The rest of the trip was amazing. We talked about the details of our wedding nonstop, we laughed more than ever before, and we didn’t want to do anything but spend time together. I felt like my heart was getting bigger and bigger and bigger, trying its best to contain the sheer joy I was experiencing, and at any moment it might explode. That sounds painful, but it wasn’t; it was delightful.
We ate and drank our way through Maui. We also played golf one day, but mainly, we just consumed delicious food every opportunity we had (if you’re ever going to Maui, hit me up on Twitter, and I’ll plan out your meals for you) and approximately 47,452 Mai Tais. That is obviously an exaggeration—give or take 1,000.
On October 27, 2013, our honeymoon officially came to an end. We said good-bye to our gorgeous resort and made our way to the airport—after we stopped and had pancakes with peanut butter (amazing—stop everything and try it now) and SPAM and eggs. We walked over to the check-in counter, and Tim said sarcastically, “Uh, sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Belusko, but you’ve missed your flight.” I laughed and told him to not even joke like that. I loved being in Maui, but now that we were on our way home, I was ready to get home. We handed the attendant our licenses and stood there patiently. And then . . .
ATTENDANT: Excuse me. Did you guys have any issues on your way out here?
ME: Uh, we missed our first flight out here because I screwed up the times, but the attendant at LAX assured us that it wouldn’t change anything for our return flight.
ATTENDANT: Oh, I see. Well, I have good news and bad news.
Tim and I looked at each other, panicked. I suddenly felt like those pancakes with peanut butter were about to leave my body in one way or another.
ME: You can still get us on the flight but we’ll be flying coach?
ATTENDANT: Oh, no, I was able to get you in first class and on your original flight. The seats just aren’t together right now, but that won’t be a big deal to change at the gate.
Was he kidding me? Good news? That was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-ly amazing news! We were on our way home as happy husband and wife, a slightly fatter but no less happy husband and wife, and it was worth every delicious calorie.
* * *
CHAPTER 10
* * *
THE POOP WHISPERER
Do you follow me on Twitter yet? Well, if you do, (1) bravo! and (2) you may have figured out by now that I am obsessed with dogs. I absolutely love my dogs, other people’s dogs, rescue dogs, hot dogs, it doesn’t matter.
My family got our first dog when I was eight years old. My mom had fallen in love with an adorable long-haired Chihuahua in a local pet store, and immediately my brother and I were hooked. Soon after, we started “Operation: Get Dad On Board” and began begging him to let this furry friend join our family. My dad wasn’t opposed to us getting a dog. He just, like a lot of men, wanted a bigger one. You know, the kind of dog he could play fetch with and go for runs with versus the kind that are frequently mistaken for large rats.
Luckily for us, he agreed that we could take this tiny golden one-and-a-half-pound furball home with us, and we were ecstatic. My dad’s only caveat was that he would get to name our new pooch. I thought our puppy looked like a Justin, or a Bruce, or a Nintendo (as in the kid I had a crush on in third grade, Springsteen, and the best video-game console ever, all of which happened to be favorites of mine in 1989), but my dad didn’t agree.
He named our adorable little fluff-muffin, Tyson. As in Evander-Holyfield-ear-biting Mike Tyson. Now, Mr. Tyson hadn’t eaten anyone’s ear off yet in 1989. He was a relatively new but clearly dominating figure in the world of professional boxing. I guess my dad figured if he couldn’t have a manly dog, he could at least have a manly named long-haired Chihuahua.
When I moved out of my parents’ house at eighteen, I felt rather lonely. I had a fantastic roommate, but she traveled a lot, and I was home alone more than I ever had been before. Even though I was busy working on the seventh season of Boy Meets World, I decided I wanted to have a dog of my own. And that’s when I met Anna.
My beautiful Anna basking in the sun.
