EEK!

Spring is almost over and Summer will soon begin. Which for us New Englanders means snow isn’t too far away. Here’s an update on how I’m doing with my Spring Activity wish list

1. Ride my bike more. Fail. I still haven’t rode my bike at all. It’s hard because I go to combat class straight from work Mondays and Wednesdays, then I leave Goomba home Tuesday and Thursdays so I feel guilty when I get home to let him out just to put him right back in his crate while I go have fun. My only chance is the weekend and the few weekends Adam and I are home without plans I forget to bring it over. Must work on this one.

2. Hike more. Medium. I haven’t gone on any real “hikes” this season yet, but I have been walking a TON. I wake up 30 minutes earlier than I used to, take a 1.4 mile morning walk. Then I do one of two things - take a 1.8 mile walk around the farm at lunch time or another 1.4 mile walk when I get home in the evening. I try to do 2 a day of some combination and I’ve been very successful. I’ve come to enjoy my morning walks with the pup, it’s so quiet and cool in the mornings. It’s relaxing. I’ve also been going to class every Monday and Wednesday. No excuses.

3. Zip line. Fail. Still haven’t done it yet, BUT, I just learned my coworker has a zipline on the pond right next to his house. Why I didn’t even know he had a pond is beyond me. So I may get to zip line, even if it’s not the one I really want.

4. Camping. Not yet but it’s planned. Adam and I are camping at a brewery in August for a “Belgium comes to Cooperstown” festival.

5. Cook/eat more veggies. I’m definitely cooking more. Some of it veggies, but no huge veggie increase. We did however start the garden last week so I’m excited about those fresh veggies to come later.

6. Weekend trips. Making progress. I just got back from a week to DC (got in a visit with Kendra mainly but I saw my mom as well). A trip to SF/Monterey to see Megan is in the works. We do already have planned a weekend in NYC with her and Chad. A few other day trips around the area.

7. Top secret project: making huge progress.

8. Dancing in my underwear. I think I’ve been doing this. Definitely dancing in the shower which should count.

9. Goomba. Making major progress. As I mentioned before he’s been growing into some dog aggression issues as he enters adolescence and is trying to find his place in the order. The walks are helping tremendously. Just this morning we walked by a dog and Goomba didn’t bark or growl at all. I’m still scared to take him to a dogpark, but I feel like I can control him out in public so that’s step one. I also never go anywhere without his leash. I was just being irresponsible before which is why he thought he was in charge. Now he knows better.

10. Money. This wasn’t on the original list but it’s a recent development. Goomba’s surgery has made me open my eyes to how I spend my money and it’s not the greatest. Without sharing my personal details, I need to set a more reasonable/responsible budget, and stick with it. I also need to build my emergency savings and DON’T TOUCH THAT MONEY. I am doing great. I’ve changed my spending habits, am saving money, paying off my car, planning for vacations. I’m proud of myself.

So that’s what I’ve done so far this spring. Still to come I have:

• Work trip to Atlanta
• Visiting Dad while in Atlanta
• Cirque Du Soleil show in Boston
• Blueberry beer tasting party
• NYC trip
• Beer Buddies BBQ
• 4th of July party
• Southern NH beer festival
• VT Brewery festival
• Belgium comes to cooperstown camping beer festival
• Visit SF and Monterey
• Hampton Beach seafood festival

I’m happy to report that Goomba is 90% back. He’s using his leg although not completely. When he stops walking the back left leg will be out farther than usual, and sometimes he’ll be on the toes instead of on the full paw. the therapist had me lift Goomba’s back left leg (the one surgery was done on) and he offered it up no problem. Then I tried to lift the back right leg, not as easy. He was very reluctant to pick it up and put all his weight on the left leg. It’s hard to see in our every day life because he’s running, jumping, standing on the back two legs, all the normal things. But behind the scenes he’s using his left leg as little as possible. He’s still making GREAT progress and I can’t play chuck it with him yet but I think he’s been cleared for off leash walking with me on the farm - where there is nothing else in range so he won’t get distracted and run off. Judy (the therapist) gave me some exercises to do with him. Last time I saw her my job was to massage his leg and knee, I’ve been doing that and this time she gave me different tasks to do everyday in helping him recover.

1) Backwards walking. I’ll hold a treat at his chest and he’ll back up to try and get to it. This strengthens the rear legs, balance, coordination, and proprioception. 

