April 25, 2013
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Surgical Replacements
Annie and I went to her private class last night.
I walked in with my dog lunging and pulling against her leash to reach the counters with all of the smell-good things (our classes are in PetSmart) and confessed to my trainer that–best of intentions aside–I really haven’t done anything to advance Annie’s training since the last time we met because my knee hurts and I can barely walk and it’s hard to walk and active, poorly-trained, jerking, yanking, lunging dog when only one of your legs is reliable (and that is the ‘good’ leg, mostly in comparison to the bad one. It has its own moments.)
Our trainer has the patience of Job. I’m sure she was not all that impressed with me, but she smiled, put up a good front, and offered to work with Annie and a new trainee trainer. And as they walked out of the trainer center with my dog, I heard words that made my heart feel better: she said to the trainee trainer, “this is how a normal dog behaves.”
Annie is a normal dog.
I need to remember that: I tend to focus too strongly on her faults, anticipating problems even in places where there may not be any. In the hands of a trainee trainer and an experienced trainer, our Annie walked up to a strange dog, sat down and had a treat without so much as flickering her attention toward the alien. I can be done.
We’ll know soon enough if Cheryl can pass the test: our group class begins (again) next Wednesday.
Intermediate obedience.
I am busy applying heat and healing ointments to my leg so I can actually participate in Annie’s class. (What is wrong with my knee? It‘s not aging well. I even take glucosamine chondroitin by the bottle, but I have asked an awful lot of this particular joint and it’s slowly falling apart.)
Did you mention your knee to your doctor? My Beloved asked.
I had just returned from my annual physical. No, I said.
She gets that WTF? expression on her face and said, ‘Bertha’. Naming the wrong grandmother, but hey. My grandmother (Lucille) put concealer on the spot on her face she had identified as skin cancer whenever she went to the doctor. She diagnosed herself as diabetic and counteracted her disease by avoiding sugar for years until she nearly passed out in his office from hypoglycemia. She was the grandmother who would pressed her lips and shudder, inhaling through her teeth, whenever she had to move her leg because her repair on her broken hip ‘moved around in there’. She wore a bandage on her leg because it ‘seeps’. I said, “you have an infection in the bone and seeps through your skin?” and she agreed. She went to the doctor. When I saw her the next time, I asked her what he said about her leg and she said, “I never mentioned it.” And I said (lovingly) to her, “Then die from the damned thing, if that’s what you want, but don’t you ever whimper to me about the pain again.” (She went back to the doctor.) Yeah. That grandmother.
my doctor x-rayed my knee, showed me the x-rays and said, “You have moderate arthritis. As you know, the surgeon won’t do a knee replacement for someone of your size…”
It may be a while before I mention my knee to my doctor again. So far I can hobble along on it. Last fall my partner had her hip replaced. Nancy is strong. Nancy is stubborn. Nancy hates being helpless and she eschews weakness of any kind.
I suspect I’ll hang in there until my knee hurts as much as it is as it would if they sawed it open, wrenched out the old joint and stuck in a new one before I seriously consider joint replacement.
It’s possible that attitude is hereditary.
