Brindle Update

Update on Brindle's inability to walk:
The vet from the neurological animal center just called....Brindle had an MRI to check his spinal cord and associated spinal fluids and membranes and bones of his skeleton - it appears to be something congenital that sometimes gives way, breaks, shards, in dogs. He is alert and doing well, and as sweet and friendly as ever with the staff there, and will be kept overnight and receive hyperbaric oxygen treatment to help him heal and regain his ability to walk. I'm so grateful he is at one of the best facilities in the country.

He has feeling in his toes, and can wag his tail a bit, all excellent signs. I was able to hold and pet him for about half an hour at 5:30 this morning....he laid his head on my lap and groaned and relaxed a bit...and is a favorite with the hospital staff. Then, I headed back to Palm Desert from the cool mist-fog of sunrise, Orange County on the wide-hipped "thick" 405 south up to the 55 to the 91, the Orange Crush, and the 215 to the 60 to the 10. There is something comforting in the hypnotic and shared freeway consciousness...the tangle of feeling and emotion between me and this dog, and my abandonment-heart, I've been anxious and nervous all day more than usual and not able to much sleep, and Shasta is staying close by, curled near me and worried about her little brother. In a way she's as much Brindle's mom as I am.

A stop in Mo Val at Denny's for a slippery breakfast and the strange entertainment of a car fire in a lot across the street, a strange car with a rear engine, not a Volkswagen, much smoke, people crowding around, the inevitable fire engine, no one hurt, the car didn't migrate into cumulus flame clouds and the car was left abandoned in the end, and no people, a nondescript donut shop, I drove home into the desert overwhelm, expanse sand and inexpensive light, too much for the eyes, and not long ago, the world made sense to me, daughters and the "little kids" were all at one with me and life was manueverable without smackdowns and grief at losing those I love, or is it just now that my heart has been so ripped open that I am finally able to feel, in a Buddhist angled windowpane, and all love flows in and out with breathing...of course to feel, to love, our hearts must steeple with compassion. We never really lose...we merge as one.