An appeal for baby Ty

A young couple near where we live both work at Lowe's.  Their baby was born in August, but has had some serious health problems and been hospitalized for weeks.  The family has posted a GoFundMe to raise money for the insurance deductable.  I know that things are tight for lots of folks, and people in the mountains are hurting from the hurricane, but they're a young couple just starting out - not making a lot of money - and their baby is really, really ill.

Help baby Ty.

Help

Not for me, but for Big Country's lovely wife Gretchen.  She's been diagnosed with cancer and any change you can toss her way for medical bills would be greatly appreciated. 

I'm late to this and most of you read the other blogs like Divemedica and BC himself, but Gretchen is super nice and way too young to be going through this.

Our institutions are being run by the insane

The Catholic Church has more compassion for suicide victims than Science Fiction fandom does.  Guess why this is. 

Really, there is Church doctrine that backs this up.  The Asperger's types running modern intellectual organizations have yet to progress to this same level of enlightenment.

And it didn't use to be this way.  The Left was a powerful force in intellectual circles; so powerful, in fact, that they would kick intellectual sand in the faces of today's intellectual left.

You have to wonder how these people became so emotionally impoverished to do this.  You also have to wonder if they are proud of what they did.  Clearly, they do not listen to the great, old time Country Music. 

Go read both of the top links.  We are being ruled by intellectual and moral midgets.

This week has been living in the Valley of the Shadow of Death

Monday was Mom's funeral, delayed by Covid and family illnesses.  She's now with Dad for Eternety.

Yesterday and the day before it was cleaning out younger brother's (formerly Mom's) house.  He was a complicated guy, and the drugs were a part of that.  It seems that he was a fan of nitrous oxide.m  We disposed of all of that, so the house is straighter and cleaner than it's been for years.  But for both those days I was surrounded by ghosts.

Now I'm flying home, on the one-month anniversary of the day we had to put Wolfgang down.  It sure would be nice to have one of his greetings when I get there but the best I can hope for is his ghost.

I've had quite enough of death this week, thank you very much.  Would not recommend.

At Mom's funeral

It's been 2 years and 8 months since she passed on, but Covid threw a monkey wrench into having the ceremony.  But now the clan has gathered and she will finally join Dad today.

Blogging has been light since travel is a pain in the keister. 

We see ourselves reflected in our dog's eyes ...

... not as we are, but as we would like to be.  Wolfgang is most noticeable by his absence - no greeting at the door when I come home, no canine friend sleeping in his usual spot, no morning greeting when I wake up, no goodnight dog biscuits.

What's worst of all is in the mirror, all I see is me as I am.  It sure was better with him.

 

All of Man's virtues, with none of his vices

If Ike wants a friend in Washington, he should get a dog.

- Harry Truman, on Eisenhauer's 1953 Inauguration

It was 2012.  I was done with the Atlanta-Austin shuttle.  What I found was that my family liked me being away from home all the time, as long as the paycheck cleared.  My soon-to-be-ex was increasingly angry and dismissive; my two surly teenage sons were, well, increasingly surly.

And so I channeled my inner Ike and got a dog.  I wanted something that I knew would love me, without asking for anything in return (except for love and kindness, that is).  This was Wolfgang's introduction to this blog.

I didn't know just what an extraordinary friend I had brought into the house.  I did a better job socializing and training him than I had on my old German Shepherd, Jack.  30 years of me growing up helped a lot there.  But Wolfgang was something special.  He loved going to the dog park (morning and evening) which I never did with Jack, and so he became comfortable and social around all the other dogs.  I took Wolfgang on walks in the woods, like I had with Jack.  But as Wolfgang grew, so did his personality.  He had a gusto for life when it was him and me spending time together.  I was his Dad, but he was my friend and companion.

My marriage augured into the ground, and I met The Queen Of The World.  Wolfgang discovered what I was learning, that she was extraordinarily caring.  She made sure his food and water dishes were clean and full.  She gave him a bed (a folded up blanket, but it was his place) which he had never had before.  She gave him his first stuffed toy, which we called his "baby".  He'd never had one before.  I was his Dad, and did things with him.  She quickly became his Mom, and did things for him.  Wolfgang loved her immediately.  

He loved her even when she took his baby and put it in the washing machine.  He lost his mind - it was HIS baby!  He relaxed when she took it out of the washer, and then lost his mind all over again when she put it in the dryer.  But The Queen Of The World made sure he had his own bed to sleep on, and his baby to sleep with him.

Pretty soon she replaced the blanket with an actual bed for him.

