Dylan: 1995-2005

Earlier this week, my dog Dylan was feeling lethargic and not eating, so I took him to the vet. After the initial tests, they had me bring him back in last night so that they could put some fluids in him overnight and run some more tests today. Unfortunately, while at the clinic Dylan passed away this afternoon. Since he was 10 years old, they believe his kidneys just finally gave out.


Dylan was given to me by my friend Wayne a couple of years ago. He was a good boy (Dylan, not Wayne), he got along well with my cat Boo (eventually), and he was an expert at getting out of the backyard. In fact, on a couple of occasions he got out of a locked house, which worried me, because if he had figured out how to open doors, then I was never going to keep him in the house. Luckily, he had only figured out how to nudge open the windows, push out the screens, and jump into the yard. Still, pretty impressive for a dog.


One time, Dylan got out of the house while my friend Tom was housesitting. Tom told me that Dylan was a very smart boy, because he just walked out the garage door that Tom had left open. To which I replied, "Well Tom, apparently Dylan doesn't have to be very smart. He just has to be smarter than you."

Doctor Improvisation

One of my softball teams had a game tonight. (Yes, on Labor Day.) And since we didn't have a full team show up, we only played 3 outfielders. (Also, we didn't have a second baseman, and a player on the other team played catcher for us. Needless to say, we lost.)

I ended up playing centerfield, which is a lot of room for an old guy like me to cover. Luckily, I make up for it by being really, really slow. One of their players hit a fly ball in between me and the rightfielder, so I took off after it. At the last minute, I dove for it, caught it, landed on my left shoulder, and rolled a couple of times. The crowd went wild! Ok, it was little kids and they were already screaming, but in my version of the story, they were screaming for my incredible catch.

When I got home, I wanted to put an ice pack on my shoulder. I thought it was already in the freezer, but I couldn't find it. I looked in several places it might have been, but my search turned up empty. Sometimes you just have to improvise:

http://donyoung.us/images/shoulder_ice.jpg

September 10th followup: Since the pain never went away, even with the "frozen vegetable" packs, I went to the clinic today to have the shoulder checked out. And after a quick three hour visit, they told me the shoulder was separated, specifically an Acromio-Clavicular Separation. Some of the ligaments were torn as well, but they should heal just fine with rest. It looks like I'll have to take a few weeks off from softball.