I bought Anna at a pet store before I knew that most pet-store dogs come from puppy mills and that rescuing an animal was a much better alternative. I went into a back room with five little dogs: two Yorkshire terriers, two Maltese terrier pups, and one Chihuahua. Four of the dogs didn’t seem to care that I was there. The Yorkies wouldn’t give me the time of day, because barking at people who were walking by was apparently more fun—and actually, if you try barking at people, it is pretty enjoyable. The Chihuahua did circles while trying to chase its tail, and one of the Maltese dogs took a quick pee-pee in the corner. Delightful.
You can understand why I wasn’t convinced that they were the pooches for me. But Maltese number two, who looked like a fluff of cotton, walked her tiny one-pound body over to my lap. I put my hand under her butt, and she walked up my chest and over to my neck. She curled into a little ball and fell asleep with my hand under her body. She chose me, and I promised to give her a life filled with cuddles, toys, good food, and a warm bed.
I also gave her a name that was fit for a princess: Annastacia Blanca Fishel. Although that was her official name, I only ever called her Anna, or one of the many nicknames she acquired over the years. (Like Mashoogana, Stinks, Nana Banana, and Poop Skittle. Don’t ask me about that last one. I have no idea.) My mom eventually added Browna to Anna’s official middle name, because she had typical Maltese tear stains that streaked down her face. Annastacia Blanca Browna Fishel: the tiniest dog with the longest name.
I took Anna home with me and fairly quickly discovered many things about her. She loved to lie on my legs, on her back, and have her belly scratched. When I would stop scratching, she would put her two front paws together and wave them up and down, begging for more. She was incessant, and God forbid I needed to change the channel on the television and had to stop for one second. And Anna loved people, especially strangers. If she had never met you before, she wanted to get to know you really well. She did this by trying to shove her tongue all the way up your nose. Like a Roto-Rooter drain-cleaning service, she would help clean you out, whether you wanted it or not. She also peed when she got excited. I’d come home from the grocery store, and the minute she saw me, she’d start doing spins and peeing at the same time. Did I mention I had white carpet at the time? My carpet had spiral stains all over it by the time I moved out. Sorry, landlord!
Anna became my little partner in crime. She came to the Boy Meets World set with me even though pets weren’t allowed on the lot. Kindly, most security guards turned a blind eye to us. Ridiculously, she went to movie premieres with me, where she’d go potty on a pee pad I brought for her. She was a natural model. She loved to have her picture taken, and we did several photo shoots together. When she was full-grown, she weighed eight pounds, but when Anna looked into the mirror, she saw a lioness. She was tough, resilient, always energetic, and not super-girly. She didn’t like it when I put bows in her hair, so I didn’t do it. She refused to stay clean after a bath and opted to roll in dirty grass almost immediately. Begrudgingly, I always let her. She heard all of my deepest secrets and saw all of my mistakes and never hesitated to love me anyway. She had horrible breath despite getting her teeth cleaned twice a year. I called her my fur baby, and my mom called her “granddogger.”
When she was eleven, I did a charity event called Race for the Rescues. The event was at a huge park, and Anna and Tim came with me. It was a 5K and 10K race that raised money for an organization that brought rescued animals into a no-kill shelter until they found loving homes. Another purpose of the event was to adopt out as many animals to new families as possible. There were dogs everywhere, and they all needed homes.
I had absolutely zero intention of adopting another dog. Anna had been sick with kidney disease for a few years and required a lot of medical attention. Plus, she had been an only fur baby for so long I didn’t know how she’d react to
another fur baby joining our family.
But then I saw this ridiculously small dog. I’m a total sucker for anything small. His two front paws were shaved, and his tongue was hanging out of his miniature mouth. Adorably, he was wearing a bright orange handkerchief that said “Adopt Me!” He was simply too precious for words, and without thinking, I ran over to him and picked him up. There was a woman holding his leash, and I discovered her name was Claudia and that she was his foster mommy.
This little dude’s name was Spike, he was around eleven years old, and he had just had surgery to remove all of his teeth. When he was rescued from the pound, his teeth and mouth were horribly infected. He also wasn’t neutered, so they had done that surgery at the same time. Basically, Spike had been through a lot recently.
