My Friend and Inspiration

My father and I planned to bury Bama this weekend. We wanted to give the vets time to decide if there was anything else they could learn from her through further testing. My brother was going to help us bury her with the other dogs that have graced our lives, to become part of the land that had been their home. However, today I realized that I needed to honor Bama in a different way. Bama showed me in those last 30 days that what she wanted most in life was simply to be with me. I've decided to have her cremated so that no matter where I might live, Bama will be there with me. I've ordered a wooden photo box. The inscription on the little brass plate will read
BAMA
My Friend and Inspiration

It's interesting that I was looking at the channel guide and saw that Wayne Dyer was speaking on PBS tonight about inspiration. I've seen it on the guide a couple of times over the last year, but when I tried to watch it, the station did not actually carry the program. I've been thinking quite a bit about how Bama has inspired me. I've already blogged about how she has inspired me to keep working instead of going on disability. But she has also inspired me in another way. I've dealt with chronic pain by trying to simply block it out and keep functioning as much as possible. The problem is that when you ignore physical pain, there's also a tendency to ignore everything else about yourself. Even if you don't deal with pain, you probably know what I'm talking about. Ned Hallowell has written a book called Crazy Busy. I don't know how many of you remember how families used to sit on their front porches in the evening, telling stories and watching life go by--simply enjoying being instead of doing. If you are not old enough to remember, you have probably seen the Andy Griffith reruns that feature frequent "settin' a spell." Society demands have changed considerably these days, but so have the demands we place on ourselves, blocking us from enjoying ourselves, other people, and everything else about this glorious world.

Grieving the loss of Bama this week has been agonizing. All my current and previous dogs have come into my life for a reason. They have given me much more than I have given them. (Perhaps I will blog BigDog and Buster's stories in the future.) As I was grieving for Bama the other day, I heard an inner voice that I attribute to God say, "Do you know why I gave Bama to you? You have been in awe of her love for you. Do you not realize that my love for you goes far beyond her love? You are worthy of love, and you are worthy of giving love to yourself as well as to others. How would your life change if you did?"

So I have been thinking about how my life would change if I loved and respected myself as much as Bama did. I believe my life will change dramatically as I continue to learn to hold myself in higher regard. Wayne Dyer ended his program with a quote that I think he said came from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Thus you will serve others as you serve yourself." The quote reminded me of how Jesus said we should love others as we love ourselves. Apparently, we cannot effectively give to others what we do not give ourselves. Thank you, Bama, for showing me the importance of learning to serve myself.

The Problem of Pain

Bama's Pain

Somebody mentioned to me in an e-mail how much pain Bama has endured. I want to reassure everyone that the vets, beginning with the emergency clinic, have done an excellent job managing Bama's pain. When I first found her, I think she was somewhat in shock--she wasn't licking her wounds or anything as we drove her to the emergency clinic. I read somewhere that dogs seem to have the ability to shut down on pain when it gets to a certain level--a skill they needed to survive in the wild. Bama didn't show signs of being in pain. At the emergency clinic, they immediately gave her something to block the pain. She wore a pain patch as well as taking two Rymadyl a day for about the first week and a half or so after the accident. She was still using the patch in the picture and looks more groggy than in pain. She was still wagging her tail that day, despite everything.

She no longer uses a pain patch, but she continues to take Rymadyl. I get the impression from the way she acts now that her wounds itch more than hurt as she's beginning to heal.

Personal View of Pain: Warning--this becomes a rant and rave about fibromyalgia

My guess is that most vets are trained to think of ending suffering when an animal is severely injured, which means euthanizing them. Perhaps my viewpoint is skewed because of dealing with a high level of pain personally. I remember a point when the pain level from the fibromyalgia that resulted from a car accident was extremely high (feels like having a migraine all over your body--results in vomiting when it gets that high) without relief for an extended period of time. I told one of my friends, "If I were a dog, they would have euthanized me." I refused to consider narcotics because I felt that all I needed was a drug addiction on top of everything else I was dealing with. The medications I do use take some of the edge off the pain but do not stop it.

If any of you reading this deal with fibromyalgia, you know the frustration of having a medical condition without an identifiable cause. For example, I participated in a study of myofacial pain at a university. As part of the process, I was interviewed by a psychologist. Because I minored in Counseling Psychology when I obtained my Ph.D. in Learning Disabilities and Behavior Disorders, I am not intimidated by such an interview. Some of the folks in my Counseling Psychology class were going to be outstanding therapists; others, I shall simply say, were not. My concern was that some people with chronic pain who were interviewed by this man would be victimized by his comments.

I explained to this man that I saw a pattern of my pain being worsened by changes in barometric pressure. I tended to be better at forecasting the rain than the Weather Channel. I told him that I would wake up in the night, writhing in pain, turn on the Weather Channel, and a low pressure front would be moving through. He was so determined to prove that this pain was psychological rather than medical that he said, "Maybe you saw a cloud in the sky before you went to bed and just didn't realize it." Oh, please! Give me a break!

I told this man that Bruno Bettleheim said that autism and childhood schizophrenia were caused by "refrigerator mothers" who were unable to connect emotionally to their children. He recommended a "parentectomy" as a cure. In the sixties and seventies, his words were grabbed like gold by professionals. Now we can see the medical bases for these conditions in brain scans that were unavailable in Bettelheim's day. Can you imagine the anquish that added to these moms who were already suffering from having a child with one of these conditions?