She was a great Mom for him.  She got him his first Frisbee.  I threw tennis balls for him to chase, and she noticed that he would catch them when I lobbed them to him.  So she got soft Frisbees and he took to that like a duck takes to water.  He would get huge hang time jumping for them - it was like a shark hitting a tuna.  The Frisbee in the photo below is at least seven feet off the ground.  We met most of the folks in the neighborhood because everyone noticed the big, good looking dog carrying the Frisbee.  The neighborhood kids in particular all wanted to throw it for him.  Wolfgang quickly learned that kids just wanted to play with him.  He loved kids, and they loved him.  The neighborhood Moms all relaxed when they watched everyone having fun with the big Frisbee dog.

Unlike Jack, he also loved being around other dogs.  He would play at the dog park, and was always good about sharing his Frisbee.  I've never seen a dog get along with other dogs as well as he did.

The Queen got him a raincoat, because I would take him out, rain or shine.  She called him the "Morton Salt dog".

You see, we'd go look for deer lurking around Castle Borepatch and sometimes it rained.  Sometimes it didn't.  Whichever, we had our time together every day.

The Queen Of The World and he had time together every day, too.  Christmas was always special, because she filled his stocking to overflowing.  He always got excited when she hung his stocking with ours.  He knew she was taking care of him, in a way he hadn't ever had before.

The move to Florida was good for him, as it was to us.  His back and hips were going bad, and he didn't have cold and snow to deal with, or stairs to navigate.  And while there weren't many deer, there were a lot of cows.  He loved saying hello to the cows.

But time and tide wait for no man, or dog.  His back became nothing but arthritis, and the sockets of his hips were jagged bone.  It got harder and harder for him to walk.  If you look closely in the next picture, you can see that he couldn't quite get his back end all the way up, and his back legs are tangled up.  He'd fall and have trouble getting up.  That was two months ago, and it continued getting worse.

One night he fell and had to pull himself with his front legs to where he could stand up.  You could see the pain in his eyes, and while he never used to whine that became more common.  And so we spoiled him, and made the call to the vet.  The first picture of him is at the top of the post; this is the last photo I took of him.

The Queen Of The World made him chicken and rice, and he ate a huge lunch yesterday, and loved every bit of it.  We gave him Frosty Paws which we'd stopped because it upset his digestive system.  But all rules were suspended yesterday.  And then we went to the vet.

Yesterday was a bad day.  He gave us what I had hoped for when I got him - unconditional, devoted love.  The Queen Of The World and I returned that to him - we used to say that he was our child.  We would give him morning family hugs and tell him "I love you".  Soon he was saying it back to us: Ooo OOOOO ooo.  He would match the word length and tone perfectly.

But of course, he wasn't our child, he was our dog.  Rather than three score and ten, we had him for a decade and one.  We are now constantly reminded of him by his absence, where he should be waiting for us but is not.  Yesterday morning was the hardest; rather than him eager to see me get out of bed, it was silence.  I'm sort of wrecked, losing someone like that.  I am sure glad that I have The Queen Of The World with me.  

Wolfgang was hands down the best dog we've ever had.  He was so friendly with both people and dogs, so smart and easy to train, so well behaved, and so damned handsome that everyone in the neighborhood is sad, too.  He truly earned the words from Epitaph to a Dog:

Near this spot rests one who had
Beauty without Vanity;
Strength without Insolence:
Courage without Ferocity;
and all Man's Virtues with none of his vices.

This has been a long post, but it's his due.  I sure would rather not have the occasion to write it.  The Queen and I will never see his like again.

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.

- Will Rogers

Ave atque vale, Wolfgang.  I sure miss you.

Today is Wolfgang's last day

He can't walk without help.  It's time.

Blogging will be sparse since The Queen Of The World and I are busy spoiling him. 

UPDATE 27 MARCH 2023 20:35: More tomorrow, but he was such a friendly dog.

Liminal Space

 Liminal space is a word and a concept I ran across a couple of years ago. When I understood what it was I realized that there were times in my life when I had experienced liminal space and had no words or framework to process the experience.

In some ways, liminal space can refer to a place and how we experience it. It can also refer to a time period and life experience. It is time outside of time.

The death of someone close can push a person into a place where time feels stopped, where even if you are required by situation and events to function normally in an exterior way, it seems that life is on hold. Memories arise of times and events long past. The colors of ordinary life fade.

In the Bible, it is the retreat into the desert. The 40 days, a symbolic number in the Old Testament, not an exact count of days and nights. A time apart from the ordinary flow of life.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion is a modern example of the experience. Ms. Didion's book chronicles her grief following the sudden death of her husband. The suspended time of weeks and months where she thinks irrational thoughts and hopes, awash in memory, wanting to bring him back. The time fades slowly back to normal as she processes the loss and begins to resume her life.

