Heart Murmurs




"Your dog has a heart murmur" pronounced the vet. We were at the emergency clinic for a cut on Brynn's paw and after a tech had spent an inordinately long time listening to her heart, he called in a senior vet. The senior vet looked so young that I promptly christened him Doggie Howser. He told us she had a grade 2 heart murmur. We were instructed to take her to our regular vet as soon as possible for a full workup. Heart murmurs are a very common cause of death in boxers and incurable.

Before we'd been to the vet I'd been getting annoyed with my high energy dog. She's incredibly stubborn and requires ridiculous amounts of exercise or she just pesters me all day long. I'm pretty much the dog whisperer with all dogs except this one. Seriously, I calm wild animals. I'm Dr. Doolittle. Except with my dog. And I'd been starting to threaten her with Craigslist. Since she doesn't know what that is, it was largely ineffective.

After we found out she might die anytime, the annoyance pretty much faded right away. When you know your time is limited, it changes everything.

She went back to our regular vet and he spent awhile listening to her heart. After a good long exam he said "I don't know what they were listening to, but as far as I can tell, she's perfectly healthy."

So she's fine. But I find that I'm rarely annoyed with her anymore. What the vet made clear to me, was that my time with her was limited. In fact, our time with everyone is limited. We shouldn't have to wait till tragedy strikes to value our time with people. The tragedy is not when we become separated from people. The true tragedy is if we do not use the time we do have with them. I know i've sung this song a million times, but I guess I have to sing it to myself every day since I keep forgetting it.

live. love. forgive. never give up.

peace yo
max


Posted: Mon - June 9, 2008 at 01:50 AM          

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