when good pets get ill
july 18, 2002
when my pet gets ill....i kind of fall apart. since i love my dog like i bore her myself, it's difficult when she gets out of sorts and is not herself. one of the stresses in the past couple of weeks compounding onto the ones i already have is the fact that my dog got ill. it's like the whole world came to a screeching halt and i wouldn't dare take a breath until she was well again. you know, when you're so afraid of a certain thing happening that you don't even want to exhale?
what started with a day of vomiting, lethargy and no appetite turned into nearly two weeks of weakness, diarrhea, more vomiting and listlessness. anyone who has a pet knows that when their pet is "normal", they could be barking, meowing, running, excited, happy, perky and so on. so it's a bit of a traumatic experience when you see them acting considerably different and wondering what's wrong. the really hard part of it is that we can't diagnose them like we can with people -- a headache, a tummyache, sore throat, cramps and so on. we can only guess by what we can see from visual cues and that normally makes it worse since we are so ill-equipped at veterinary knowledge.
for days, i didn't feed her a thing, nor did she want any. there were times when she couldn't even lift her head to drink water or look up. needless to say, her regular habits and such were nonexistent. even though the vet supplied me with medication and special dogfood, i couldn't help but consider another loss of a pet. it's no easy feat regardless of how many times one has been through it before. nights turned into days and upon waking every morning, i would find a heap of vomit by her bed. we all took turns watching her, never leaving her alone at home and more often than not, we carried her out to the yard to use the facilities because her wobbly legs due to weakness couldn't carry her too far from her bed.
the vet called it a number of things: gastritis, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome. whatever it is, i guess the main thing is that she's back to normal now. and now, i can kind of go back to where i left off....time to finally breathe again.
oooo...the 62nd annual nisei week in los angeles' little tokyo is coming on august 10th, 11th, 17th and 18th. my fave is to go during the first weekend of the street arts fair to see all their neat stuff since a lot of the vendors won't be there the second weekend. as customary, they have a ton of cool exhibits to peruse. check out their calendar for more events!
another event that goes hand in hand with the annual nisei week (in recent years that is) is the los angeles tofu festival also held in little tokyo during the first weekend of nisei week. i haven't been to this in a few years and i guess i ought to continue to stay away with all this soy allergies i have. :p damn, you know i be overloading on soy if i was there. it wouldn't be a pretty sight.
i'm currently reading fox girl, the latest book by nora okja keller, whom you may recall wrote comfort woman back in 1997. i haven't finished it yet but so far, it's a rather intense/troubled story about children of American GIs and Korean prostitutes. the story is centered around two girls, Sookie and Hyun Jin and it gives us a glimpse into the lives of those living and working in a place called America Town, a dwelling saturated with bars, sex, kept women, VD, abortions, pregnancies and of course biracial offsprings from these particular liaisons. although parts of it bother me, such as the brutal rape of one of the girls, there's something about it that makes me want to find out the end. like comfort woman, it's a very raw story that you have to be able to stomach. if you want to know more, read this interview with nora okja keller.
