Pets -- The Love of Cats and Dogs

Every morning my routine is to get up and make something hot to drink and look at what was added to the Forum area at Lumigrate.com overnight, check on the Facebook pages and do my best to be engaging and contribute to the experience people share there, check email.  I then write a new blog post (which I've decided about the day before but think about before getting out of bed). 

I'm a 'Type A in Lamb's Clothing', I explain to people -- I am on a mission with Lumigrate and every day counts for moving things forward some more, in whatever ways present that day.  This is new to me that I have a home-based business, my previous business had me sharing an office with a massage therapist and with my own treatment room for upper extremity/hand therapy (with a qualified COTA who was gifted at it), plus the gym where I would work with neuro patients mostly. I would have liked to have seen more frail elderly for safety in the home but that was not what was in store with referrals my way; in insurance-based medicine an OT is kind of at the bottom of the money stream/food chain.  Hence I created a consumer-focused website now.  While I was starting that business, I did home health as well, PRN (as needed), so was out driving some days hundreds of miles around rural western Colorado; the other OTR and I split things up so I took the more distant patients and also in town since half of her time was to be doing marketing to doctors.  Naturally, I had less productivity but we had management understanding about that, then management changed and I looked bad 'on paper'.  

I was working there more than I wanted to in order to get the hours needed so they could create a part time position and I could have medical insurance, something you cannot get if you have fibromyalgia in your present or history.  I realized that I had not invested of my time and 'self' in my own business hoping to get that beloved benefit, and so quit and "focused on my own #@$% business" where I had more control over my outcome.  It took some money to invest but I made it back and was making a small profit each month, but would have to add an aid to free me up assisting in the hand therapy room most of my time in order to make enough to pay me.  The whole thing felt very 'tenuous', like a house of cards, and so I went in the direction, in 2008, to create Lumigrate.  For the first year and a few months, I had a full time employee, many trainers coming in, a part time business manager -- it took a village to create Lumigrate!  

Websites take a while to get established and find their groove before being able to support you -- you have to support them for a while, financially.  So now it is just me, and much of the work is not what I have a 'knack for' -- I'm not a particularly technologically - savvy person.  I'm kind of 'old school' and simple but see the computer and Internet as an amazing tool to do my work.  So I labor on each day, in the direction of my goal with Lumigrate.com and changing wellness/illness information for increasing numbers of people; health care reform from the grass roots, I call it.  

I have lots of little puncture wound scabs on my feet because Amber the Monkey Cat, a fun and sweet 8 month old 'tortie'  I'm 'foster caring' for since Thanksgiving, is ready to play fetch with her ball.  Throughout the day I will do just like I did now, which was bend over and pet her a bit, grab the ball and throw it and since the biggest 'pain in the neck' for me related to fibromyalgia comes from keyboarding, she's really quite a gift to me.  Many friends since I inherited her from a family member whose original adoption home was a house appropriate for "Intervention", but which unfortunately resulted in a DUI/ crash / jail for a single mother of 2 and grandpa had a dog in an apartment with a lease for only one pet when he took the kids, have said 'cats find their owners'. 

Growing up in the mountains outside of Denver in Colorado, USA, most of our cats came to us, sometimes on snowy nights when my sister and dad heard one crying out by the road when they were out plowing and shoveling snow.  One of my favorite cats came to me when I was a college student and came home from a summer school class mid morning to have a six month old Siamese lying on my porch in front of the door like it was home.  He had an expression when he turned and looked at the door that lead me to believe he thought he was at his house until that moment and realized his mistake. 

After he died (as a result of LOVING to ride in cars and hopping onto them if he wasn't taken on board), I said I'd never have another animal and suffer the heartbreak but within a year I saw a photo of two Siamese 'free to a good home', and called.  However, this was after I'd had an immunization which had Thimerosol in it (mercury) and my immune system was going wiggy and I was allergic to them so in the parting of my divorce the cats went with the husband, which I appreciated.  I hadn't had a pet since. 

