When bad things happen to good dogs and people

What a day it was.

I am up by 4:30am most days to drink coffee with Kevin and then get on social media before taking my shower.  This morning I opened up my Facebook account and saw a message from MaryannH:

"He is Gone."

Maryann's husband Patrick lost his battle with lung cancer late last night, just two months after being diagnosed.  Maryann recorded the treatment during this time, getting Patrick a $1500 wheelchair and buying a wheelchair accessible mini-home (a double-shed) on their property where Pat could live.  He never got to enjoy his mini-home, though.  His cancer was an aggressive form that had metathesised.  He went from staying in Tucson to coming to Sierra Vista for hospice care and then coming home to die.

I have been Facebook friends with Maryann for almost three years.  We "met" on Facebook through a local animal group.  She fosters Dobermans and other big dogs and donates time and money to helping local shelters and rescue groups.  She is also a big trump hater like me.  I hated trump when I lived in Eatontown, NJ, part of the greater New York City metropolis, in the early 1990s.  He was still married to his Czech wife Ivana and always loved media attention as a socialite via the NYC TVstations. Back then trump flirted with Democrats!  Maryann's husband Patrick was for the man, and she often wrote about how frustrating it was to live with a trump supporter.  She went so far and "unfriended" all her trump-supporting fans from her Facebook account.

I don't go so far, though, and told Maryann that being a trump supporter does not make one a bad person (just an uninformed one) and that there are many animal-loving trump fans out there.  There are a few trump policies I actually agree with, like deporting all illegal MS-13 gang members and throwing the book at those who commit crimes here.

Kevin is a trump supporter and we both agreed to not ever discuss politics again.  To maintain our marriage, I have agreed to that, although there are times when I get so frustrated with our White House resident that I scream to myself with just the dogs as my audience.  This is the only time I am grateful that dogs can't answer back.  

Maryann's hateful trump posts disappeared overnight.  Now she is grieving.  Her message about Patrick's passing lingered in my head all day, even while filling in for a US Constitution class at the high school.  She and I have never met (although we keep talking about it) and yet her losing her husband affected me all day.  How does one give emotional support to someone who lost her husband?  "I'm so sorry" is often not enough.

After school I went straight to Cochise Dermatology, the only place in town for skin issues.  I had a 4:10pm  appointment with Dr Crosby to check out my discolored spot above my upper right lip.  It was my dentist earlier this year who advised me to have it checked out, and Steve mentioned several times how bad it looks in natural light.  I first noticed it as a bloody spot last August 2017.  I thought it was a cat scratch from either Bobby or Guinny, but the spot never went away.  It slowly grew and is now the size of a US Nickel.  It took me two months to get this appointment. I was ready for the worst.  I sat in a crowded waiting room with at least 20 other patients, all older than me.  Did all these people have similar issues as me?

Dr Crosby disinfected the skin around my mouth and took a microscope and pressed it against the spot. "It's precancerous" he told me as I inhaled the fumes of the rubbing alcohol, and gave me two options: I could have it frozen off with liquid nitrogen, or I can take chemotherapy injections.  Chemotherapy is out of the option. I signed a waiver understanding the side effects of cryosurgery: swelling, blistering, and a scab that can linger for up to six weeks.  Ugh. 

"Burn it off!" I said.  So Dr Crosby came back with an aerosol-type canister with a blowtorch valve and immediately went to work on that spot.  And holy shit, did that burn!  The pain brought immediate tears to my eyes and I apologized for being such a wuss.  He apologized for torturing me as he leaned against my right side to prevent me from flinging my arms up to knock the blowtorch away.  He had to take that blowtorch to my face four times to get rid of the precancer.

  

The torture session lasted no more than 20 minutes. I have a follow-up appointment in late October to monitor the healing and to check for any more cancers.

Now I had two things plaguing my mind: Maryann's loss and my bout with precancer, and a lip that was slowly swelling.  She was in my thoughts all day.  I thought about her grief later in the evening, as I walked around the neighborhood to get my 10,000 steps in.  All four dogs were with me, and I was proud that they all stayed close and stayed together.  My lip held up OK.  I could feel it swell, but it wasn't painful. The sky was overcast with the hint of rain.

We were in our final .2 miles on our street, heading west.  I was on one side of the street, the dogs on the other side, across from me.  It was around 10pm and rather dark (that's rather normal at night) when I suddenly heard Zeke yelp out in pain.  He came running toward me with a bloody face,  blood dripping on his front paws.  What the hell just happened?  I feared a snake bite, but snake bites don't draw out this much blood, and there would be near instant swelling.  He was gasping as he breathed.

Luckily we were just a few homes away.  I put Zeke in the back yard while the others went inside via the front.  I gave his wound pressure to keep the bleeding down, which did help.  Once I cleaned his face I could see the damage: Zeke had a deep gash right below his right eye, a puncture hole above his right eye and a straight cut below his mouth.  The skin was torn and red muscle was exposed.   His breathing also returned to normal, but that deep gash below his eye is going to take some time to heal.  What did this to him?  It was already starting to drizzle, and the dark rain clouds made visibility even harder.  I gave him a Tramadol.  Zeke wasn't in any other distress after that, but geez, I like to know what did this to him.  The other dogs were with him when it happened.  Had it been another animal, the dogs would have gone into pack mode and barked and fought and chased the other animal, but that didn't happen. They were totally oblivious.

My poor Zeke. Of all the dogs this could have happened to, this pains me a lot.