Egg Beater Legs

So a little while ago my friend mentioned that my dog runs funny. I knew that he ran funny, like his legs are egg beaters, but I didn't think that meant there was something wrong with him. She didn't think he'd be able to do agility because of it. We've almost completed all the Rally events possible, we have one more leg of Excellent to get his RE and then we could go for his RAE if I wanted to continue on. But that's just doing the Advanced and Excellent in one trial and qualifying for both. He's won High In Class 4 times now though, so I think we might try for the RAE. But it really isn't anything "new". So I thought agility might be fun. So back to his egg beater legs. My friend told me our other friend/ acquaintance does dog massages and could tell me exactly what was going on with his body and could potentially help me fix it. The first thing that crossed my mind was that he had hip dysplasia or some other disease that would shorten his life.

So I asked the Massage girl, let's call her Jane, to come over and do an assessment on him. His abductor muscles on his back legs are weaker than they should be and he's not a flexible as she'd like him to be. He's also needs to lose 5 pounds... She gave me a bunch of exercises to do with him to strengthen his legs. We have to do perch work, side steps, going from sits to stands and back again, slow circles and doggy yoga or doga as I like to call it!  :)  I have to hold a treat near his tail and get him to bend to both sides, then bend to his back feet and then put it right between his front legs to get him to bend forward and in. She's also going to get me some poles to lay on the ground and he'll have to walk over them so it forces him to pick up each foot individually. And once he's made some progress with that she wants him to trot more, not full out running or nicely walking, but a nice trotting pace. So I asked her "should I take up jogging?" and she said "that would be great!". 

So for my dog, we're going to exercise daily with stretches and perch work, I am going to lose 5 pounds with him and take up jogging so we can trot together. Right now he's 40 lbs and I'm 155. Although if we're going for % body weight I should really lose about 20. We'll see how it goes.

On a side note, Nice Guy has already planned my birthday in April. I have to dress up nice, we're dropping the dogs off at his parents on our way, we won't be staying in a hotel and I can bring casual clothes to wear the next day. I have no idea what we're doing but he promises not to chop me up into little pieces.

Always relied on the kindness of strangers

So a slightly horrible thing happened to me yesterday. I had just flown back from a work seminar and dropped my colleagues off. I went and got groceries first since I had been gone all week, had just finished putting them away and thought it's a really nice day. I think I'll go out and clean up the back yard with the dogs. So I'm outside with the two dogs and I'm about to grab a shovel and had to bend over slightly when the most intense pain I have ever felt went stabbing into my back. So I lowered myself to the ground using the shovel and just lied on my side for a few minutes. I thought maybe it would go away if I was just really still. Then I tried to move my arm and more pain shot into my back. And I was thinking "Crap. It's like 2:15 in the afternoon and my boyfriend won't be here until 4:30. That's a long friggin time to be laying here." So then I tried rolling onto my stomach to see if maybe I could drag myself towards my house and get my cellphone to call someone. So while the rolling part really hurt, I did get onto my stomach and dragged myself along the cement to the stairs up to my house. But I couldn't bend in any way that wouldn't cause me intense pain. So there I was, stuck at the bottom of the stairs. And I'm thinking "How is this actually happening to me? I'm 25 years old. This is ridiculous."

It was a nice day but it's still just the beginning of March so the ground was still cold. I was laying on one of my arms and it was getting numb and I was thinking about how the ground sucks the heat from your body and in my head, worse case scenario was not only is there something wrong with my back, but I'll get hypothermia as well. So that's when I decided even if I didn't think anyone was home I'd start yelling anyway. So I started yelling "Hello! Can anyone hear me?! Hello!" about every few minutes. Then I started getting colder and I noticed that when I shivered it hurt more. So then I started yelling for help. Eventually a ~12 year old kid found me and asked if I needed help. From the time I lowered myself to the ground to the time that kid finally came was over an hour. And I think I was in shock for a while because as soon as he came and said he'd call 911 the pain got dramatically worse and I was screaming in pain while he was on the phone. He kept telling me not to move but it hurt so much that my body desperately wanted to find a position where it didn't hurt. I think I really scared him, because I was crying from the pain by then. So the ambulance shows up and then all my neighbours came out of their houses. So the whole neighbourhood saw me lying on the ground bawling.

So the ambulance guys gave me nitrous oxide and put me on the stretcher, which was terribly painful as well. Then they gave me morphine in the ambulance but that didn't work either. And I was completely lucid the whole time. I was even telling them how much I weighed so that they got the dosage right. Then they had me in the waiting room and tried to get me to turn which brought on another wave of pain so they fast tracked me to a room. There I got liquid ibuprofen and a muscle relaxant and I had to explained what happened all over again. Then Nice Guy came and looked like he was going to cry but he held together. He felt really bad that I was lying outside in pain for so long. But I told him there was no way he could have known I was hurt. So he held my hand for a little while but then a nurse kicked him out. Eventually I saw a doctor and got x-rays and my bones are all good. So they think that one of the ligaments between my vertebrae is swollen and inflamed. But they couldn't tell me what caused it to be inflamed. When I was shivering it was squeezing more which cause more pain. So I got into the hospital a little after 4 and I left a little after 8 with some Tylenol 3s and some muscle relaxants. He told me I should try walking it off. I can talk small steps but I have some trouble getting into a standing position without help. But hopefully I'll be back to my old self very soon.

I wish I could remember the name of that kid who helped me. I'd like to thank him. Maybe I'll put an ad in the roasts and toasts section of our newspaper.

Somebody Swallows

So we walked into the bedroom tonight and found a couple things on the floor. Both dogs were in the house all day and we don't crate them. Also I haven't emptied the garbage in my bedroom for a few days, possibly several days. So there, in the middle of the carpet, where earlier today there was nothing, were two limp condoms. And not only were they not in the garbage where they were suppose to be, they were also empty....Yuck!

Nice Guy's comment: "Well, I guess somebody swallows."