But I did have a lovely little dog become my therapy dog about 7 years ago.  "Scooter The Wonder Dog" was my beau's wheaten terrier/chow mix who was the easiest dog I've ever had to train.  She worked skilled nursing with me for a few months and definitely was a therapy dog to her owner, and to me at the time because that was when my health was at it's worst.  We'd all go up where he'd fly fish and she and I would sit and read and go for a little walk -- back in those days I could walk maybe about half an hour at the most.  I just talked with him this year and she lived to be almost 20! 

I grew up with parents having a commercial kennel for breeding golden retrievers -- my home movies of my first steps are me pulling myself up to stand on these beautiful show dogs, then another would come along to play with my support system at the moment and the dog would move and down I'd go!  My friends would say that I loved dogs so much that when I grew up and got pregnant I'd give birth to a litter of puppies!  Yet I haven't had a dog in my whole adult years!  There are reasons for that which have to do with health, economics of the number of hours and job assignments I have had to take due to becoming an OT at a particularly bad time in the US to do such a thing, and the complexity they bring to your housing.  I am, after all, more of a thinker than a feeler according to Myers Briggs personality testing.  

Some of my best memories of childhood are my mom being the 4-H instructor, as my sister was in 4-H for dogs and for her beloved horses (which I couldn't care nothin' about, but got to help take care of, particularly in the years after she went to college and I was home, which was from age 12).  I remember getting so very bored at the dog shows that the entertainment was that I was allowed to go get a sugar cube from the coffee ladies twice but no more as that would be begging.  Fortunately there was another girl my age that would be at some of them, Tracy.  She later moved to go to school where I did and was dragged to death by her horse the summer between fifth and sixth grade.  This occurred within a month of when I was involved in a rollover on a dirt mountain road and the sheriff deputy had said 'they're lucky to be alive'.  I later saw the Jeep, and I was lucky to be alive -- the towel I was sitting on was now half in and half out of the door, as it apparently had opened and slammed shut, while we flew to the back after having initially flown forward as the vehicle pitched down the embankment due to an over-correction on washboard.  (State of mind, anger and driving too fast were the real reason. )  Luckily by then I had THE BEST DOG IN THE WORLD by my side when I got home.  But that had taken a few years to happen.  My sad story continued.  

One of my parent's dog's puppies became my first puppy, "Pootsie" who had a cleft palate. I was 3 or 4 I think, and I named her 'Needles' because of her sharp teeth chewing on me.  She was allowed in the house which was unusual and I'd feed her the crusts to my morning toast under the table, which was a sticking point with my controlling mother who somehow didn't 'get it' that crusts hurt the roof of my mouth.  (We later negotiated that I'd eat the crusts if she bought the more expensive 'Butternut' white bread instead of the Safeway house brand.  I had to negotiate and compromise with a friend in the last twelve hours and I do appreciate how my mother taught me these things at such a young age, though I still cannot eat toasted sandwiches without the area behind my teeth getting scraped raw and painful for a few days.  Interestingly I had a lot of cancer sores in those days as well and the dentist told her to have me drink buttermilk -- he maybe was almost on to something, but it more than likely was a wheat allergy. 

Interestingly, my mom knew as a kid she was allergic to wheat as she'd had horrible asthma and they did an 'elimination' diet where they eliminated all foods except bread and water and the reintroduced and symptoms didn't change until they had her on foods and removed the wheat but she thought she'd 'grown out of it' since she no longer had asthma after childhood.  Interesting when you look at how smart people can have so much information and still not figure things out from a practical standpoint -- it takes a conscious effort to sit down and say 'what could this be' and really we ALL likely know a lot more about what to do if we just took the time and energy to get centered and 'think and feel about it') 

My parents spent money they scrounged for to get her palate fixed and then coyotes got her we believe.  About five years later there was another batch of puppies which couldn't be sold so I got one of them, and named her 'Peach'.  And she WAS a 'peach' -- just the best dog and very much like this cat who has come along at this point in my life.  I'd take her for a walk or snowshoe up the hill every day and we'd sit and think about life on a rock in the middle of the trail at the distance I typically would hike after school.  My favorite photo of her is one I took of her sitting on that rock, and when I do meditations which ask for you to go somewhere in your mind, I often will take myself back there. 