2) Side steping. I’ll stand on one side of him facing him and walk slowly forcing him to side step. This needs to be done on both sides. this is for front and rear leg strengthening.

3) Three leg standing. I’ll simply get behind him while he’s standing and lift up the rear right leg forcing him to put his weight on his left. I have to make sure he keeps his head up and doesn’t lean forward. this improves weight bearing/strength.  Once he has that down we’ll do the cross leg standing where I lift the rear right leg AND the front left leg. This is more weight bearing, leg/core strength and balance.

4) Circles. Simply walk Goomba in a circle both cyclonically and anti-cyclonically (yes I really just said that). They need to be 12-15’ diameter circles. this is for weight bearing, spine ROM, and balance/coordination.

5) Uphill walking. Easy. We go uphill on our walks around the farm or town - plus I have stairs. To get the most out of this I must make him go slow with his head up. This improves spinal extension nad rear leg weight bearing/strength.

6) Loving on the couch. Easy. He stays on his back two legs and puts his front two legs on my lap or stair or chair. He does this all the time at work when he wants to sit on the chair with me. I just need to let him stand like this for some time and even better if I take a treat and make him shift left and right so he really uses both legs. This improves the rear leg weight bearing and strength, range of motion, and hip extension.

7) Tug of war - high. I don’t like playing tug of war with him because he’s just too darn strong and it’s not good for him to keep winning and think he has dominance over me. However, if we do play tug of war (maybe I will get Adam to help with this one) I should hold the toy high. This helps with rear limb strength.

So that’s what our evenings look like for the next 3 weeks until we visit Judy for the 3rd and last time. When dogs put their head down they are mainly using their front legs, that’s why a lot of these include watching his head to make sure it’s up so he’s using those back two legs and not only the front ones. Hopefully by the end of next month he’ll be 100% back to normal. He’s almost there and doesn’t seem to have any pain at all, so I’d say he’d doing GREAT. I’m glad this is all over and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure the right leg doesn’t luxate and need surgery later. No way do I want to do this again.

Today is the first day of Spring and man do I have spring fever! I spent the majority of the day staring out my window at work wishing I was outside riding my bike (don’t tell my boss). Sunday I packed away all my sweaters and brought out all my spring and summer clothing, which obviously means a fashion show was had and a donation pile was made. Twice a year I pack/unpack my clothes for whatever season is ending/starting and in the process I try everything on. This has two reasons: 1) It’s fun and I like having a fashion show for myself remembering all the clothes I now get to wear and it gets me even MORE into the upcoming season, 2) I see clothes that I forgot I had. If I didn’t wear it last season and I still have it then it goes into a trash bag and donated to the Upper Valley Haven. 

Now that the weather is nice and it doesn’t get dark before 5 pm, it makes me want to get up and do things. Which is great! I’ve been feeling really fat lately (no….I’m not calling myself fat relax….I’ve just been feeling sluggish) so I’m excited to get outside and be active. I’m getting back on track with my gym schedule and since it’s light when I get home I have time to hit the gym AND take Goomba on a decent walk in the evening. PLUS, it’s not below freezing when I wake up anymore so I can take Goomba on morning walks. PLUS, there’s a 1.5 mile loop I do around the farm at work when I need a break from sitting in front of my computer. 

These are the goals/plans I have for myself this Spring/Summer (in no order):

1. Ride my bike more. My bike isn’t the greatest - but it was given to me by a friend when he moved. I can ride to the rail trail from my house and it’s a great path relatively smooth and flat and shaded (for those of us who burn quickly). I’d also like to work on Goomba’s leash skills so maybe I can take him with me on the bike.

2. Hike more. I go back and forth on if I like hiking or not. I like I like it if it’s only a couple hours, not so much if it’s a full day activity. I’d like to find interesting dog friendly hikes in the NH/VT area and maybe have a few picnics. Okay, maybe that is a full day’s worth of activity.

3. Zip line canopy tours! You can’t tell me that doesn’t look like fun. I need to find someone to go with though. Maybe my sister will come visit me again. :)

4. I’d like to go camping more. I’ve only ever been car camping, never the kind of camping where you carry on your back everything you need, but I don’t do it a lot. I can rent a tent from Dartmouth Outing club and just drive somewhere (somewhere much better than Mollidgewock), set up camp, go on a hike, maybe jump in a river, make a fire, make some hotdogs, drink beer and make smores all night. Yes I’d like that.

