After two weeks in the Costa Rican jungle and a week in Colorado, I am back home in Wyoming. The sun just kissed the sky goodnight, Michael is in the garage building a wood/snowboard bench swing (it is so awesome and creative), and I just made a fire and am camped out on my laptop by the big window, for the first time in a long while. All is good and cozy, and it feels oh so good to be home.
I was in Costa Rica attending a 200-hour yoga teacher training program, which I am definitely still processing and am not sure I have the words to articulate my experience yet, or if I ever will. But I am overwhelmingly grateful for my experience and will be inextricably tied to the heartstrings of sixteen beautiful yogi souls on this planet.
Upon my return this week, Michael and I took our sweet little rescue puppy Penny to see an orthopedic specialist at the Veterinary Teaching School at CSU in Fort Collins. It turns out our little lucky Penny (a golden retriever/rotweiler/chow mutt) is not so lucky after all, at least in the genes department, and at only eight months old has a pretty severe case of hip dysplasia. We adopted Penny at about four months old, and noticed a limp at about five months that didn’t seem to go away. One vet concluded it was growing pains, but something wasn’t adding up. Penny wasn’t interested in playing fetch, she climbed stairs and mounted the couch with great effort at the pace of a snail, and started to do the “bunny hop” with her hind legs. In the evening, after a longer walk or hike, she would whimper when she got up from laying down. We realized our super cool laid back puppy, might not be so laid back after all, rather, she might be in a lot of pain. Our research pointed to hip dysplasia, and a first set of x-rays confirmed it, so the vet put Penny on a bunch of joint supplements and an anti-inflammatory.
After a month and a half on the pills, we didn’t notice too much of a change in our little furball. “Puppy by day, old lady by night,” Michael joked in an email to me when I was away. We were starting to wonder about the long term, and what our options would be. Our research seemed to show that the costly surgeries available for hip dysplasia have varying success rates with each individual case. Friends and family told us stories of dogs that were put down, and dogs that managed a relatively happy (shorter) life with proper pain management. Trying to put our emotions aside, Michael and I want to make sure Penny has the healthiest, happiest life possible. A million questions went through my mind. What if we can’t afford surgery? Do we just give her the best life we can until she is in too much pain? Could we put her up for adoption in hopes that someone with the financial means could have the surgery done? Would someone adopt a dog that needs costly surgery? What is the best and right thing to do for our lil’ Penny pup? Should we get a loan? Can we hold a fundraiser for a dog? “Save a Penny for Penny!” (Michael’s idea and I like it!). Will people think we’re crazy? She is an animal, not a person, but I’m a new dog mama and I want to be the best dog mama. I’m also a dog mama with enough debt as it is. Deep sigh.
I was so, so impressed with the Vet Hospital at CSU. A friend of Michael’s recommended them because they specialize in orthopedics and perform regular hip replacement surgeries. If this is the route we’re going to go, I’d rather Penny be in the best hands. Our appointment lasted almost two hours, and in that time Penny was assessed and we spoke at length with the doctor. Unfortunately as we suspected, the best option for Penny is a total hip replacement. Her left hip is by far worse than her right. Her hip “socket” is barely a socket. Instead of being like a cup, it’s more like a plate, so her femoral head has nothing to fit into. It’s just rubbing and grinding and causing her a whole lot of pain. We would have to wait until Penny is full grown at fifteen to eighteen months before they could do the surgery and the doc said he would start with the one hip, depending how things are looking at that point.
We then met with a physical therapist who put a mat on the floor and showed us some simple exercises we can do every day with Penny to help strengthen and stretch the muscles around her hips. I don’t know if I am seeing life with new yogi eyes, but what I was seeing was doggy yoga! And it all made so much more sense after all my anatomy lectures at yoga training. Penny, like me, needs to stretch her iliopsoas on the regular, and lose a few pounds, among other things. So Penny and I will work on strengthening and stretching together, to (possibly) prepare her for a successful surgery and to prepare me for more advanced yoga poses. (That might explain Penny’s fondness of laying on my yoga mat. She knew she needed yoga all along!)
On the first day of my yoga teacher training, my teacher Marianne said we must begin from where we are. That was one of my biggest realizations (and frustrations) as we moved through training. My body has changed in the last year and I was out of practice. I could no longer do postures that I used to. I knew my challenge was to acknowledge exactly where I was, exactly where my body was right then and find peace there. (And we all know it’s not really about the postures anyway:))
So as I embark on my new journey as a yoga guide, and Penny looks to the long road ahead to healthy hips, we will acknowledge that where we are right now is an absolutely (im)perfect, (un)lucky and beautiful place to begin.
Namaste. Woof.
