Friday, 08.08.2014 - 6:40 pm.
Getting back to teaching at the university this semester has absorbed half of my week. The other half was absorbed by medical appointments. I'm glad this week is over.
And before this week, last saturday, Andrew and I found a dog that had been run over by a car a few hours ago. I looked at her, laying on the ground under the drizzle, shaking, dying. I told Andrew to go to the supermarket (where we were heading) and handed him the list, so he wouldn't feel he had to do what I did: I was not going to abandon this dog. He stayed by my side. We called our vet friend Karin and she said it was hectic at her clinic but she would pick us up as soon as possible.
Some people approached while Andrew and I were with the dog. Some man working in a kiosk on the corner saw the car running over the dog, crushing her. Many expressed concern for her but it was not enough to do something about it. They called the pound but they'd have probably thrown the dying dog in the trash, or taken her to die in a cage.
I sat next to the dog and took her head in my hands, she had a painful look in her eyes and would moan a little here and there. She wouldn't stop shaking and her front legs were stiff. Finally a lady -there is a good samaritan everywhere, as my dad would say- came up to us and said that if we needed a ride, she'd take us. She was from out of town and was driving a truck. She had blankets "for cases like this". She was one of us. We wrapped something around the dog's muzzle in case she was in pain and tried to bite (she didn't), and Andrew and I lifted her with the blankets. He carried her in his arms the whole ride. I feared we were going to snap something in her.
The lady dropped us at the clinic, bless her heart. The dog was examined and the stiff legs were not a good sign. The X-rays showed her spine like a train wreck and so it was best to put her to sleep. Even if she survived the surgery, she'd required highly specialized care for life. She was homeless. We couldn't offer her but a compassionate release and we cried a little bit.
***
As for my medical appointments, one was to get a mouth guard. My teeth grinding has caused a dislocation in my jaw which kills me sometimes, and I'm never satisfied with the answers I get from doctors. But they all say the same, so it's just me wishing this could be fixed. I actually went to a new dentist to ask about this and it turned out I had one cavity so I ended up getting that done. I do take care of my teeth more, flossing every night and all (I guess following a fellow DLander that works with teeth is also encouraging). But anyway, my teeth have shifted with the grinding so now I have a gap in my front teeth (all those years wearing braces, gone!) and my old mouth guard is loose. I'm getting the new one next week. I'm excited, actually.
The other medical appointment...funny story, true story. I'm seeing a new patient at the Mental Health Services in the university (where I volunteer) and she has Irritable Bowel Syndrome. We talked about it this morning, as a matter of fact. And I'd read some things the night before. This afternoon I was told I have the same thing.
See, life uses the patients I see to make me pay attention to my own problems. The girl going through a break-up with her long-time boyfriend (that was golden, Joseph had just dumped me), the girl with overprotective parents, the girl with vaginismus related to sexual abuse during childhood (this is a hypothesis in my case, but comparing her symptoms with mine, it does ring a bell), and now this girl. Getting the diagnosis was a relief though, I thought it'd be something more...say, aggressive.
Still, not good news. For a while I've been feeling that my body is screaming at me, "go see a psychologist!" because all that teeth grinding and the painful tightening when I have sex and now the IBS...well, it may be something else. Or not, who knows! It's still worth checking it out. IBS has a very interesting psychosomatic vein, by the way, I'm looking forward to reading about it.
But anyway, I know I must go see a psychologist. Being one does not mean I don't need one myself. It's advisable for anyone to go to therapy at some point in their life. It's a great opportunity not to simply solve problems but also to know oneself better and grow up and thrive. And stuff.
I'm not going just yet, mostly because my income is too tight (I've spent so much this month already, health insurance alone is merciless and still it doesn't cover some things). I'm hoping once the wedding passes and we've paid everything off, I'll have something left to check my mental health.
One more thing: my friend/mentor W (thanks to whom I became a clinical psychologist) came to visit us! He was here last weekend. It was all right. The first night (same day we'd rescued the dog) we stayed home and he and I talked for hours over a bottle of wine. By monday morning though, I was tired of being a hostess. He had to take a bus that morning anyway, but left me with the task of buying and mailing a book.
What we talked about shall be juicy material for another entry.