5. Cook/eat more veggies! Adam and I planted some seeds in pods to keep indoors until it’s time to plant outside in late May. It’s hard in this area because the season is so short, we have to plant so late and then it seems just as everything is ready to harvest the freezing temperatures come back. Last year was a major gardening failure. The garden at Adam’s didn’t do well AT ALL because the soil was horrible. There were rocks everywhere and while planting seeds I was literally digging in rock hard mud (almost like clay). No wonder nothing grew. I also planted seeds at the garden at work and then everyone quit and I was left along to run EAPC so there was no time to work on the garden. This year will be different. This year Adam’s landlord is going to get REAL soil and make a raised garden even higher so things have a chance to grow. At work I have 2 coworkers: 1 very into helping with the garden and 1 very into an excuse to go outside for a break. As long as we take a step back and don’t make the EAPC garden as big as in the past then it will be manageable. It’s fun growing your own food. One year I made pumpkin pie with pumpkins I grew myself!

6. Take more weekend trips.

       a. Portland, Maine

       b. Portsmouth, NH (this one probably just a day trip)

       c. San Fran/Monterey in August to go to a Giants game and also visit my bff Megan.

       d. Seattle, WA. I need to find time to make it to Seattle to see my sister.

       e. Fairfax, VA. I want to go home to DC and see my mom and bff Kendra for a weekend.

7. I’ve been working on a top secret project (which a select few of you know) which I want to finish. I thought it’d be a great present but it turns out I bit off more than I could chew and I’m having an extremely hard time finishing it. Which will just make it that much more awesome once it gets done. Must find time and make myself jump back in.

8. Dance in my underwear. Okay, TMI, I know. Sorry. One of my favorite things I’ve done since moving here is come home from work and just put on some music for the evening. Solo dance parties are the best way to unwind and forget about a hard day’s work.

9. Goomba. I know Goomba was included in some of these things, but I really want to work on his behavior problems. He’s great for the most part but we have some things to work on like on-leash walking, jumping on people, focusing his attention, dog aggression, and sharing the bed.

I’m sure I forgot some things, but that’s a pretty good start. What do you want to do this Spring and Summer?

Oh man what a hard two weeks! As you know, I came home on day 2 and found Goomba had chewed out his top two stitches.

I immediately went to the vet to get him the cone.

Which caused him to spend his days like this:

I felt miserable. I skipped going to the gym or doing anything after work because I felt so bad that I wanted to rush home and let Goomba spend a few hours out of the crate and with no cone on. It wasn’t too bad. Occasionally he’d drop a toy in my lap but I added to the bin on the counter so he couldn’t reach it.He couldn’t (or wasn’t supposed to) go up or down stairs so I took a towel and put it under his belly to help lift him while going up the stairs. He freaked out and ended up running up the stairs which caused me to freak out and run after him trying to keep up. I’m sure this was way worse then him just walking up himself. So I sucked it up and carried my 60 pound puppy for two week. He finally gave in and realized he was not going to get his way. He got a little more accepting of his cone and learned how to deal with it.

And his hair started growing back.

I had two pain killers to give him twice a day. One of which he ate fine, the other I have to shove down his throat or coat in peanut butter. In some weird way I found I was sleeping better than ever. I blame the cone. Goomba couldn’t fit on the bed and he didn’t want to move as much. I was waking up refreshed and it was awesome!

Day 8: I must have put the cone on wrong because Goomba was able to take it half off and crew on it.

From then on I made sure to put the cone on without the leash so I could keep the chewed up section at the top and therefore not irritate him.

Today - Day 14: REMOVAL OF THE STITCHES! We went in today for our therapy session and to get the stitches removed. Therapy was awesome. The woman was really sweet and Goomba felt very safe with her. She massaged his leg, moved it around to see it’s range of motion, and gave him some laser treatment to help healing. She said she was very impressed with his progress and he’s looking great. The vet tech came in and snipped the stitches out and gave him a shot of adequan to help. I get three PT sessions with the surgery so we made an appointment for session number 2 in 3 weeks.

Here are some pictures of how he’s healing:

And the funny way he stands while gradually putting weight on his foot:

In the coming weeks I will slowly start to take Goomba on walks again. Only 5 minutes at first then gradually adding a minute every day until in about 4 weeks he should be fully healed and ready to run around off leash again! Yay!!!

