Why We’re Stressed

My good friend Jake asked me yesterday how the “pet botherer” was doing, to which I replied (I’m summing up here) “better”. As the previous post depicted, Unagii had to go to the vet last week because of his recurring back problems. Pekingese, among other long-backed breeds, are notorious for getting something called IVD or degenerative disc disease. Three years ago, he had a flare up and was first diagnosed with the problem. Then, two weekends back, his back started to bother him again.

The initial vet visit recommended non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs combined with Valium to ease the pain and help him rest enough to heal. While at first this seemed sufficient, he grew worse over the weekend, and on Monday I took him to Affiliated Veterinary Specialists in Maitland to consult with a neurologist. The neurologist’s first choice was to do surgery to remove the hardened material from the disc, but on further discussion we decided to go with the conservative, steroidal approach.

What’s really odd is that I gave Unagii no anti-inflammatory drugs that day we went to AVS, and he only had obvious discomfort that morning during the visit. Since that time (and before he started on the steroids), we’ve observed no muscle spasms in his back. Furthermore, he’s doing much better walking around and appears to be greatly improved. Of course, he’ll be spending most of his time in his kennel throughout the next three weeks while the steroids do their work, and I’m going to insist more vigorously that he use his stairs to come up and down from the bed. He’ll be a little barky, but he’ll get over it. Of course, the remaining Valium will help with that.

Apart from our animal’s health, both our jobs remain somewhat stressful, though for very different reasons. We’re looking forward to September for some relief in that department, but as of next week things will only get a bit more insane. That’s when I’ll begin teaching at UCF with my 6 hours of back-to-back classes for digital media. My plans for the two classes are slowly revealing themselves, but I’ll really need to start making decisions this weekend or next week will be absolutely miserable.

Patrick’s continuing to work miracles with his SLD students, teaching them about the greats of literature and hoping that at least a few of them retain something of value in spite of their troubled academics. Its stressful for him to have students looking up in complete apathy and (sometimes) willful ignorance. Go figure!

That’s the most of it since last we spoke. I’ll be back later with memes, maybe some pictures of the wild-man look that I’m currently sporting, or my new chocolatey cell phone.

Health Nuts

Recently, there has been this great push towards healthy eating and switching to the vegetarian meal style. People who decide to over think and mull over the choices of food fascinate me. Now don�t get me wrong, eating healthy is extremely important, but to deny your body the natural ways of meat is just plain craziness. On a biological standpoint, humans need to consume animals as a means to rapidly recover from exercise and other exertions our physical bodies are put through.

Plant substance is great for energy, but is grossly void of necessary proteins to build and maintain muscle structure. Many will argue that seeding plants provide protein, and granted, they do, but again they lack sufficient amino acids (you know, the primary building blocks of proteins) to actually produce results. This now leads us to Yoga-ers and exercise enthusiasts � great ways to improve the body and a great way to tear and break down muscle. However, if you are a vegetarian, how do you plan to replenish your proteins? With seeds and peanut butter?

What we need to learn to do as a society is not to jump to a radical change, but allow ourselves to develop a balance between eating correctly (this include the consumption of animals, with regards to more fish, than red meats) and a balance of plants (eating a variety of plant species). Our bodies are as complex as they are simple: We are products of what we put into our bodies and what we expect out of them.