"One day," I said to the psychologist, "you are going to owe me an apology!" I hope that day comes soon.

The danger is that when a condition is accepted as psychological, it slows research that could ultimately find the medical cause. It's scary to think that medical professionals would buy into the psychological explanations so easily. Surely they are not vain enough to assume that medicine has all the answers already and anything that is unknown must be psychological. Surely they are wiser than that! Someone once told me, "I don't believe in fibromyalgia." I assure you, this is not a condition that anyone would want for a religion. Some people say that depression causes fibromyalgia because people with fibromyalgia tend to score high on depression scores. The only way that could be said is if they tested them prior to developing fibromyalgia. When pain takes away so much of your life, you would be crazy NOT to be depressed.

Well, anyway, I finally decided that some life was better than no life, so I picked myself up off the couch and found a way to keep working. When I lost the current job that I had loved so much, I was tired of fighting to keep working. Bama's love of life--and for her, life was giving and being a part of our little family--despite what she endured, caused me to realize that I must also continue to fight to have a productive, meaningful life.

As you can tell, my view of pain is probably different than it is for most people. When I made the decision not to have Bama euthanized, it was because I was confident that she and the vets could manage the pain. I once attended a seminar by Cesar Millan who emphasized that dogs live in the moment, not in the past or future as humans tend to do. When Bama gets past this ordeal, she will truly be past it. Then she will have each day of the rest of her life without holding on to the pain of this current time. I hold the vision of that day in my mind and heart. Dogs truly have so much to teach us.

Not an On-Purpose

For those of you who don’t know, talking about what happened to Bama on May 9 is painful. Many of my family, friends, and colleagues have expressed interest in following Bama's story, so I thought would start a blog to share her progress toward recovery. Her fight to survive is remarkable.

I have three dogs: BigDog, Buster, and Bama. (This picture is from my 2006 Christmas card. Bama is the smallest dog. All three are loveable mutts. I'll share Bama's rescue story in a later post.) My father also lives with me. Dad and I were making a quick trip to to pick up a belt for the tractor. The dogs love to ride, so we put them in the back of the van. We have blankets and a water bowl that's designed not to spill when I drive so they travel in comfort. We are careful to leave the air conditioning or heater on when we leave them in the car, if the weather dictates. To prevent Bama and Buster from jumping out of the van when we open the latch, we attach their leashes to the seat belts.

On this particular afternoon, I put BigDog in the back of the van in front of Bama. I closed the hatch with the remote. When we came back from the errand, Dad said, "Where's Bama?" I looked down at his hands, and he was holding Bama's leash and empty collar that were caught in the hatch. I did not realize she had jumped over BigDog and out of the van before I closed the hatch. The seat belt extended enough that she was able to land on the ground but not get away from the van. I had dragged her behind the van without realizing it. We had no idea what had happened to her. We didn't see any blood on the road, and I hoped she slipped the collar before she was injured.

It took us hours to find her. After driving up and down the road calling for her, I took the other two dogs out to look for Bama, but they were soon panting heavily from being unaccustomed to temperatures in the low 90's. I had to take them inside to cool them off. I became concerned about Bama having heat exhaustion, along with other injuries.

I quickly made a lost dog poster and plastered the area with it. A kind person at a nearby trailer park found her and called me after seeing the poster. Bama was lying on the driveway in front of the trailer when we finally located her over six hours after we ran the errand. When I called her name, she dragged her back legs trying to get to me. She had serious road burns all over her body. I was devastated. Thank God she had finally slipped the collar.

We rushed her to the emergency vet clinic. When they took her in a room to examine her, I stroked her head and kept blubbering, “I’m so sorry, Bama; I’m so sorry, Bama.”

One of the technicians smiled gently at little Bama and said, “Tell her ‘That’s why they call it an accident instead of an on-purpose, Mom.” Yes, it was an accident, but I kept wishing there was some way I could go back in time and undo it.

The emergency clinic gave her fluids to stabilize her until the next morning.

When we picked her up from the emergency clinic and took her to the local vet hospital the next morning, the vet was honest with us that saving Bama was going to be an extensive investment of time and money (thousands of dollars). It was going to be a lot to put her and us through. She had lost over 25% of her skin, and wounds on her side, stomach, and thigh were extremely wide and deep. Bama also had extensive wounds on her legs and feet.

I did not make the decision out of guilt, although I felt plenty of it. As difficult as it would have been, if I believed the best thing would have been to euthanize Bama and end her suffering, I would have made that choice. I thought about how Bama managed to live those hours in that heat with those injuries. She had tried so hard to come to me when she heard my voice, despite her pain. The look on her face said, "You are finally here. I've been waiting."

It is incredible to think that a creature would love you so much that she would fight so hard to stay with you. I told the vet, “If she fought so hard to live, how can we do anything but fight with her? We will find a way.” Despite the fact that I had just lost my job, I knew what I said was true.

I am so proud of this little dog. In the blogs that follow, you will understand why. I believe that good will come from this tragedy. Her determination has already deeply affected my life. After 16 years of chronic pain from a car accident—often excruciating pain, I was ready to give up and go on disability rather than try to start over with a new job. But in my heart, like little Bama, I know that I have more to give. She has inspired me to try again.

Thanks for your good wishes for her recovery!