Wildness

"In Wildness is the Preservation of the World"

― Henry David Thoreau

At the risk of sounding maudlin, I was reunited with my dog yesterday.  She knows I'm gone on travel significantly--but 18 days was the longest stint I've ever been away from her.  I probably need her more than she needs me, dogs are resilient, me, less so. I didn't need to know exactly what she was thinking, or her inner dialogue, the smile on her face said everything. I'd like to think her inner dialogue was one of, “welcome home bitch”, as opposed to “don't leave me again you bastard.” It's hard to tell. She body slammed me several times.

Humans have always tried to write a dog's inner dialogue for them…some authors have achieved significantly more success in doing so.  Charles Schultz, remained absolutely silent, with Snoopy’s inner dialogue.  Probably a good idea.  Yet Snoopy spoke volumes to many generations.  But books have been written.  The books where it's hard to distinguish the dog's story from the human's story that are better than most include Merle’s Door, Marley and Me, and The Art of Racing in the Rain.   I think the authors were keen dog observers and were possibly more right than wrong.  Racing in the Rain, being fictional, it's harder to account for the author’s accuracy, but it felt like Enzo was talking to me. On the other hand,  a piece of rubbish, called “The Hidden Life of Dog’s”, fails so badly at providing a glimpse into a dog's life I can’t believe it was published.   The author claims she spent 10,000+ hours observing her dog's behavior.   I hesitate to mention it at all for fear one of you jackasses will dispute me and go out and buy it to prove me wrong.  Leave it on the shelf. 

The 10,000+ hours claim is truly special because that's the number of hours Malcom Gladwell loosely claimed in his book, “Blink" as the number necessary to become an expert in something.  In this case she failed to become an expert. Leave it alone.  It's rubbish.

One further observation about these three books is that the three dogs in the stories are all Golden Retrievers--Enzo, Marley, and Merle.   Despite claims showing the superior intellect of the Belgian Mallios or the Australian Shepard, the Golden Retriever seems to have earned a higher ranking in terms of their ability to epitomize “Good Boy” behavior. Evolutionary speaking, one might say the Golden is farthest from the wood line and closest to the fire. I believe I read somewhere that there is behavioral science that backs up this claim. Otherwise, I made up that incredible statistic based on my large sample size of three. As dogs go I'm happy with my math.  

Henry David Thoreau said, “In wildness is the preservation of the world”.  The fact that he made this lovely statement from his not so isolated cabin, next to a very popular pond, replete with hiking trails and weekend warriors, is not pertinent.  Almost certainly, dogs would have been present on these weekend sojourns to Thoreau’s  woodland (most likely off leash).  It's absent from the HDT record.  Knowing the seemingly pedantic nature of Thoreau’s  life, I postulate that he didn't even like dogs. Dogs are messy in almost every detail. They wouldn't fit his simple lifestyle. If there is an HDT historian out there please correct me.

Not wanting to let this drop yet, I think a Golden Retriever’s distance from wildness has tipped infinite--there’s no going back. I need a revision to Thoreau's statement.  Regardless how far out of the woods a dog has come to sit beside the fire with us, be they a Chinese Crested or a Siberian Husky, we gain immeasurably from our commune with this other species. HDT would never have experienced this…as he stared at the ants on his windowsill.  It's clear to me he would have had this total blind spot.  

In my modern mind I believe we will advance far more into the future communicating with the species around us then we will by observing them in the wild. When we communicate with these species, and only the Homo Sapien has the means to do so, we also have the function and utility to intervene. Granted most of the problems that will befall us we created--yet we will still have agency to correct most of them.  HDT was not wrong, he was just too late.  The necessary revision must now be,  “In Golden, is the preservation of the world.” I'm sure Enzo, Merle, and Marley are all smiling down at me for this revelation. 

Sorry for that diversion, I am indeed at home.  Thanks to everyone who provided both words of support and actions during this trying time. Eighteen days in the hospital and you would think I had some kind of world class disease to describe rather than what we knew on day one. I have a pinched nerve at the L45 root that keeps me from walking. How broken does that make me? After two weeks of PT, I still can't walk. There is no protocol to fix me.  I would have more success getting fixed if I was a car undergoing a recall.   This would occur, primarily because in the case of a car, the insurance is set up to protect the investment of the finance company.  It's actually insurance. In the case of health insurance, it's set up to protect the investment of the stockholders of the company. It's a platform set up to make money. It doesn't insure anything. It's a payment account where success comes from collecting more revenue in premiums than in claims being paid out.  

I'm not saying I'm special, but if this was actually insurance, and someone other than myself had a stake in keeping me on the road in order to keep me earning money, I'd be fixed by now. Instead after 18 days in the hospital I'm back at home in no better shape than I was when I left in the ambulance.  I'm probably in worse shape because both my mental and physical fitness have been pummeled inside a shitty health care system.

Since August 17th, everything has always been up to me.  Looking back, I'm not sure what I could have done differently other than keep my mouth shut in the ambulance. When the investigation by Inova Patient Services is complete, with regard to at least the first six days of my hospitalization, we will know if the system should have done something different.  If things had gone my way I would be a full-up round and back at work this coming Monday morning.  As it stands I've wasted 18 days and I can't wait to see the insurance bill.  Oh, and I do plan to be at work on Monday morning, except I’ll be in a wheelchair when I show up.