That’s the status update on my love bug. Happy to say all things are going according to plan, if not BETTER! Because my dog is A BEAST!

I went home for lunch to check on Goomba because I was worried about my furball. Rightfully so. I checked his stitches, the area seems a little red - not a good sign. He laid down and I ate my lunch watching him. He started licking his stitches and I told him to stop, which he did. When I’m home he licks them once every few hours, I tell him to leave it, and he does. But when I’m at work I can’t tell him to stop so I decided I needed to get him the cone for when I’m not around. We scurried over to the vet. He checked Goomba out and said the stitches were still okay. He chewed the top one out but those are just for reinforcement so it’s not a big deal. He gave me the cone and I looked like a deer in headlights. I don’t know how to put this thing on. We went home and then I tried to figure this thing out. It wasn’t too hard, but Goomba did not like it and kept running away from me. I finally got it on, Goomba pawed it right over his head. Okay, good thing there are three sizes, I’ll just make it tighter putting it on the smallest loop. He stood there not moving. When he finally moved all he did was try to get it off or get away from it. I felt soooo bad because he does no like it at all!!! But without it he’d continue to lick and chew at his stitches and tear them out. We can’t have that. I put him back in his crate and headed back to work. Hopefully when I return home it’s still on and he’s given up trying to take it off. Poor Goober.

GOOMBA IS HOME!!! What a stressful 24 hours. I dropped him off yesterday morning around 8 am and he cried the whole time. He just stood there crying while I walked away. I suddenly understand why it’s so hard for mom’s to leave their kids at daycare. I was told that they’d call me when it was over and Goomba woke up, around lunch time. I got a call at 11:30 and asked, IS HE AWAKE?? She told me that he was doing great but was just put on the table and they were just getting started. But the doctor would call again afterwards, around 2. No call. It took me until 4 to call them and ask what was going on. She said that the doctor was busy but she was able to get information from him saying that the surgery went great and Goomba is recovering. The receptionist told me Goomba was groggy, but at least that meant he was waking up! The doctor would call me when he was available. He never called. At least I knew Goomba was alright so I wasn’t too worried, but kind of peeved that I never got a call back.

Last night was weird not having Goomba. It was so quiet and still. I thought I’d sleep better being uninterrupted, turns out I slept worse! This morning I had a call from the vet saying she owed me a huge apology and she is soooo sorry but they got my number mixed up, which is why I hadn’t heard from them. Goomba was doing great, awake and alert, standing and ready for discharge. I left work at 4 to pick up my furry bundle of joy.

I waited on the other side of the door anxiously waiting for the doctor to bring him out. First she came and talked to me without Goomba. We went over a few things to do and what to expect. There are two different pills he needs twice a day, give him small amounts of water and food at a time, STRICT restriction - only outside to go to the bathroom, which he will pee frequently due to the meds and he won’t defecate for a days due to the lack of food and not being able to position himself with a lame leg. On the plus side, he’s already putting his toes on the ground. No weight, but the toes are touching.

I picked him up to get in the car, then I picked him up when we got home. Naturally he defecated immediately. Guess that won’t be a problem. I sat on the ground for a few minutes and then he wanted on the couch. I picked him up again and plopped him down in his spot. He hasn’t moved since. When we go to bed I’ll have to carry him up the stairs, same thing in the morning once we wake up. Never before have I wished I lived in a one story apartment - ground level. Why are there so many stairs everywhere?

The question everyone wants to know: does he have to wear a collar? No. Not yet anyways. He’s not licking the stitches or area, so if he leaves that area alone, he will not need the collar. Below are pictures of his wound. I’ll write another update in a week.

I booked Goomba for surgery tomorrow, and I’m already getting teary-eyed. I saw a third vet last week and spend the weekend thinking things over and making a decision: Goomba needs the surgery. It was very hard for me but several factors were involved.

1) Weight. Goomba weighs more than typical breeds with a luxating patella. This means that when he using his leg, instead of putting 5 pounds on it, he’s putting 60! That’s a lot of weight on a bum knee.

2) He’s young and active and wants to stay that way. Avoiding surgery means limiting Goomba’s activity level. We all know no matter how hard I try, that’s not going to happen. He has several years of running left in him and I’d like him to be able to continue in his lifestyle.

3) It’s getting worse. It’s happening more often and not only is his leg going limp for a minute, but he’s walking/running funny keeping the leg turned outside. Even going for a walk this evening whenever we stopped walking for a second he lifted his leg.