My own experiences with this phenomena is not to fight it or try to move past it. Give it the time and respect it deserves. Look deeply at the loss, your grief, the regrets and guilt you feel. Take the time and space you need.

Decades ago, in what I see as my first adult experience with liminal space, the Catholic church in the town  I lived in was an old, very small, building and it remained unlocked. You could go in day or night. Attending service there was a completely different experience to being there alone. The silence and sense of timelessness was nearly overwhelming. I carried a camera with me once and here is one of the pictures I took trying to capture it on film.

I share this, not to focus on my losses, but to offer my thoughts and condolences to Borepatch. As he mourns his brother and faces the loss of Wolfgang in the coming days, I ask you all to keep him in your thoughts, whatever that might mean to you.

"Honor the space between no longer and not yet."

--Nancy Levin

Thank you, everyone

Thank you everyone who left a comment, or sent an email about Wolfgang.  And a special shout-out to Big Country who called to cheer me up.  As you can imagine I've been fairly wrung out, but thanks, bro.

The Queen Of The World and I are determined not to let him suffer.  He's not at that point yet (thank goodness) and so we're focusing on pain management and quality of life.

But many thanks, everybody. 

The Wolfgang Chronicles - III

"If you think this is the time, I'll support that decision."

His vet said that today.  Crap.

I took this picture seven years ago today, when we got three feet of snow in Maryland.  He made a trail through the snow for The Queen Of The World, and loved every minute.

Today when the vet said those words, TQOTW cried.  She's not ready for this.  I'm not ready for this.  How could you be?

Wolfgang's back legs get tangled up when he walks.  Sometimes he falls.  It's hard for him to stand up a lot of the time.  But his mind is clear, and he wants to play with his doggie friends.  The other day at the local dog park when one of his friends was chasing a ball, I didn't let him play chase.  He has always loved that.  But I knew it would make him hurt for days.  So I held his collar and didn't let him run.

He cried.  That about killed me.

Today at the vet I realized that it's not that we won't have him for years (heck, y'all might not have me for that).  But we might not have him for months, or maybe weeks.

I'm not ready for this.  I know what's coming, and what's approaching.  We won't let him suffer.  But this is too soon, too soon, too damn soon.

"If you think this is the time, I'll support that decision."

Let the little children come to me

Well, let one particular little child come to Big Country:

He's posted a lot about his grand daughter and his fight to get her to safety.  Click here to donate to the Legal Fund.

Please pray for Brock Townsend

Brock runs the blog Free North Carolina. It went radio silent 10 days ago.

There's an update at NC Renegade; I wish the news were better.

Regarding the Miami Beach building disaster

OldNFO has some pertinent info on rescue.  He's been trained in this sort of thing and offers background info.

DiveMedic also has an excellent post about this, from the perspective of a trained Search and Rescue paramedic.

Both are pessimistic on the chance of more survivors.

Health issues

No, not me.  T-Bolt got some bad news. 

Radney Foster - Angel Flight

Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.

- Inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington Virgina

War is a serious business, in which young men and women sometimes die. Some lie in foreign soil, far from their loved one's reach. Some are never found, and are listed as "missing" - a wound that never quite heals for those they left behind. Lately, most have been brought back home, to help their families find closure, and for us to honor.

But not to forget.

Country music is perhaps unique among this nation's art forms in that it doesn't forget. Radney Foster sings of that final ride home, of those who make the trip, the quick and the dead.

 

Angel Flight (songwriters: Radney Foster, Darden Smith)

All I ever wanted to do was fly
Leave this world and live in the sky
I left the C130 out of Fort Worth town
I go up some days I don't wanna come down

Well I fly that plane called the Angel Flight
Come on brother you're with me tonight
Between Heaven and earth you're never alone
On the Angel Flight
Come on brother I'm taking you home

I love my family and I love this land
But tonight this flight's for another man
We do what we do because we heard the call
Some gave a little, but he gave it all

I fly that plane called the Angel Flight
Come on brother you're with me tonight
(Come on brother you're with me tonight)
Between Heaven and earth you're never alone
On the Angel Flight
Come on brother I'm taking you home
Come on brother I'm taking you home

Well, the cockpit's quiet and the stars are bright
Feels kinda like church in here tonight
It don't matter where we touch down
On the Angel Flight its sacred ground

I fly that plane called the Angel Flight
Gotta hero riding with us tonight
Between Heaven and earth you're never alone
On the Angel Flight
Come on brother I'm taking you home
Come on brother I'm taking you home
Come on brother I'm taking you home
Come on brother I'm taking you home

This Memorial Day weekend, remember those who gave that last full measure of devotion for the rest of us. Those that came home, and those that didn't.