Without even thinking to ask if he was nice, I kissed the side of his face. Claudia’s eyes got big, and she said, “Oh. I’m really surprised he let you do that. Let’s just say he has a quirky personality.” I was instantly hooked. He was just like me: miniature, quirky, and old. I wanted him. I just needed to get Tim and Anna to feel the same way.
Clearly, I would never have adopted a dog that didn’t get along with Anna. She was sick, and she needed to be my priority. Tim was running in the race, so I introduced Anna to Spike while I waited for him. I would love to say that it was love at first sight between them, but truthfully, they were totally uninterested in each other. No fighting, no playing, no nothing. They barely even acknowledged each other’s presence. That was good enough for me!
The only photo I own of Spike with teeth. He was at the pound about to be put down when this photo was taken.
When Tim got back from the race, I introduced him to Spike. I would also love to say that it was love at first sight between them, but it was actually the opposite. Where Spike was completely apathetic about Anna, he was very passionate about his distaste for Tim. Spike started growling at him, and he wasn’t exactly warm and cuddly. Not a good first impression. Tim couldn’t possibly fathom what it was I found so endearing about this grumpy old jerk. But it was too late. I was in love. And I wasn’t going to rest until he was my grumpy old jerk.
We took Spike into our home for a “two-week practice trial.” Claudia, his previous foster mommy, gave us a run-down on Spike’s habits and quirks. “He’s totally healthy, especially for an eleven-year-old,” she said as she gave us copies of his most recent veterinary checkup. Indeed, he was healthy. “He isn’t super-fond of men, and we think he may have been abused. Just go slow with him.” She concluded, “You have two weeks to decide if he is a good fit for your family.”
On the first night, Spike wouldn’t let us come anywhere near him. He bit us with his toothless gums, which was still surprisingly painful, and it’s impossible to not recoil from an angry dog that wants to taste your flesh. He growled at us and refused to eat. He literally wanted nothing to do with us and looked for Claudia for hours after she left. I cried all night. “What have I done?” I said out loud to no one in particular at least five times.
Anna was the only one Spike could bear. He seemed very comfortable with her, and she never elicited a growl or a bark from him. She was very slow around him, though. Anna was a very hyper dog, but for some reason, she knew she had to be calm with him. She would do a doggie version of a tiptoe over to Spike’s face and lean in to smell him. Anna really liked the way Spike’s ears smelled, and Spike actually let her smell them without putting up a fight.
When it was time to go to sleep, I put the brand-new dog bed I had purchased for Spike earlier in the day on the leather recliner I have in my bedroom. I gingerly picked up Spike and placed him in the bed. He seemed happy there. From his bed, he could see us in our bed, but he was relaxed knowing we weren’t going to try to touch him or play with him for a while. Tim and I discussed the events of the evening through my tears. He consoled me with the fact that this was Spike’s first night in a new place with new people. He was probably just scared, and he would warm up to us over the next few days.
Tim was wrong. For three straight days, Spike made it abundantly clear that he didn’t really like us. Actually, I was yet to see anyone he did like. Spike wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy with Claudia, either, and she had been living with him for a few months.
Spike was so darn irresistible! Why didn’t he want me to love him and hug him and cuddle him to death? I’m really not a big crier, but I continued to cry for days. What was I going to do if he never warmed up to me? I kept reminding Tim that we had a two-week trial period, so if things didn’t get better, we could always give him back to Claudia. The only problem was that this was a total lie. I was never going to give this little man back. I knew the minute he walked into my home that he was never leaving. I didn’t care if he bit me a thousand times a day; he was stuck with me for however long he lived.
I knew that I was Spike’s last chance for a happy home. He was mean and old and couldn’t be trusted around children. Unfortunately, he was pretty unadoptable to anyone with common sense. Luckily for him, I had none.
