Doctors, Hyenas & Aging
It’s so good to be back in touch with my readers again. I know a number of you are wondering why I had been silent for so long. I wasn’t really. You just couldn’t hear me barking from there. BOL
It was the end of Gardening Season last year. Elizabeth had pushed herself to the limit trying to get everything harvested and stashed away for the winter. She was sore and tired. That’s nothing unusual for that time of the year.
We had a visitor come to stay with us. Elizabeth and Kay drove her back up to Winnipeg when she had to go home. Elizabeth drove most of the way, and with already being stiff and sore, well, by the time we got back home, she put me in mind of machinery that was in desperate need of an oiling! As she put me in my run for the night, she slipped and fell off the ramp.
The next week was full of trips into town to see the Chiropractor and the two-legger vet, Dr. Buzz.
The Chiropractor tried to fix the problem by twisting and pulling and otherwise manipulating Elizabeth’s spine. But it wouldn’t move.
The Doctor left me feeling a bit… concerned. He took one look at Elizabeth, who could barely walk, and then only by using a set of Nordic poles. “You poor s..t,” he told her. Then he told her it was a disc in her spine. He said a Hyena ate it.
Even more concerning was the fact that Elizabeth believed him. He gave her lots of pills and added some exercises to those the Chiropractor had given her. She took it all in hobble.
When we got home, I did a serious recce, a double patrol, scouring the area for any sign of Hyenas. I’ve only seen them on the TV. Kay and Elizabeth often relax by watching nature shows, so I know what a Hyena looks and sounds like. I’ve never smelled one, though. Still, I could find no unusual scent that would indicate that a Hyena might have been in our area. I think that Dr. Buzz was telling stories!
It took Elizabeth a very long time to get better. She still needs to be very careful. When she works too hard for too long, I tell her it’s time she took a cuddle break with me. Now that the snow and ice is all gone, I make sure she comes for a walk with me every day. And every day I put a little more pressure on the leash for added resistance training. I’ve heard that’s very good for two-leggers trying to recover strength. And I give her tummy massages while she does her core strengthening exercises. We can’t have her front muscles seizing up, too!

Frequent breaks are important. Here I am taking a little time out with Elizabeth’s sister-in-law after working in the garden.
I’m trying very hard to get Elizabeth back into line as a scribe. She had a lot of other catching up to do when she was able to go back to work. And because she needs to take work in short spurts with lots of little rests in between, work seems to take a lot longer to get done. She’s doing pretty well, though. The older you get the longer it seems to take to bounce back – and this is not the first injury a Hyena (if you listen to doctors) has inflicted on her back. But this time there was some other stuff that went wrong. So, I really need to keep an eye on her. She always seems to think that she can do more than she should….
Truth be told, I’m slowing down a bit, too. True, it is the ‘dog days of summer’ now. I find that when I get up I feel a bit stiff, and I feel a little more tired after my patrols. Nothing a good stretchy-stretchy and a long snooze can’t put to rights. Elizabeth says it’s because I’m getting older, too. Still got a ways to go before I catch up to her, though!