I've had too demanding a work career to have animals all these years, plus I had been allergic when my health started to 'crash' in my 20s, and so it's been really neat to see that I'm back to the way I was before that German measles immunization in 1981 (which I had to have in order to get married in those days when you got married before having babies.  Times have changed and that isn't required since people often don't even plan to get pregnant let alone married if they are planning to have children.)  My parents kept Peach with them, I couldn't afford in college, as I put myself through by working 35 hours a week typing for the University, to live where I could have a dog, and she served to be a wonderful last dog for them.  I used to go home about every two weeks or month in those days and my parents made her a house dog during the day during their retirement and I'd lie on the floor and rub her hips and she was in obvious pain to some extent that was relieved with appreciation by the massage. 

My dad never let any of us gals have any part in having the hard job of taking a dog for euthanasia and he was truly more tenderhearted and emotional than 2 of the 3 of us gals, but I did get the call from my mom saying he'd taken her and then buried her on the property with all the others.  It's a wonderful thing to know that the property will hand down to stay in the family hopefully for the rest of our lives and then perhaps become a park or retreat center/home for other families and dogs to come and enjoy and enjoy what I was blessed to have every day of my youth (with the exception of 31 days approximately where we traveled to visit grandparents in the South). 

I look forward to reading other stories here about people's experiences with pets, animals, and life.  Particularly how it might related to wellness.  Integrative medicine is 'body, mind, spirit', and certainly animals area part of my 'spirit' and mind, and with my feet whittled up with the playful cat at my feet, 'body' as well!  for a second but overall Amber is  

For anyone who might want to know more about meditation, there is a neat link from yesterday's Doctor Oz: www.doctoroz.com/videos/deepak-chopra-meditation which I highly recommend.  I used to start my patients with chronic pain in occupational therapy with the type of breathing he very rapidly told people on the show yesterday to do and how you just go with what your brain and body sense and don't worry about how 'good you are at it', it'll come with practice all on it's own. 

For anyone who wants to know more about what I have done which has lead to my reversing my chronic health problem to being on the way once again to chronic wellness, as it entails remediation for that mercury I have tested extremely high on in heavy metals urine 'challenge' testing, I was the second person to write my story in the Your Story of Your Fibromyalgia in the Forum/ Fibromyalgia area of Lumigrate.  I highly recommend people read the other stories there as well, but I did put details there of what I have done for my situation in the hopes others might find ideas and learn.  I believe if you go to YOUR quiet place and get centered before you read something someone else writes about, or watch a video such as the Full Barrel Syndrome and Chronic Illness video, what applies to you will 'speak to you' and you'll know 'THAT' is where you need to 'Be' with your time, energy and money. 

I'm going to get another cup of hot green tea now that Amber's settled down from our play time, go to the rock on the hill in my mind with Peachy and have fond memories of that and wheat toast with peach jam (which is how we came up with her name, the jar was sitting on the counter.  Her sister was Pineapple but my 'Aunt and Uncle' (family friends as I have to blood extended family) renamed her 'Lady', which was half her mother's name.  (The mother was Lucky Lady as her mother had squished her when she was a puppy and my dad happened to hear something as he also was not a good sleeper and he revived her.)  Both 'Ladies' were gems too, but there is only one 'Peach'.  Then and forever in my mind, and anyone's who knew of her. 

Moral to the story:  I learned to meditate from a dog, I had the space which inspired it (the rock on the mountain), and I had time (no television, lots of work to do, and children and people can be their own best teachers and doctors when given the space and time).  ~~~ Mardy