town for only 2 weeks you have to take whatever appointments you can get. So I went and got my teeth cleaned at 7 am. I ended up having to buy a new toothbrush—yet more shekels out the door!

Then I spent two hours on the computer duplicating a billing statement from the physical therapy place I went to last summer to help repair my surgerized shoulder. (Did I mention in a past life I was a graphic artist so copying a relatively simple accounting statement was a time consuming but do-able occupation?) I had submitted this statement to the insurance company and cross-hatched out a portion of the itemized bill. I had to make a pretty statement without the hatch marks. Am I anal or what? I am resubmitting it to the physical therapy people now, along with the insurance benefits statements, to show them what they owe me since the stupid insurance people reimbursed them, not me, for my out-of-pocket expenses. These insurance/medical care claims are the worst. They seem to drag on forever and you feel like you expend way more energy than necessary. If you are lucky you may get some of your money back.

Next I started thinking about my cute little puppy Lupita who is recovering from Parvovirus and gets to come home this evening. Yay! Did I mention that in addition to Parvovirus she had two parasites (giardia and coccidia) as well as a urinary tract infection? She was one sick little puppy. When took her into the emergency vet her white blood cell count was down to 0.8 as compared to a normal count of 6. He really wasn’t sure she would survive. The regular vet just called me now to tell me how sad she was Lupita had gotten sick and that she’s seen a lot of little Chihuahua puppies go from bouncy and playful to sick with Parvovirus and be completely overcome within an hour and die. She was amazed Lupita made it. I too think it’s a miracle that she has survived. I can’t believe that breeder was so careless because everything my puppy had wrong had an incubation period that started in her timeframe. I can only attribute her recovery to lots of prayers from lots of people, excellent 24-hour veterinary care from Alameda East Veterinary Hospital and a strong constitution on the part of Lupita.

In any event after I finished writing a nasty letter to the physical therapy people I started stewing about the woman that sold the puppy to us who has not returned our phone calls or emails since Lupita got sick. She had a whole van load full of puppies, probably 15 of the little tiny guys—Chihuahuas, Teacup Chihuahuas, and Shitzus. I believe they must all have gotten sick with Parvo, and we know she probably wouldn’t to pay the $2000+ plus per puppy that Esperando and I had to cough up for Lupita’s treatment. When I talked to Esperando several hours ago he too was pretty angry about the breeder and planned to call a Carlsbad vet to see if any action could be taken against her. So often he and I are thinking about exactly the same issues at the same time that it is scary. We have a pretty strong connection to each other.

Tonight will be interesting. I will have to feed Lupita every 2 hours, then go for some more shoulder physical therapy (at a new place) at 8 am. Lupita will have to go with me in her crate (she hates her crate because she is not used to it.) Everytime I put her in a crate she starts screaming and yipping and I sure don’t want her to do that at the physical therapist’s. Good thing I am doing my battles today—I don’t think I will have any energy for them tomorrow after feeding the baby all night.

Starting the New Year with a Whimper

The year 2010 arrived the other night—it kind of has a prophetic ring to it doesn’t it? At my neighbor’s party I discovered that 3 out of 4 of the guests there, after much to drink, admitted to believing that all of us are descended from aliens in the distant past. Now isn’t that food for thought?

Anyone who knows Esperando and I can testify that we are possessed of much whimsy (caused by the thick alien blood in our genes no doubt), both of us feeding each other’s impulsive behavior. We are prone to making off-the-cuff decisions that really complicate our lives. A recent example of this is the new puppy we bought from Roswell, New Mexico, when we were traveling at Christmastime from a roadside puppy vendor. This vendor brings her puppies to Carlsbad to sell out of her van. Esperando fell fast and hard for a little black and tan Chihuahua he saw there. He has wanted a Chihuahua ever since we saw the movie Frida in 2002.

We have named her Guadalupe, or Lupita for short, for a breed native to Mexico. Lupita has a perky little face and shining eyes. Up until a few days ago she was playful and bouncy, but yesterday we took her at Alameda East Animal Clinic in Denver because she hasn’t been able to keep food or water down for the last two days and weighing not quite 3 pounds could become dehydrated easily. They discharged her to us last night, but we took her back again this morning as she was really lethargic and she still wouldn’t eat. This morning when we took her back again they tested her for parvovirus—which its turns out she has. Poor little thing, she is so tiny. She is in intensive care now where she will remain for the next two to four days on liquid and antibiotic IV’s and may even need a transfusion. Treatment efforts are focused on keeping puppies hydrated, making sure that their electrolyte balances are relatively normal and preventing secondary infections that occur due to the tissue damage and low white blood cell counts. Her chance of survival is 70%, however we have found out from a fecal exam that she also has a parasite which will diminish her hopes. The vet told us that this is mostly a puppy, not dog, disease and that if humans had they same disease in our population they would be devastated. She had probably just contracted the disease before we bought her

We have only had her 5 days. Everywhere we took her everyone fell in love with her, even people like me that have always disliked Chihuahuas. She is a very special little puppy and if you are reading my blog, please say a little prayer for her recovery.