I love my dogs. I grew up with dogs and so have had them in my home for 77 years. I don’t think that I would know how to live without them. If anyone gets to heaven it is dogs first.
For years we had Dachshunds but several years ago when we had lost one dog my son arrived at the door with at Basset a friend of his couldn’t keep. We are such suckers. If a dog comes into the house it almost never goes out. When our second dachshund crossed the rainbow bridge we adopted a second basset as companion for the first.
These two are so funny. We laugh at their antics daily. They are good dogs with some quirky habits. If we leave them at home the towels are pulled from the bathroom racks when we come back. Sometimes the towels appear in the bedroom. Never damaged…just moved. There are so many toys under the piano in a bin that it is overflowing. I put them back and very quickly, with much rummaging, specific ones are retrieved and distributed around the house.
If one dog is outside and sees something to share (bark at) he/she comes in to alert the other dog to come and join in.
I could go on but you get the idea. Dogs are a gift. They are being used in so many ways to help us humans with our problems and disabilities. Their ability to hone skills that we thought were impossible seems endless. Service dogs are used to sniff out diseases, help persons with PTSD, anxiety and depression, autism and many other things.
We need to thank God for the gift of dogs and other pets who enrich our lives.
The past few weeks have tested my ability to not lose my temper. It seems that everything that I have tackled has been complicated to deal with. Nothing has been easy. None of this has been life threatening but just plain aggravating. The world is getting so complicated that there is no easy.
Also today we took my granddog to the vet and he has lymphoma. That is a terrible diagnosis in humans and worse in dogs. Bottom line he may live a month at the most and will be sent to the rainbow bridge if he is in pain. For any of you who have pets and love them like we do this is losing a member of the family. I really think our pets keep us sane. It is so wonderful to come home to a house where someone is so glad that you are there. My dogs are my “blankies.” My favorite writer says blankies are an icon for God.
Yesterday I read and article that came out of NPR. It said that researchers in California found anxiety cells in mice. The quote from the article says: The finding, reported Wednesday in the journal Neuron,could eventually lead to better treatments for 
There is hope one the horizon. Research is moving forward just as it is on other problems such as cancer. Maybe someday the only thing we will have to fight is other humans….unless we can learn to live together and love each other.
Aging brings some interesting dilemmas. Ones we don’t face until we are older. A friend of mine who is older than me has severe back pain. Today he was told that surgery for his problem is out because of his age. He is pretty healthy otherwise. I can’t imagine being told that I am too old to get help for constant pain. Something more than medicine or pain management. I’m sorry but THIS SUCKS! Medicine is reaching the point where implementing decisions based on age become the norm. If you haven’t read or seen the film ….this begins to sound like “Soylent Green.” At a certain age we will just be shuffled off to become food for others.
The ethical decisions that we already have to make are way beyond the wisdom of Solomon. How will we begin to face the ones that will come in the future? How will we decide to not give birth to a child who will be at risk for Alzheimer’s? What will the ability to choose the sex, hair color and maybe even intelligence do to God’s creation. Are we taking over or will this make a better world?
Yesterday I just didn’t have the energy to write. I am not sure about tonight but I just need to vert. The last few weeks have been so frustrating. Nothing major but it just seems that everything that I have tried to do has been a headache. Things that are usually simple became complicated and it all became more and more annoying. Our medical system has run off the rails. As a Parish Nurse I helped people navigate the system but it has disappeared on down the track. Three weeks ago I saw a doctor who prescribed medication that is new. I knew that I had to be authorized but for the last three weeks is just plain disappeared. No one knew what had happened to it. Today I took the bull by the horns and appeared in the drs office demanding to discover where the vanishing medicine was. This was after multiple calls to the drs office and our insurance provider.
One of the things I have learned in my life is that sometimes all someone needs is to be able to ventilate their feelings. If you have someone that you can do this with you are blessed.
Recently I read an article about the factors that helped people live longer. It was a study by a group of physicians who found that the two most important things were not what I expected. The top of the list was being around people. Out and about doing anything that involved meeting with others. The next thing on the list was having a support system.
It also means that those of us who have some understanding of mental and emotional problems must do all that we can to create better communication with others and foster clearer understanding. For those of us who struggle with both emotional and medical issues connected to these problems more understanding will help us to be a part of society and feel acceptance.
Sometimes it just seems that nothing goes right. I have a friend who says that when something bad happens you have 24 hours to have a pity party and then it is time to move on. I feel like I have been swinging back and forth between being ok and crashing for the last month. Monday things were fine and Tuesday again with IBS. I din’t think I have ever had this much trouble. I have learned some things though so rather and just sit and moan I called and got a drs appointment and didn’t put it off….which is what I used to do. Medicine was ordered and now I am waiting for clearance from insurance to get the medicine. Very aggravating.
I have been thinking a great deal about how connected are mind, body and spirit. When science became at the forefront only the body was considered. In recent years we have begun to see that you can’t treat one part. In some ways we have moved forward and in other ways not. I think we see the connection but medicine has become so specialized that each part of our body has a different doctor. They don’t always communicate well so not only have we forgotten about the other two but the body is divided up.
I guess we have to try and pull all the parts together ourselves and seek out the best helpers that we can.
This blog contains opinions that are mine. If you disagree with me that is fine.
This is another one of those ethical issues that I touched on in another blog. It is so difficult for us human beings to parse the complexity of abortion. We have the same difficulty with euthanasia. The whole thing seems to rest on whether we control our own lives or not. Our freedom will necessarily be tied to whether or not we harm others and both of these problems are linked to that. As a nurse I certainly adhere to do no harm but each individual case may have a different answer. Does the government get to decide without knowing the circumstances?
There are so many ethical issues that we have today. Some of them almost seem insoluble. Advancements in gene studies have given us major things to wrestle with. Where do we draw the line.
The Bible does help us with its basic moral ground but these things were not issues when the Bible was written. We have to learn to ask questions and spend time understanding the answers in order to make judgments. Even then there may not be any clear path. Sometimes there are two good choices….sometimes two bad. Who is to decide? It seems that it is up to each of us to understand and make a decision based on our own beliefs. This means that there will be differing opinions and we will have to learn to accept that others may not agree with us. It is important for us to view their decision with tolerance even if they can’t see ours.
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