4) Goomba got in a dogfight at the park yesterday. This one is a new addition and I’m not sure if it really goes here. I think there were several factors involved, some Goomba’s fault, some not. One of them I believe is because his has a bad knee. If he was hit or pushed, or even if he did it himself or just happened naturally, and his knee moved causing his leg to be immobile, he may have shot into defensive mode. If you were limping and someone kicked your leg wouldn’t you want to punch them? Again, I’m not sure if this fight is related to his knee, but it’s certainly a problem and if fixing his knee could help his aggression, that’d be a huge plus.

So this morning I called the vet saying yes I’d like to move forward with the surgery. I figured I’d call and see when they had a date available. Hopefully this week but let’s just see how it goes. She replied, “Tomorrow is surgery day.” ugh. I was not expecting it to be that soon, but we might as well rip the band aid off ASAP.

This evening I took Goomba to the vet to get pre-op stuff done. They took some blood and then shaved his neck to put on a pain killer patch. It takes 12 hours to kick in so they put it on the night before. He was such a good boy. It broke my heart to watch how scared it was and have him jump up in my lap as soon as they weren’t holding him.

What hit me the most is when they said they’d prefer if I didn’t bring his blanket. I asked thinking it was an obvious answer (yes) so that the dog can have my smell around and feel comforted and not so scared. They said they often lose things in the wash and he’ll be so drugged up that he won’t even know if/what is there. It’s one thing if they won’t want me to bring any belongings, but the thought that he’ll be so drugged up he won’t know what’s going on and there’s nothing I can do. I can’t comfort him or tell him what’s going on, that’s the part that pulls on my heart.

Everyone send us well wishes. Also, I just found out today I have to pay the full amount upfront so I guess I’m living off ramen for the next month. Please send me food.

Monday morning Goomba and I went to SAVES to get a second opinion/quote on Goomba’s knee. I left the vet after our last visit totally confused and lost. I read conflicting view points online from what the doctor was telling me and when I tried to ask questions my vet basically just say, those don’t work he needs surgery. And that was that. Based on what I knew, I couldn’t justify spending $1,300 and putting Goomba through a surgery with a hard recovery when he didn’t seem to need it.

I asked SAVES on their facebook and they replied invited me over for a free consultation and second opinion. Dr. Kelly won me over. He agreed with my original vet in that yes Goomba does need the surgery now, but he did a great job explaining everything to be better. I knew what was wrong with Goomba’s knee, but Dr. Kelly told me exactly what he’d do in the surgery (deepen his groove to hold the knee and also something else about folding over the tissue and tightening the slack so he has less leeway to move around). Walking in I thought that since Goomba only has stage I, I’d likely buy supplements and watch to see if it gets worse. That’s what most people do and suggested I do. Instead of telling me that’s a bad option, Dr. Kelly explained to me WHY Goomba is a different case.

Luxating Patella is more commonly found in smaller toy breeds. These dogs are about 5 pounds and spend their days roaming around the house and sitting in a lap. If you’ve ever met Goomba, you know he’s the exact opposite. He’s pretty slim for a boxer, but he’s still 57.5 pounds. He comes to work with me on a farm and therefore has a VERY active lifestyle. Goomba does not want to lay around the house all day, he wants to run full speed and chase things (even if it’s just a leaf blowing across the yard). Also, he’s fairly young, only 1.5 years. All of these provide an added reason to get the surgery. If Goomba were older, then just let him live out the rest of his life. If Goomba weighed less and/or was less active, then monitor his use of it and don’t let him put a bunch of weight on his back legs a lot.

The fact of the matter is Goomba is a big (relatively) active dog, and neither of us plan on changing that. If Goomba were to continue being 57.5 pounds and run around all day, this WILL get worse, he WILL get arthritis (which apparently he already has at microscopic levels), he WILL get lameness, and he WILL need surgery. By that point the surgery will cost more because it’s more intrusive and it’s been causing damage to Goomba’s health that whole period.

Dr. Kelly took me on a short tour of the facility, showed me the OR, the recovering pen and kennel. There’s a really nice padded pen for him to lay in a few hours after the surgery. We talked about the process and how I’d bring Goomba in the day before to get a patch on his neck to help with the pain of surgery, he could stay there and spend the night at home with me, bring him back early in the morning, get the surgery, spend the night, then I can take him home the next day. When I pick him up I’ll meet with a rehabilitation/physical therapist who will teach me what I can do at home to help. He will meet with once before I take him home, once when I return to get the stitches taken out, and one more time for a total of three visits.

