Sunday, June 12, 2011

Murphy

I looked after Murphy for five days while he was between fosters. It was supposed to be only one day, but I kept him until the night before my regular foster was set to arrive. By the time I dropped him off, I was already wavering. But this is typical of me. I fall in love with most of them.

At first opportunity, Master Escape Artist Murphy found a space in his foster fence and squeezed through it and under the wheels of a moving car. His pelvis was broken and his tail was structurally separated from his body. He couldn't pee or poo, and expectations were that he would have to be put to sleep.

I went to see him almost every day, quite expecting each one to be the going to sleep day. At first he couldn't even lift his head, but he was always glad to see me. Some days I was a bigger mess than Murphy. I remembered Cesar Milan talking about making his last day with Daddy a happy one, so I tried to keep the messy ones to a minimum.

My friend Debra has a cat (whose name is also Murphy) whose elderly parts are faltering. When Murphy the Cat was constipated, Debra gave him a Reiki treatment and 20 minutes later he made a week's worth of poop all in one go. I thought, maybe that's what Murphy the Dog needs! So on Day 7, Debra came with me to the vet hospital. That was one of his bad days. I stood back and watched him instead of snuggling him as usual, and then I really wanted him put put to sleep.

The next night, though, Murphy was as good as I'd ever seen him. He still had a catheter and he still couldn't poo voluntarily, but he was his happy little self. The night after that, he climbed into my lap when I got there - I'm sure he would have wagged his tail madly if it were still connected to him. And the day after that, when I got home from work, I had e-mail that Murphy had gone pee and poo by himself, and he was ready to come home.

So Debra is The Poop Doctor, and Murphy is home. One of his back legs doesn't work very well and his tail just drags along behind him. But he poops and pees at will, and he's very happy.

He seems to have graduated from the crate at night to on the bed at night, because he makes it clear that he wants to sleep on the bed. He can't jump up by himself, but he circles the bed looking for an easy way up. And since he's such a good and quiet little fellow, I lift him up. What could be easier than that?

Murphy has an appointment on June 20 to find out if and when surgery will help him. Til then, we're just taking it one snuggle at a time.

1 comment:

Deb said...

Dr. Poop here...

I think(?) Reiki works in some level, but can't explain it at all.

Usually, I am jazzed after doing Reiki. When I worked with Murphy Dog, I felt drained and I was not hopeful for him. Shows what I know.