Jane Brody, the health and aging columnist for The New York Times, looks at the healthy, hilarious, social, and therapeutic benefits to having a two-legged companion in the article "Life With a Dog: You Meet More People."
Hat tip to my mom for sending me this link.
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Earlier this week, writer and graphic novelist, Neil Gaiman, wrote about the death of his dog, Cabal. His journal entry begins, "Sometimes, these things are hard to write. And sometimes writing them saves my life. This is one of those times I'm glad I have my blog here, and it's still so hard to write..."
Click here to read his post about "The Power of the Dog."
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The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. By interpreting the individual mandate as a tax, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. cast the deciding vote allowing for it. By rejecting the White House's argument that the mandate was legal under the Commerce Clause, Roberts also put to rest any worries that the government might make us eat broccoli.
Although short on efficient solutions to bring down the costs of a health care system run by corporations (not really a system but a cobbled-together-high-stakes-life-and-death-mess), the Affordable Care Act ruling is a landmark decision for our country. A giant step in the right direction.
Last week, I was in my doctor's office for my annual physical. I sat in the waiting room and watched as patient after patient checked in at the window and tried to pay. Each one was told, they didn't have to. Their visits were now covered. Every one of them stared in silence, not comprehending. How could this be true after years, decades, of paying more and more and more at every visit?
It's true because President Obama made it happen. News pundits are yammering about what Obama "gave up" by making concessions that mean the ACA must roll out over the next two years. Don't listen. For myself, who had my own uncomprehending moment standing at my doctor's window holding my wallet, and every single person who has put off preventative care because it's not in the budget, the ACA is already here.
If you are overdue for a physical or a mammogram or any of these screenings, call your doctor and make an appointment. These preventative screenings must be covered with no copay and no decutible within a network provider. If you can't afford health insurance and have given up hope click here. Many low cost and free programs are being improved under the ACA. This is big. Embrace it.
Change has come.
Here is a partial list of what the Affordable Care Act means to you:
1. Insurance companies can no longer impose lifetime limits on the amount of care you receive
2. Insurance companies can no longer discriminate against children with preexisting conditions.
3. Insurance companies can no longer drop your coverage if you get sick.
4. Insurance companies can no longer jack up your premiums without reason.
5. Insurance companies are required to provide free preventive care like check-ups and mammograms.
6. Young adults under the age of 26 are able to stay on their parent’s health care plans.
7. Seniors receive a discount on prescription drugs.
8. New approval pathways for generic biological drugs.
9. More community health centers and grants for nursing and other medical education opportunities.
10. Nearly 13 million of us will receive a rebate from our insurance company because it spent too much on things like administrative costs and CEO bonuses, and not enough on your health care.
In case you missed it, watch President Obama use the verb "jack up." How cool.
Visit Healthcare.gov for more information on the Affordable Care Act, its easy-to-navigate website alone is cause for celebration.
Be well.
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I was going to write about something else today. Then, Kathryn Freeman Vita sent me this Washington Post article by Joe Yonan, "The Death of a Pet Can Hurt as Much as the Loss of a Relative."
I read the article and the tears started. I took a shower and they kept coming. I have been doing better. An increase of my Lexapro helped the sobbing. A new dog is getting me out of the house. I adore Tyler and have much to share about this new precocious partner. But, I miss Darby and it's difficult not to compare.
Why doesn't Tyler lick my ankles when I step out of the shower?
Why doesn't he smell like warm milk with honey and fresh-baked sugar cookies?
Darby was as beautiful and soulful as a Romantic Poet. His long, brown, wavy hair amplified his sensitive persona. People always thought he was female. I liked that. I liked that they saw his tender nature because it was real.
Every holiday I tied a different colored ribbon on Daby's collar; red for Christmas, pink for Valentine's Day, etc. Yesterday, I was cleaning out my studio and I opened the box of ribbons.
"I am not going to be tying any bows on Tyler," I thought.
Tyler is a dog. Darby was a Dachshund. Sleeping with Tyler is like sleeping with a field hand. He smells like he's still in his work clothes. I volunteer at a farm. I know this smell. It's testosterone, and sweaty leather, and dirt (or soil if there's something growing in it), and wet canvas, and broken pine needles.
Many of you wrote to me about loving a second dog. You told me about this strange overlap of grief and joy. I had planned on waiting until I was finished my Darby Calendar before I got a new dog. I wanted to be able to focus on my second muse once I had completed the tribute to my first one. It didn't work that way. There was nothing rational or ordered about adopting Tyler. I looked at him and he was my dog.
As my friend Allison described my experience saying "yes" to keeping Darby when I had plans to travel and be free, "You got knocked up." Well, I got knocked up with Tyler, too.
Anyway, I am so grateful to Joe Yonan for writing about grieving the loss of a pet. When Darby died I looked around a lot and couldn't find anything that so eloquently describes the loneliness and unbearable sadness of losing one's animal companion. As you can see by the comments that keep coming in to Joe's article I am not alone. I needed for someone to spell out with experts, I always like experts, what my friend Barbara said when I told her I was worried about how much I was crying.
"Moira," she said, "When I lost Lenny I was really f#*ked up."
Read the full article, "The Loss of a Pet Can Hurt as Much as the Loss of a Relative" by Joe Yonan.
There is also a lovely slideshow tribute to Red. That is where I found the illustration by Eammon Donnelly.
There is also an informative Q + A with Joe Yonan and Sandra Barker, the director of the Center for Human-Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University.
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Many of you mentioned receiving signs from your dogs after they had passed away; rainbows on cloudy days, guidance to a new pet, a feeling of them with you in spirit even after many years. Although I come from a long line psychics and witches (my grandmother set the room on fire twice and scalded a woman's hand at her own wake), I dismissed the idea of Darby still with me in another form. The emptiness and chill in my house were so overwhelming, it would be like believing that a car with no battery could get you to town.
Every day last week I would try to explain to people what I was feeling. On Friday I used the analogy of drugs. Darby was the perfect drug for every moment of my day. My cup of coffee in the morning. My mood stabilizing Prozac. My painkiller. My glass of wine in the evening. My sleep aid. And then, once again, my cup of coffee in the morning... I am going through withdrawal from them all at once, I'd say. And it is unbearable. I must have repeated this at least four times on Friday.
That night was a full moon. I went to sleep early but woke up a little after midnight. It was the one-week anniversary of Darby's death. I got up and went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water. I leaned against the counter and stared through the window at the yard glowing in the moonlight. Then, with a click and a red light my coffee maker turned on. It doesn't have a timer. No coffee set up, ready to go for the next morning. Empty. But on. A power surge. Or something. It's never done that before. And even when I want to make coffee I have trouble getting it to turn on without a Fonzi bang or two. I stared at it. I flashed on my Darby-as-my cup-of-coffee analogy, and I smiled. He always was a clever dog with a sense of specificity. If he was human I'd call it wit.
I walked over and shut off the coffee maker and went back to bed. The days get easier and harder. Grief doesn't go in a straight line. But so many of you were right. Darby did send a sign. And it helped.
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