Anthology: "Year of The Dog"
This selection is part of Meryl Franzos’ Anthology Collection—it is an essay previously on the Mrs. Franzos Blog that remains a personal favorite of its author. “Year of The Dog,” was first published on January 16, 2019.
photo: Joshua Franzos
How's your new year going? Ours got off to a pretty scary start with a sick pup that needed to be hospitalized for a week. Our little two year old Jack Russell Terrier, Meatball, couldn't keep anything down and refused to eat or drink, was in a lot of pain, and rapidly dehydrating before our eyes. It was awful. We did a battery of tests to rule likely culprits out (foreign objects), (accidental poison or toxic substances), (common parasites), (possible diseases), ( organ failures), (etc etc etc) and I spent countless hours sitting on gross hospital floors, knowingly messing up my back just so I could offer Meatball what little comfort and moral support that I could. He either wanted to be held or flop down on a cold tile floor away from me. It was heartbreaking to see him shake and shiver and pace around the room in pain. Eventually we ran out of tests to run and found ourselves falling down the diagnostic funnel to either doggy Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) or the "C" word. We knew Meatball had some food sensitivities or allergies that we were already sleuthing out under the care of our primary care vet, but it wasn't until this very acute episode of gastrointestinal distress that we knew the severity of Meatball's very inflamed digestive tract. The vet called last night with the lab results of his biopsy. We let out a sigh of relief that it's IBD and not cancer. While IBD is an auto-immune condition and is not curable, it can be wrangled into remission with diet and medication. We're getting our incorrigible little Meatball back in fighting shape, although he's not much of a fighter at all, in fact, he is the only dog I've ever 100% trusted with children. He is a lover and on good days, always down for a game of Keep Away. We are over the moon that we have more time with this little guy.
Because of the weeks of his hospitalization and intensive care, I learned about things I've never even heard of before. Promotility drugs. These were used on Meatball because the digestion in his stomach had slowed so much it wasn't happening at all. And his oral sphincter (the train track changer that switches between swallowing and breathing) was so relaxed that the undigested contents of his stomach would just come out whenever. For a couple of days, Meatball couldn't control his other end either. In short, every part of Meatball's gastrointestinal system was either stopped or way out of whack. Whereas the muscles in a healthy system, from the tip of of your tongue, to your stomach (and finally terminating in your anus), move in a forward motion much like the gentle waves of the ocean. The food we consume gets carried ever forward into our bowels, where our bodies further derive vitamins and energy... unless this beautiful momentum stops due to illness or starvation. Promotility medications can jump start the forward momentum again.
Jesus Christ! I thought, What a beautiful world of miracles we live in! The digestive process! The anatomical science that was harnessed to understand digestion and create medications to revive it! Lives saved! Life is good! Science FTMFW!!!
2018 was a weird year of creative and personal health logjams, in that I don't have much to show for myself this year via the Gregorian Calendar. In fact, it kind of feels like I'm still in 2018. But you know, the Chinese new year is coming up, (February 5) So, according to that calendar, we're still very much in the old year, The Year of the Dog. I've spent a lot of 2018 brooding about a lot, including how much time Meatball has taken me away from writing and how I'm not done with my edit, and blah, blah, blah the vain milestones of progress. But then in the instant I thought I might lose my Meatball, all my real priorities snapped back into sharp focus. Family, however we manage to cobble one together, is the soul of our connection to humanity. My pack is my beating heart.
I've been in a reflective state for the past few days, trying to scratch together something to write about here. The Year of the Dog, just sorta came to me on the wind, so I looked up what the Chinese zodiac said about 2018. It was eerily poignant.
"Indeed, Chinese Zodiac 2018 energies are dominated by the Earth element in its Yang form. It's an eventful year, marked by security concerns and the rise of social conservative movements within society. According to KarmaWeather's 2018 Chinese horoscope, many voices around the world rise to highlight the importance of the universal values of dialogue and solidarity, which are characteristic values of the Chinese zodiac sign of the Dog. Selfishness, greed, and ignorance being a major source of inequalities on Earth, only a social and cultural impulse, at the individual and collective level, can give new hope to the millions of people in the world who are still suffering from neglect, indifference and rejection from their community….However, it's expected that some of us shall experience short periods of loneliness or transient melancholy, which should however nourish the most sensitive and most creative minds among us. For others, these moments can result in a flutter in the implementation of their life plans, which will then be delayed until the following year."
-Written by KarmaWeather on August 8, 2016. Full page, here.
Ok, so I haven't finished editing my book yet and put it out on the market. I didn't get pregnant. I haven't yet traipsed around Scotland and Wales, ducking in and out of ruined castles and centuries old pubs yet. Perhaps 2018 wasn't the best year for anyone. It certainly wasn't for us as a country. A leader that can't stop vomiting lies or develop any kind of semblance of empathy. A record-breaking government shutdown. A country that grows increasingly polarized, indifferent, and violent by the day. More and more people are choosing to view science as a belief system that's just not for them, hello, flat earthers in da house? We're not making America great again, the developmental waves of our 'sea to shining sea' isn't gently rolling forward...they're arrested. Seized. Frozen...Holy shit, I think the US itself needs promotility drugs.
In the final weeks of the Year of the Dog, perhaps we should all reflect on those values we love so dearly in our furry friends and apply them to our own lives and our dealings with our neighbors in this new year. Think gentle waves. Loyalty, selflessness, forgiveness, and 'crowning thy good with brotherhood' might be good promotility drugs to start with.
To view the original post on the Mrs. Franzos blog click here.