WyzWmn's World©

Thank you all so much for your love and support, but I need to clear something up here…

Tink was an aggressive Chihuahua. No ands, ifs or buts. She was getting better with time and work but she still was an aggressive Chihuahua. This would not have happened if Tink was relaxed and passive but she wasn’t. I remember the people I got her from telling me that they had to pay extra to get her nails clipped because she was so aggressive. I had her for a year and a half and I just got to the point where she would let me hold her foot forget about clipping her nails.

She slipped out the storm door in full aggression mode at the female of the dogs next-door. The male dog that got to Tink was simply trying to protect his sister. It was over in seconds….seconds. The pitbull was on a leash….but do you have any idea the strength of a large pitbull cross? He got away from his owner cos he was angry at Tink’s actions towards his sister. Also, pitties have incredible strength in their jaws…he got his mouth on her head and crushed her skull and broke her neck.

My neighbours are devastated….. End of sentence.

I live in a country duplex, and these people live on the other side of the duplex. I live on an organic blueberry farm for the peace and quiet I have needed since my brain injury. These people have been both loving and caring to me for the years that we have been neighbours. For the years that they have lived next door to me….They have picked me up off the ground and the floor when I have fallen, taken me to an emergency when I sliced my leg open, taken care of my dogs when I’ve been in the hospital and just all-around become family to me… Very important facts when you live without any family in your neighbourhood. I didn’t have a running car for two years and lived in the country…they took me to the grocery store every time I needed to go. They took me to doctors’ offices every time I needed to go etc. All of which freed Jim up to live his own life during Covid as opposed to having to run up and down the island, taking care of me, the way he did our parents. Just before Pixie died they helped me find Tink and drove me the 4 hours up the island to get her. We knew she was aggressive…and I was working on that with her. You cannot train a dog out of habits, formed over 3 1/2 years of their lives in minutes.

There’s absolutely nothing that any of us could have done to stop it despite both of my neighbours throwing themselves on the dogs.

There is no blame… But if I were to point the finger I would have to point at Tink, My wee, white demon dog.

I am heartbroken but know that I will have another dog eventually. I don’t want a large dog because it’s hard for me to clean up after them, my neighbours would gladly do it for me, but why would I ask that of them?

One of the auto immune diseases I have is Crohn’s disease.

I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve never been sort of a religious pill taker having been raised by my mother, whom we spent a lot of time telling got her doctor certificate from the readers digest, but mom was all about supplements and trying to negate the possibility of dementia….. over the years she probably took $1 million worth of supplements.

I have my regular meds blister packed by my pharmacy… a lot of people have their vitamins blister packed as well but one of the meds I take, is six huge horse pills, which takes up about half of the blister pack so I don’t have my supplements added to them.   Being neurodivergent I have had to work out a routine that I kind of have for myself about taking pills….it started out with me not allowing myself to have a cup of coffee in the morning until I brush my teeth and take my pills and I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s just second nature…. I don’t think I really wake up for it anymore..

Here’s what I feel about the vitamin D situation…. when I moved to Victoria my Crohn’s was the worst it’s ever been….I was sicker than a dog, my stress levels were through the roof and i was in a flare that had lasted a little over a year.   Eventually the inflammation hit my hips and I was unable to walk….couldn’t even get myself to the washroom.  My mom called an ambulance and had me hauled off to the local hospital where they physically draining fluid from my hips…. You should’ve seen the size of the needles…gak! 

I was in the hospital about a month and during that time was when Mal told me what Linda had suggested about Vitamin D.  I of course immediately pooh-poohed the idea because I’d spent my whole life living with a person who used to hide lecithin powder in our peanut butter. 

It was also during that hospital stay that I discovered a whole raft of over-the-counter meds and clinical meds that I can’t take. I can’t take Demerol. I can’t take codeine I can’t take ibuprofen. I can’t take/use most NSAIDS… no kind of anti-inflammatories and most sleeping meds… which really sucks because the doctors kept trying to put me on anti-inflammatories trying to get my body to stop flaring and for the longest time and they didn’t connect to the idea that what was going on in my joints was connected to my Crohn’s.  

Eventually through that hospital stay I became the patient of an amazing woman who was a gastroenterologist, and because I was unemployed and so sick she gave me the meds I needed to take for my Crohn’s and for a couple of years and she gave me the meds religiously every month.   The med that I was taking at that time was a drug called Salofalk that is also known as pureinethol or 6MP.  And I took a shit ton of those pills for years….also, for some reason the manufactures of salofalk would stop making the pills every year in September so by the end of the year everybody was scrounging and back in flare (I was getting my winter meds through a friend that worked in a pharmacy in Minnesota for cripes sake)

Fast forward to another conversation,  I would suggest in the early 2010’s with Mal when she reiterated what Linda had said, and suggested, I should be taking at least 3000 units of vitamin D a day.  I discussed it with my gastroenterologist, who said it can’t hurt…. so I started taking one or 2000 units of vitamin D when I remembered, there wasn’t any kind of regularity to it.  

Within six months I was in remission, no more mucus, no more bleeding but best of all no more pain….it seem that the vitamin D and the Salofalk in combination was what my particular Crohn’s disease needed.  

I’ve had a couple of my minor Crohn’s flares in the year since, but nothing like they were before.  The challenge with Crohn’s disease is that the only organ in your body that they don’t think can be affected by Crohn’s is your bladder but it can affect everything else and no two people have the same disease which makes it harder for Western medicine to get on top of.

  
I truly believe that the vitamin D I take is the reason I’m walking still, and no longer incontinent.  Which could be a really big deal. (If ya get my drift) As a result of my email exchange with Linda I upped my vitamin D intake to 5000 units a day… My biggest blessing I guess considering how much stuff I have to take is that I can take a fistful of pills at once.  I don’t know that I would be as diligent if I had to take all those bloody things one at a time.