Over the next few weeks, Spike and Anna became best friends. They cuddled on the couch together, they took walks side-by-side, and they shared toys. In the next few months, Spike warmed up to me, too. He let me pick him up and scratch his chest. He even started whining in the middle of the night until I picked him up out of his bed and put him in bed with Anna, Tim, and me. He’d cuddle up right next to my side and sleep soundly all night. But with Tim? Let’s just say Spike and Tim were in a permanent duel. Spike was the one who took off his white glove and slapped Tim across the face. Side note: How cute would a dog in little white gloves be? I would never do it to my own dogs, but I may have to Google that image.
This is what came up. Not what I was looking for but . . . are you kidding me with this cuteness?
After six months of having Spike, he got sick. He was screaming in pain and wouldn’t eat his food. He also couldn’t go “number two.” I felt terrible for him. Poor little guy was hunched over with terrible stomach spasms. He was also very itchy, and when I scratched certain parts of his back, he winced. I immediately took him to our veterinarian, Dr. Jang, who said he needed to do an ultrasound to find out what was wrong with Spike’s stomach cramps. They shaved his little belly and ran a bunch of tests. It turned out that Spike had irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which causes immense stomach cramping, constipation, and possibly diarrhea. He also had chronic pancreatitis, and it was allergies that were making him itchy. We had to put Spike on several medications for the stomach cramping, one of which was a steroid, and an antihistamine and enzymes for the allergies. Eventually, he got better . . . for a short time.
Within a few months, Spike started drinking a ton of water and needing to pee constantly. I worried that he had kidney disease, because incessant drinking and peeing were the warning signs I had when Anna got sick. Once again, we made our way into the vet’s office. Dr. Jang ran some blood tests, and we discovered that Spike had diabetes on top of his IBS, chronic pancreatitis, and allergies. The worst part is that the steroid that helped to control his pancreatitis and IBS wasn’t compatible with insulin. Unfortunately, the steroid was the most effective medicine to help regulate his bowels and stop the cramping. We chose to try out a safer but less effective medication and see how he did.
Now I had one dog with kidney disease that required subcutaneous fluids twice a week and five medications a day and a second dog with a laundry list of other health issues. On top of being enrolled in college full-time and working thirty-five hours a week hosting a show at night, I was owner, president, and CEO of Fishel Doggie Elder Care.
I had no social life. I planned my school schedule around being able to take care of my dogs and work. I had to learn how to give Grumpy McGrumperson (one of Spike’s many nicknames) his insulin shots twice a day. This will totally surprise you (no, it won’t), but he didn’t like that very much. The first few days were torturous for both of us, because he tried to bite my hand off every morning,
and I usually barely got any insulin under his skin.
One particularly exhausting morning started after getting very little sleep the night before. I had an eight o’clock class and had been up since six. I tried to bribe Spike with a piece of cheese so I could sneak-attack him with the insulin injection. I failed miserably. He spun around and snapped at me with his toothless gums, and I panicked. I ripped my right hand, the one holding the needle that injects the insulin, away from his back and out of harm’s way very quickly.
I was like a ninja—a stupid ninja who proceeded to stab herself in the left hand with a super-sharp needle full of insulin. It hurt, I was bleeding, but there was no time to think about that. I was running late for school, and Spike didn’t get his dose of insulin because I had just inadvertently given it to myself.
As much as I hated to do it, I put Spike in a muzzle and gave him his shot. Right before I ran out the door, I decided I should look up what the consequences were when a nondiabetic person took insulin. It probably wasn’t anything too serious, but it couldn’t hurt to check, right?
This was the first thing that came up in my Google search: “CAUTION, CAUTION. Insulin taken by a nondiabetic will reduce the person’s blood glucose to very low. Unneeded insulin shots will lower blood sugar to a level that can cause coma or death.”
Well, that wasn’t comforting. I drove to school and walked into class. The second my professor arrived, I walked up to him and said, “Hi. I accidentally gave myself a dose of insulin this morning, and I am not diabetic. Please watch out for any warning signs of me lapsing into a coma or dying. It wasn’t too much insulin, by the way. Just enough for a four-pound dog. I’m sure I’ll be fine. Thanks for looking out for me.”
Normally, This Would Be Cause for Concern Page 13