I took my dog to the vet on Saturday. She's got this raised, raw patch of skin on her leg that she keeps licking and aggravating.


(That's my dog with the issue, not the veterinarian. If the vet's got a raw patch of skin on her leg, I certainly don't know anything about it.


On the other hand, if she's been licking it, too, I'd be interested to learn more. I might even pay to see that. For clinical comparison purposes only, of course.)


My dog's pretty amazing when it comes to vet visits. She's always a sweetheart with people, even strangers, but you might think doctors would be different. Especially animal doctors. There's simply no way to translate 'bend over and cough' into dogspeak, so they can't possibly see it coming. So to speak.


To her credit, though, my dog takes it all in stride. The prods, the pokes, the needles when necessary -- she even stands still and quiet when they flip her around and take her temperature. Sure, she looks up at me with those sad, accusing 'who are these people, and why the hell aren't you stopping them?' eyes. But she doesn't make any obvious fuss.


Which to me is simply astonishing. Personally, if some bozo tried to stick a tube full of mercury up my caboose without explaining why using life-size diagrams and forms filled out in triplicate, I'd bite the bastard without a second thought. Which may explain why they insist on muzzling me when I go in for a physical, but that's not important right now.


The good news is, my pup checked out okay, though the doc prescribed antibiotics to ensure the wound has a chance to heal properly. I'm not convinced there wasn't some mistake made, because these pills look suspiciously like pills for people. In fact, they're caplets -- exactly the same size as Contacs or other cold medicines.


And for all my doggie's patience with the vet, she is not happy about ingesting something against her will. This is the same dog that went through a poop-eating phase a few years back. Who'd have known she'd go all fricking gourmand on us?


So far, things have gone reasonably well. It's been a while since I had to cram medicine down the dog's throat, so the first dose was a nightmare. The pill was in her mouth four times, and spat on the floor four times. Somewhere near the end of the process, the caplet broke, leaving medicinal powder all over her snout, my hands, and the kitchen floor. I knew I could probably rub a strip of bacon over everything to get most of the stuff into her, but at that point, she'd suffered enough. As had I. I called it a 'draw', but remembered my old 'dispensing to a dog' technique in the process.


The next day went much more smoothly. I gave her a chance -- knowing she wouldn't take it -- to swallow the pill buried in a Snausage. She didn't realize the alternative, of course, so she refused. I managed to get her mouth open, splop the pill as far back in her mouth as I could, and massaged her throat until she swallowed it whole. It's the same thing I imagine some orderly doing to me when I'm cantankerous and senile. Like, say, in a few months.


Since then, the mutt has actually chosen the Snausage route. Not entirely willingly, mind you. I threw her three treats, one adulterated with the offending caplet. The two pure Snausages were snatched out of the air and swallowed in one motion. She grabbed the third, too, but realized something was horribly wrong mid-gulp, and spat half of it onto the floor.


Luckily for me, it was the Snausage half, so she ended up swallowing the pill. No muss, no fuss -- and she gets to eat slobbery half-eaten Snausage off the floor to cleanse her palate afterward. That's what I call a win-win. I think even my finicky pooch would agree.

I spoke to my mother on the phone tonight. She mentioned that my uncle Doug has been having some minor health problems. He went to see his doctor, who prescribed medicine to help. In suppository form. Rectal suppository form. Yow.


Mom mentioned that uncle Doug's been getting 'gentle ribbing' because of his new medicine. I'm no health care professional, but I'm thinking that if the suppository is touching his ribs, he's probably crammed it in too far. I don't care how 'gentle' it is; get some tongs and fish that thing out of there.


Mom thought that uncle Doug probably wouldn't appreciate that very much. So she wrote it down for later, in case he ever pisses her off. I'm so glad I could help. That's me -- driving snarky wedges between family members for over thirty years.


It got me thinking, though. Administering medicine via the poo cave -- that's a medical term there, 'poo cave' -- seems an awfully strange way to get your health back. It can't possibly be the first choice of delivery, for doctor or patient. I'm guessing the suppository system was probably invented by a doctor with a particularly troublesome patient. Like so:


Doctor: Okay, Mr. Jones. Here's your prescription for the pills you need.
Patient: Pills? Oh, doc, I can't take pills. They're too chalky.

