It’s Up To You

“Have you been hiking with your dog lately?” the tatted millennial groomer asked. He’d just pulled a large, bloated tick off of Rudy’s anus. “Do you want to see the wound?” he wondered. “I guess,” I hesitantly replied. Though I fancy myself a closet doctor, I’m not too interested in examining my dog’s ass. 

I took a sideways glance and indeed, it was angry red and swollen. “You should have it looked at,” the groomer told me. “Just in case. Ticks carry Lyme Disease. And other shit.”

I’d held a grudge against our veterinarian for years. When we took our cat Fatty to be euthanized, the vet pushed, “Are you sure you want to do this? We haven’t done everything.” Feeling judged and guilty, as if we’d decided to snuff her out on a whim, we came home with the ailing feline. Fatty spent a miserable two weeks locked in the bathroom, black bile leaking out of her uncontrollably, before we finally said our teary goodbyes.

This new vet’s office had come highly recommended, and my last two visits there assured me that making the switch had been the right decision. These folks seemed to have it together. I called for an appointment, and they got Rudy right in. 

There’s definitely a run on female vets who relate better to animals than humans. Though I do appreciate a line of work so packed with women, this doctor was even less personable than the last. She got down on the ground and did a full body check on Rudy. She combed through his fur, running her fingers through his hair like a lover. Stopping at his rib cage, the vet lingered there. She wedged her hand into his armpit, fell silent, then reached for his chart, carefully leafed through, and settled on a page.  “His resting heart rate is 90. Last September, it was 140,” she told me warily. “What does that mean? Are you worried it’s something?” I asked. “Hard to say. I can refer you to a canine cardiologist, or I can show you how to take his resting heart rate. It’s up to you.”  

The vet returned to Rudy’s chest, as I had alerted her about the fatty tumor her colleague examined last fall. “There’s a second one over here,” she said, placing my hand on a small lump that felt like jelly under Rudy’s skin. “I’m no doctor, but it feels like a fatty tumor to me,” I said. “Could be,” she cautioned. “Or it could be something else. Only way to know is to stick a needle in it. That’s $75. If I draw blood out of the mass, it’ll need to go to pathology, which is another $275. Either way. Or we can just leave it. It’s up to you.” 

The doc patted Rudy on the head. “You’re a good boy! Yes! Yes, you are!” She complimented a quivering Rudy, who looked longingly at the exit door.  “He isturning ten. And with this heart rate issue, I’d like to be sure it’s not Addison’s Disease. We could do a full senior blood and urine panel. Or not. It’s up to you. Or, you can collect his urine at home and save yourself $75. It’s up to you.” I draw the line at expressing my dog’s anal glands, and I’m just saying no to collecting his urine by following him around the yard with a tin pan. 

Wait a minute - didn’t we come in here for a tick on Rudy’s anus? What about that? Despite his embarrassed protests, the vet lifted Rudy’s tail and took a good long look, close up. “Appears to be healing OK. We can test now for tick-related disease, or we can wait a couple of months to see if he exhibits any symptoms. It’s up to you.”

Why was everything “up to me?” I might be from a family of doctors, I was paying for a professional opinion. Vets must be as worried about malpractice as physicians are for humans. 

I agreed to the biopsy for the tumor. A scrubs-clad assistant led my pup to the door. Rudy put the brakes on, not wanting to leave the exam room and the safety of me. “It’s OK, buddy, go ahead.” Rudy and the doctor returned fifteen minutes later. “Good news,” she announced with a perky lilt in her voice. “It’s a fatty tumor.”  

For $280, the cyst I thought to be harmless was confirmed to be just that. But I still had many questions that were left unanswered.  Isn’t this what I’m paying for, to have them tell me what’s wrong with my dog, or that it’s nothing? Why doesn’t anyone want to take responsibility for anything? How did Rudy get to be ten already? Should I be doing more for him? Aren’t veterinarians the interpreters for our furry family members? Rudy can’t speak for himself. I’m not a doctor.

Maybe the vet was right. I too often look for others to make my choices. Decision-making is not my forte. It’s a skill I’m trying to acquire after many debilitating years of fence-sitting. This has not served me well. 

My mother wanted perfection for me and my sisters so badly that she’d sew an impeccable skirt and vest set for a Junior High home economics class. A fifth grader could never fashion a book report in the shape of Florida so precisely. She’d tear the house apart looking for a lost homework assignment. We got A’s, or at least, our mom did. She tried to create a utopian existence for us, one in which we wouldn’t be disappointed. Never allowed to fail on my own, I’m still learning the lessons that making wrong decisions can bring. 

I try to let my kid make his own mistakes, even if it that means seven stiches, eye adjacent, the day before Thanksgiving. A few days earlier, a male surfer friend had warned, “You’re two mamas raising a little dude. You gotta let him fall.” So, when four-year-old Theo hopped up on a jagged rock in the neighbors’ weird rocky landscape, the surfer’s words reverberated in my head. “Let him fall!” Despite my maternal instinct to catch him, he tumbled. I ended up holding him down for sutures and earned myself a round of smelling salts as he screamed. 

I strive to take responsibility for my actions. If I go with my gut, I usually don’t go wrong. If I miss the target, I learn a lesson. I can ask for advice, I can spend time thinking, over thinking, definitely obsessing. In the end, “it’s up to me.”