Screw it - let's ride

This is an awesome advert from Taiwan.  It isn't selling motorcycles, and it's not really about motorcycling.  It's entirely awesome.

Hat tip: American Digest.

Surgery today

The Queen Of The World is getting wrist surgery today.  Hopefully they'll fix her up - the break is pretty bad. 

UPDATE 4 March 2021 18:26:  Successful surgery, likely going to be a long recovery.  Oof, what a day.

More on gunshot first aid

Long time reader and some times commenter Tacitus was an ER doc.  I emailed him a link to Divemedic's excellent post on gunshot first aid and asked if he had any thoughts from the perspective of the ER surgeon.  This is his reply, posted with his gracious consent.  It seems entirely sensible.

---------------------------------------------

Treating gunshot wounds.  A different perspective.

As a regular reader of Borepatch I read with interest the account of the recent “Blogshoot”.  It sounds like a lot of fun.  Afterwards our amiable host asked if I’d comment on the points raised by Divemedic, which were to some extent general First Aid but dealt specifically with what to do if someone gets shot. 

I’ll start by saying that the advice was all good.  EMTs in the field do a lot of little things so that by the time they get to my ER things are hopefully in as good a state as can be.  But here’s my take.

1. Far and away the most important thing is not to get shot.  This seems obvious, but what part of firearms safety isn’t!  Guns are extremely effective at the job they are designed to do.  If I had any spare neurons left at my age I would not use them debating which clotting agent is best.  Nope, I’d recite the basic rules of firearms safety as a mantra.
2. OK, let’s say the worst does happen.  There are several very important considerations.  Location, location, location….  There are places where a bullet can hit you where no first aid will help.  Conversely, if you take off the tip of your little toe you will be little the worse for the experience and much the wiser for it.  Tourniquets, heating blankets, dressings…these are with one or two exceptions mostly useful only for the in between things.  Extremity wounds with bleeding for instance.
3. Location, location, location Part II.  For any given injury the survival rate will vary greatly by where you got shot.  Across the street from Mass General Hospital?  You would have a good chance of surviving anything that was not neurologically devastating.  Going caribou hunting in remote parts of Alaska?  A shovel might be an appropriate addition to your first aid kit.  That’s because…
4. Time matters.  In trauma there is the concept of a “Golden Hour”.  We have impressive abilities to rapidly, if temporarily, respond to physiological challenges.  Our blood clots.  We mobilize our immune system.  We pick up our heart rate to move around what blood remains faster.  Those systems will eventually fail.  Sooner if you are old and frail.  Later if young and healthy.  I’ll always remember a fit young man who came to the ER with no warning.  He had a gunshot wound that destroyed his femoral artery.  His buddies threw him in the car and drove like hell.  His heart was still beating, but 99% of his blood was on the floor of a Chevy Suburban.  In many cases the most important thing you can do in the face of an obvious serious injury is to call 911 with exact information.  Where you are.  The nature of the injury.  Trust me, if you say the words “gunshot wound, looks bad” and then stand out in a field waving a flag when you hear the helicopter, you’ve done a great deal.
5. I’d also put in a plug for remembering that there are other far more common medical emergencies that you’ll encounter at the range, and everywhere else.  Take a basic first aid course and learn CPR.  Know your range buddies well enough to pick up on things like low blood sugar…confused people with firearms would seem like a very bad scenario.

And finally I’d say, don’t panic.  Keep your wits about you and do the best job you can.  It’s all you can ask of non professionals.  And it can often make a difference.

In closing I’ll say thanks to all the Borepatchians who offered advice a few months back when I was researching deer rifles after becoming a first time hunter in retirement.  I put your wisdom to good use and am happy with the first firearm I’ve ever owned.  And yes, I do recite the rules of firearms safety as my mantra.

Tacitus MD 

IMPORTANT Southwest Florida Blogshoot update

Last night The Queen Of The World fell and broke her wrist.  The break is bad enough that she'll have to have surgery next week.  So far the Blogshoot is still on but I'm pushing the start time to 12:00 noon.  This will cut the day a little short but I'll have to set up by myself and so it will take longer than planned.

Please check this space on Friday evening for any changes - I don't think we'll change anything but life sometimes speaks in its Outdoors Voice.

 

On the plus side, the local Doc-In-A-Box was actually a 24 hour ER, with X-Ray and all that sort of thing.  They got her right in and splinted up.  The splint is very cool - it is a big gauze pad that they put on her arm and bandaged over.  in 15 minutes it was hard as concrete.  The doc said that the moisture in the air is what causes the chemical reaction to stiffen it up.