Day 140

When we found out recently that Dash had a heart murmur, I had some additional tests done. After looking at the test results, the cardiologist says that Dash has an enlarged heart as well. I asked what could have caused this and the best answer seems to be that the special low protein food he's been eating for the past three years to prevent crystals from forming in his urine wasn't providing enough protein to the heart muscles. As a consequence, the heart muscles were starting to atrophy. This made sense to me. What didn't make sense was why there wasn't a big label on the food itself that said "not for long-term use."

It's frustrating how often this sort of thing happens in medicine. A specialist prescribes something to treat one condition and the side effects of the treatment end up causing an entirely different sort of problem somewhere else. I think Dash's condition is correctable with a change in diet, but he probably shouldn't have been eating Science Diet u/d for three years in the first place. Some vets think Allopurinol is better for preventing bladder stones in Dalmatians than a restricted diet anyway. I guess we'll try that.

I wish that doctors and veterinarians would take a more holistic approach to treatment. We live in a specialized world though. Everybody is an expert at something and almost nobody seems to see the big picture. When I try to look at the big picture, I find that I'm less inclined to find the solution in technology than I used to be. There was a time when I thought technology was the answer to everything, but technology has let me down a lot lately. As many of you already know, I continually have problems with standing water on my flat roof. After I burned out three expensive sump pumps with special moisture detector on/off switches, I went out and bought an old fashioned janitor's push broom and began sweeping the water off the roof after a rain. Much to my surprise, I discovered that I could sweep the water off the roof three times faster than the pumps could pump it away.

I used to have one of those clickers that would automatically unlock my car doors when I approached. The door lock mechanism in the car kept having to be repaired though. The dealer said it hadn't been engineered properly in the first place and wasn't strong enough to unlock the doors. After the warranty ran out, I went back to just locking my car with the key. It's simple and it works every time.

Life has become too complicated. I think we just have to accept the fact that doctors and veterinarians won't always have the answer we need. We have to accept that technology isn't always going to improve the way we live. I guess I've already accepted the dirty little secret that investing is just a crap shoot. Jeez! Was there any real reason the market went up so much yesterday and down so much today. I can't really see that anything substantial has changed in the world overnight.

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