After leaving the hospital yesterday I drove straight to an outpatient pain clinic to do my first consultation with an outpatient doctor to hopefully schedule the second of the requisite, two,  cortisone epidurals, into my L45, to prove to my insurance company, and the potential surgeon who will propose a fix, that the impingement on the nerve is severe enough to warrant surgery.  This doctor I was seeing was able to review my MRI in advance and he knew before I rolled in the door that the impingement on the nerve was quite severe. We are going to move forward with the second cortisone injection (He uses Dex) he said almost immediately. He was quite clear that it is doubtful a second injection will provide any relief given the first one did absolutely dick (my word) and that I’ve been on a shit-ton of oral steroids the past week (my modifier).  It will take a bit to obtain pre-approval from my insurance company for him to do the injection, but that process has started and hopefully we will schedule the second injection within the next 10 days.  I will set up some more outpatient consultations today.  Those will include going to see the Inova specialists that were recommended by Inova.  And I will seek some alternative care--including an osteopath and a chiropractor.  Also, if I could just find the name and number of that acupuncturist I’ll call him too…It’s too bad I lost that guy's number CKW.

I have to wait for the wheelchair guy to show up at 10 am today.  Can you believe the wheelchair guy delivered the wrong wheelchair to Folsom Correctional?  It doesn’t fit. One thing that seems to be important is the fit of a wheelchair…if you are sitting in a wheelchair all day long, fit is everything.  The fact that this has happened does not bode well for any grace or redemption I might allow humanity right now.  I am happy to see my dog.

Since I am back home, I can finally begin to determine if all the problem solving, I did with my OT and PT to transform my residence into a perfectly handicapped accessible dominion was accurate. It was not. As much as I liked my OT and my PT the big question I have for them is have, they ever been in the field?  The solutions that they have proposed did not hold up in the real world. I've been home less than 24 hours and I'm already making major revisions. 

The first thing that is going is the commodes. Seriously?  These are so ridiculous it’s no wonder the insurance company will only pay for one.  They know these will be out by the curb before nightfall.  Sorry William, no handles for you on the shitters at my house.  I’ll take my chances getting up and down from the seat.  They are so small that I can only describe them as capable of only handing one job at a time.  You get to choose.  Number one or number two.  Not both.  Heaven forbid you need to yak at the same time.  This third option is far from available to you.  It’s going to get messy in your bathroom.  Throw them out.  Rubbish. Can’t use them.  Put handrails up…just like they have in handicapped bathrooms…and use the regular toilet.  Oh yeah, insurance doesn’t pay for the handrails.  

The second thing that goes is these additional walkers I purchased thinking I was outsmarting the insurance company.  They only pay for a wheelchair or a walker, not both.  Since a walker starts at about $25 and a wheelchair starts at $250 most people can make this simple decision to outsmart their insurance company on their own.    But again, the insurance company knows.  If they were to pay for the walker and then drove by the patient’s house.  The walker will be out front by the curb…this makes the insurance company sad and they got tired of being sad.  They know it’s a waste of money.  Waste of aluminum.  I’m glad aluminum isn’t a rare earth metal.  

Oh by the way, in my brilliance, I bought two.  Shows you how deeply I wanted to send a message to my insurance company…or listen to my OT and PT.   Both walkers will be in front of the house by evening.  Why do you ask?  Too wide…they will not fit in either of my bathrooms.  Also, they have these very nifty squeeze levers just beneath the hand holds.  They look like break levers.  In reality they are the levers you squeeze to fold up the walker.  I don’t want anything near my hands that I could confuse to be brake handles when shit’s going down.  Like a step hill.  The last thing you need to do is fold up the walker while trying to regain traction, in some type of down hill scenario.  Who the fuck was the human factors engineer during this design process?  Again, certainly no one who had a disability.

The third item that I am having a bit of success with is the shower bench. I went ahead and bought two of them.  Money is no object.  They cost about $35 a piece.   Both of them fit in my shower at a 90-degree angle to each other.  I took the sides and the backs off of them so only the bench remains.  I sat on them…and slid around the perimeter of the shower.  I think they will work just fine.  I’ll take a shower today and report back.  The only problem I can see is now I have two extra sides and two extra backs from these benches that I need to either store or get out of the way.  Everything is in the way of a wheelchair.  Get rid of all of this extraneous bullshit.  Put all this extra garbage out by the curb. 

Next up, grabbers. I bought a number of grabbers…and I’ve received several more in the mail.  Thanks George! These currently work for me.  The hard part is deciding which length of grabber to use.  I now have multiple grabbers in multiple lengths…including one that is 42 inches long.  I haven’t done the math yet, but I am barely strong enough to retrieve a 24 oz White Monster out of the refrigerator, at the length of 42 inches.  Ok, I did the math.  That’s like 5.25 ft-lbs at my wrist.  I’ll survive. Plus, beers are only 12 oz, so that’s just over 2.625 ft-lbs at my wrist. Let the day drinking begin.

I’m going to publish this entry and start my day.  Cheers’ everyone…day drinking starts now.  Also, something I haven't done in 18 days…