Patrick’s gotcha day

So yesterday was the third anniversary of the dog’s arrival in my house.

Patrick all up in my face like usual

It is a fact that if I could have done it again I would probably not have adopted Patrick. The cats do not like him and find him so irritating that they avoid me too, even though they love me, because he is always with me. Unfortunately Patrick has been a bit beyond my skill set, training wise. I have yet to figure out how to stop him from barking at visitors, or at our roommate when he comes near my office or my bedroom. And Pat has yet to figure out that the cats do not and will never want to play with him, no matter how many times he asks.

I would have chosen another dog if I had known that our cats would hate Patrick. But I did adopt him and committed to him and he is such a happy boy. Once he became attached to me I could not return him; he had already had a hard enough life.

It is also a fact, that I love Patrick to absolute bits and am so glad to be his mom. Like my dog Kinsey before him, Patrick has been so good for me. Like, I have to walk him, which means I have to get exercise. And he is absolutely devoted to me. I am his whole world. He loves my husband too but he thinks I’m the greatest thing ever and follows me everywhere. I’ve got to keep myself together so I can take care of him and live up to what he thinks I am.

I view Pat as a great example of how you never know what can be right around the corner of your life. Patrick was born in Korea into a life of waiting to get big enough to be killed and turned into soup. Then he was plucked out of the cage, given a bath, and found out some people are nice. Then he went on a long journey and at the end of it he had a whole trailer of his own, with human and animal companions and walks and treats and snuggles, and he’s just living his best life. Who would have guessed, in the beginning, that it would have turned out like that?

MP of the week: Russell Boyle

This week’s featured missing person is Russell James Boyle, a 64-year-old man who disappeared from Alton, Missouri sometime in late June or early July 2016. The exact date of his disappearance is unknown.

Boyle is white, with gray hair and hazel eyes and a possible beard and/or mustache. He’s 5’8 tall and weighed 130 pounds at the time of his disappearance. He was last seen wearing blue jeans or blue jean shorts. He has dementia.

Vocabulary changes have been made

The vocab changes I mentioned (changing “Caucasian” to “white” and “African-American” to “black” and “prostitute/prostitution” to “sex worker/sex work”) have all been done. Fortunately it turns out my tech person could do a mass word replacement and there was no need for me to do it by hand.

The insurance thing is still very much up in the air. In fact, they called me today and told me my application for insurance had been rejected. I think this must be some mistake because our financial situation hasn’t changed since last year. I’m waiting to hear from ClaimAid; I called them a few hours ago and left a message. To be honest I’m more worried about my husband than I am about me. He takes medications for things like high blood pressure and diabetes and stuff, stuff that could literally kill him if left untreated long enough. I am desperately hoping the problem might be fixed sometime this week.

Several years ago something like this happened, we were out of insurance and unable to get meds for weeks. Then one night my husband woke up with a strange sense that he was dying. He woke me up and said he thought he was dying and he didn’t know why he thought this. We had a pulse oximeter and tested his oxygen level and that was fine but he still believed something was very wrong. I wound up taking him to the hospital, and at ER they tested other things and it turned out his blood pressure was sky-high. Like, he could have had a stroke in his sleep or something if he had not woken up. The hospital was able to bring it down with meds and also their social workers got us insured again. But I don’t want a repeat incident of that.

This country’s health care system is so hopelessly broken.