Update on Amos, continued

For those of you who are wondering, Amos is doing much better which is a far cry from where he was about ten days ago. In fact, two weekends ago, Amos was about as bad as I had ever seen him. He was unable to put any weight on his front feet and was actually holding his right front paw up. He could barely walk and I was beside myself. I had rested him for a full week--he seemed to make a dramatic recovery mid-week but I still limited his activity and now a total relapse back to a point that I hadn't seen for months--for no reason.

It was at this point that I read on a blog I frequent about how the author of this blog had turned to an animal communicator when she couldn't figure out why one of her cats was all of a sudden urinating on her furniture, which is apparently a very difficult problem to live with and one which seemed to come out of nowhere. She had done the same vet, medicine routine that I had with Amos (albeit for a different problem) but nothing seemed to work. The animal communicator, however had nailed the problem and the author made a very good case for contacting her.

Well I figured I had nothing to lose, so I contacted the animal communicator, Lisa Reber. We set up an appointment via email, arranged payment and then set up a time to talk, which was to have been exactly a week ago, yesterday. Except last Wednesday, I had a horrendous dental day--a routine tooth cleaning turned into a potential implant because of a loose crown over root canal--and arranged to call her the next day when I would be able to focus on what she was saying. I had to go back to the dentist in a week to see if the root was cracked and needed to be extracted.

When we chatted, she told me that Amos had insisted that Phoebe go first--which he would--and so I learned that Phoebe gets bored easily, doesn't really know what is wrong with Amos and that he doesn't want to do fun things anymore. Then Lisa told me about Amos and his limping--which, she said, is not from joint pain but from a small sliver of wood stuck in one of the toenails on his right foot. It doesn't hurt him all the time, but when he steps on it the wrong way--WOWEE!! (her word) She told me to soak his front feet in a tub of warm water with Epsom salts and see if the splinter would dislodge. And she told me he wanted to go on walks again with Phoebe so I should start right away.

While I had her on the phone, I asked her about the possibility of the looming implant. "You don't have a cracked root," she told me. "You should be fine."

It all sounded plausible--except for the fact that my vet and I had been over all Amos' feet and toes for months to no avail--but I figured I had nothing to lose. So I bought Epsom salts and started soaking Amos' feet one week ago, twice a day. The most amazing thing to me was that he actually liked it--he stood perfectly still with his front feet in a Rubbermaid basin of water and smiled! Really.

Fast forward to Monday, when I took Amos to the vet. She found nothing in his feet but told me to keep soaking them if it made him feel better. Tuesday, Amos was the best he has been in six months. He ran Phoebe and me through Bryn Mawr College, wagging his tail the whole time and prancing like a puppy. He was feeling fine. And every day this week, he has gone for a long walk with Phoebe. Sometimes he limps, but then it just goes away. He gets his paws soaked when we come back and he seems like a genuinely happy camper.

By the way, when I went to the much dreaded dentist appointment today, I did in fact just have a loose crown. No cracked root and no implant (for now).

So draw your own conclusions, but I bought lottery tickets on my way home from the dentist.



O