SAVES did a great job of making me feel like this is the right thing to do, they will take every measure to make this easier for me and Goomba, and it’s worth the price. It’s more expensive then the quote from my vet (just shy of $2,000!) but I feel like I’m really getting that much more. You can’t put a price on ease of mind of “the feeling”.

I have one last consultation tomorrow morning at a vet near my work. Unless it’s drastic like she says there’s no way he should get surgery or their facility just BLOWS ME AWAY, then Monday morning I will make my decision and likely call SAVES to schedule the date. It will be hard to keep him inactive for 2 months while recovering, but it sounds to me like this is the best option. Surgery is inevitable if we want to keep our current lifestyle so I should do it sooner rather than later.

Watch for my update and decision on Monday.

I’m sad to say that Goomba has a luxating patella. I noticed a few months ago when we play fetch that half way through his run, Goomba would stop and lift up his back left leg not putting weight on it. After a few minutes he’d start running full speed on all fours acting like nothing ever happened. I made a mental note and went on life. At first it was once every few months, but then it started happening once a week or two. I called the vet to ask if this was something serious and I needed to come in. He was due in for a check up and a few annual shots so we made an appointment the following week. The doctor felt Goomba’s leg and pulled it in weird directions, never did Goomba yelp in pain or act like anything was wrong. He couldn’t tell that anything was wrong until we got x-rays, but you need to put dogs under for that so we shouldn’t do it until he was going down for another reason.

Monday it happened again. I posted online about it and some people told me it sounded like a luxating patella. I did a ton of research and agreed, that sounds exactly what Goomba has. Based on the internet, I determined that he was only at stage 1 (out of 4), meaning that the knee cap (oops! Did I forget to say what luxating patella is? Basically Goomba has a trick knee that keeps popping out of place) pops out but it pops back in on it’s own only after a matter of minutes. Stage 4 would be if the knee cap popped out and didn’t go back in for days (meaning he would drag around his leg not using it) and it’d have to get pushed back in. That’s a good start. Hopefully catching this early on can help me figure out what to do in order to avoid surgery. Most people said that surgery wasn’t recommended until stage 3 (or maybe 2). People also suggested a daily supplement to help with the joint. I didn’t freak out because I thought this is something that I’m pretty sure Goomba has but there are solutions. I emailed the vet saying I think my dog has a luxating patella, is this serious? Should I come in ASAP or should we revisit this on my next check up in a few months? The vet called back and we schedule an appointment for Wednesday morning.

Wednesday morning. Went to the vet. Sure enough it’s a luxating patella. The vet popped the knee cap out and back in and I got to see and feel it to better understand what was going on. We spent the next few minutes talking about what this means and what’s net. The vet immediately said that surgery will be needed next. I asked if surgery was needed if he’s at such an early stage and not even showing signs of pain but the vet’s reply was that since he’s so young it’s very likely that this will get worse and besides causing pain and lameness in his leg, he could develop arthritis. Also if it gets worse and he ends up needing the surgery the price will increase as well. I asked about supplements or anything I can do at home to help stop or slow the process and he said there was nothing and all of that was useless. Next question? Price. I got the quote by the time I got to work. $1,250, plus x-rays. Honestly I was expecting a little more so I’m not too blown away, but it’s still a lot of money that I do not have available to hand over at the moment.

I have no idea what to do. I want to get the surgery but that’s a lot of money to fork over to an unexpected expense and it’s hard to rationalize putting him in pain (2 week to 2 month recovery with limited movement to let the stitches heel) when he’s showing no signs of pain at this moment. I want to put it on hold and get joint supplements and see what happens but I don’t want it to get worse and eventually need surgery anyways and by that point it’s more expensive or he IS in pain or starts to get arthritis.

I’m looking for advice. What would you do if it were your dog? What do you think I should do? I want to do what’s best for Goomba, not me, but between getting a surgery not necessarily needed yet or risking this getting worse I don’t know what that is.