Doctor: I see. Well, it's also available in a syrup. I can write you--
Patient: Um, no. Those syrups taste nasty and spill everywhere. No syrups.

Doctor: Hrm. Well, let's see. There's also a salve.
Patient: Too greasy.

Doctor: A paste?
Patient: Too sticky.

Doctor: Intravenous delivery?
Patient: Afraid of needles.

Doctor: Inhaler?
Patient: Makes me sneeze.

Doctor: Dissolvable powder?
Patient: Too powdery. Also, I don't like the word 'dissolvable'.

Doctor: I see, I see. Well, here's an idea, Mr. Jones -- why don't you take your medicine, and shove it right up your ass?
Patient: Hmm. Will MediCare cover it?

Doctor: Sure, why not?
Patient: Okay, you're on.


And thus, the 'pooper pill' was born. At least, that's the way I assume it happened. And probably, that's more or less how it went down with uncle Doug's doctor visit, too. Sure, the guy is family, but sometimes he's just a big pain in the ass.



Which is why he ended up with those suppositories, I suppose. It all makes sense, once you get to the bottom of things. Heh.

My wife's been a bit under the weather this week. It seems she's picked up a 'summer cold', which has her coughing and sniffling despite the warm weather.


I'm all about the helping, so I went digging through the medicine cabinet, to see what we had left over from the last cold 'n' flu season. The picking were fairly slim; apparently, we assume that we'll be fever- and phlegm-free for nine months out of the year. We're not really into the 'contigency planning' concept around here.


(You should see our retirement fund. I'm not sure how we're going to manage in our 'golden years' on three dollars and a Netflix coupon. I assume it'll work itself out.)


There were a few curative candidates in the medicine cabinet, but most were vetoed by my sniffly missus. There was a swig of NyQuil ('It makes me groggy!'), a couple of Contacs ('Those keep me awake!'), and the last dregs of a bottle of Robitussin ('It tastes like minty moose spit!').


I didn't have the heart to ask how she knows what minty moose spit tastes. Maybe when she's feeling better. I don't recall her going on any Canadian 'wildlife toothbrushing' excursions, so I'll be interested to hear the story.


(It's not like she'd have to go all the way to Canadia for that kind of thing, anyway. There are squirrels here in our own back yard with rancid acorn breath. She could at least start there, and work her way up.)


Anyway, most of the analgesics and expectorants -- or anti-expectorants; I always get those confused -- were rejected. That left one lonely bottle of scary purple Tylenol Cold something-or-other, gathering dust in the back of the cabinet. I can't say how long it's been there; maybe it came with the house when we bought it. Or even when it was built, a little over one hundred years ago. All I knew was that it didn't obviously make people sleepy, agitated, cranky, woozy, or taste like the saliva of a large antlered mammal. So it went on the 'maybe' list.


I investigated further, and opened the bottle. There was a cap liner, which should -- as the name implies -- have come off with the cap. It didn't. Instead, the cap liner was glommed onto the mouth of the bottle, clinging for dear liner life and keeping me from having a look at the contents.


I tried to pry the plastic liner up -- when this happens on most bottles, you can *pop* the liner right back off. Not on this bottle, though. On this bottle -- of medicine, formulated to cure people -- the liner disintegrated like a Kleenex soaked in gasoline. Whatever's in that bottle had, over time, degraded the plastic coating into a mushy, sticky lavender lump.


I showed the bottle to my wife, explaining that I feared for her safety should she ingest any of the contents. She grabbed it from my hand, sniffed it, and took two deep gulps. She paused for a second -- checking her own vital signs, I imagine -- and explained:


'If whatever's in that bottle can do that, then it'll sure as hell kill whatever damned bug I've got. G'night.'


Here's hoping her logic holds. Not to mention the lining of her stomach. Still, if she's right, she should wake up tomorrow purple-tongued and fully cured. And if not... well, on the good side, if she's swallowed any plastic in her life, she'll finally have it digested. That's something, right?