Religion is a very personal thing. I’m not going to preach my religion in this post, but rather I will share my opinion on religion in general. I’m Catholic. Both my parents grew up in very Catholic families (which explains why my mom is the oldest of 7 and my dad is the youngest of 8). I went to church every Sunday (okay at some point we started going Saturday evenings instead of Sunday mornings) until I left for college. Up until confirmation (8^th grade) I went to RE (religious education) one night a week. That’s about 3 hours of church activities every week. I thought this was normal and a lot of kids at my school were also in the classes. My mom started teaching some of the classes as well as Sunday school. I had my baptism, first communion, and confirmation all in St. Marks Church. Sometimes I think about getting married in that church because I will always refer to “my church” as St. Marks in Vienna, VA. The problem with this is that I would never force my soon to be husband into a religion. If he has to convert in order to get married in my Catholic church, then forget it. The worst part about being Catholic is all the judgment. Just being I’m Catholic doesn’t mean I’m going to shove it down your throat and honestly I think those people who act like that are giving Catholicism a bad name. I’m embarrassed to be associated with them because I don’t believe that’s what Catholics or any religion is about. When I said it’s such a personal matter, I mean that because it’s an internal struggle. I don’t care what anyone else believes in (as long as they are not hurting me). If you don’t believe in God, cool. What do you believe in? I’m interested to know. Maybe it’s nothing, that’s cool too. Whatever works for you. I say struggle because it’s something I’ve struggled with myself for many years. I wouldn’t say Catholicism was forced on me, because I never rebelled against it. It was such a strong part of my life that when I got to college I took a break. What college kid wants to go to mass every Sunday? I still went to Easter and Christmas. Once I was out of college and moved to NH I decided I missed it and wanted to start going again. I still don’t go every week, in fact I spend most of my weekends at my boyfriend’s cabin so I hardly go anymore. But that doesn’t mean I’ve lost my faith. I get very offended when people think that just because I’m currently not going to church means I am not religious. You don’t know my background; you don’t know what goes on in my head. I still talk to God constantly; I don’t have to be in a specific location to do that.

When my stepdad died it was very hard for me. I prayed and prayed and prayed and didn’t understand why he was still taken from us. People told me the standard, “it was his time” and “he’s in a better place” but I knew they were full of bullshit and I didn’t believe a word they said. It wasn’t his time, and as a result I stopped believing because I didn’t understand how God could do that to me and my family. So obviously he must not exist. The next 6 months were difficult but I finally realized how angry I was at God and if I was angry at him then I must believe in him. I’ve slowly rebuilt my internal religion and connection. I still pray, although there will always be a piece of me that thinks praying is useless as it didn’t work when I needed it the most. Now when I pray I’m asking for direction and help to restore my faith.

I don’t talk about this stuff a lot because it makes me sad and as stated above: it’s personal. I’m still lost, but I like believing in something because it makes me feel good to think that there’s something bigger out there. Whether it’s true or not who knows, but it makes me feel better in the present. I don’t know if there’s a heaven or a hell. I don’t believe in hell because I think God forgives everyone (that is my number one rule for my religion). Who knows if there’s a heaven or what happens after someone dies, but it comforts me to know that my stepdad and everyone else I’ve lost is up there watching me. They can see my achievements and when I talk to them they hear me. It comforts me to think that I haven’t lost them forever, so why debate me on this topic? I’m not hurting anyone else in believing in this, so let me be. Don’t judge me when I say I’m religious and you don’t believe me because you’ve never seen me to go church – it’s personal and that’s why you don’t know my connection.

I leave you with a story. I went to a fair 2 years ago with two friends (who are now married, yay!) and there was a sign saying “The beer test!” Okay, I’ll bite, what’s the beer test I asked? The woman asked me to name 10 beers. Okay, my friends and I named 10 beers. Then she said, “now can you name the 10 commandments”. I replied with, “yeah….I can” and then proceeded to name them. She should have then given up, but she kept going and finally I just walked away. Just because I like beer doesn’t mean I don’t believe in God. You can be both. It’s people like her who I’m embarrassed for and I believe don’t understand the real meaning.

I am Catholic. I like beer. I don’t believe in hell. I like praying to a higher power even though it doesn’t always work. I’ve had sex before marriage and use contraception. When loved ones die I find comfort in believing they are still with me and watching me. I have gay friends. I’m not preaching how to live to others because I believe that being Catholic means living life as best I can and being a good person, not judging others for living differently or trying to convert others because they are living life “wrong”.

Religion is person and an internal matter and everyone is different. Everyone stop judging.