Jasper???

Tuesday - May 24, 2011

Today my partner had to go to the meat doctor. She really dreads going to these appointments every 6 months. Six years ago, before we were together, she had a bad sickness in her right teat that had to be cut out. She refused to take the chemicals they give that make humans really sick and lose all their fur. Instead she just went in every day and they put her in a machine that shot special magical stuff into her body to make the rest of the sickness die. But it also made some good tissue die too and she got some burns.

After that, she was contacted by an oncologist and asked to be part of a cancer clinical drug trial for 5 years. My partner was given 2 bottles of pills every 6 months. One bottle had real medicine in it that was supposed to help her not get that teat sickness again, and the other bottle had medicine that did nothing. Every 6 months she had to go see that meat doctor. He would talk to her for a while, asking all kinds of personal questions, then make her lie down and knead her teats really hard which hurts her a whole lot. My partner says she feels like a slab of meat on a butcher's table, that's why she calls him that name.

Then my partner finally got smart and came and got me and took me home with her. Not too long after that she took me to the meat doctor. She kept getting sick on the way down there and had to pull over 3 times to sit in the back with me so I could make her well enough to keep driving. When we were waiting for the meat doctor to come into the exam room, my partner was shaking and scared and I kept trying to make her feel better. Then the meat doctor burst into the room and I jumped up and let out one big very loud bark at him! THAT stopped him dead in his tracks. Then I smiled at him and sat down.

Every time we go there and he pokes and prods at my partner, I make sure he knows that I am supervising. I sit and put my head on the table and keep my eyes on his - and he always locks eyes with mine. If my partner starts to go away in her mind, I nudge her leg with my nose and bring her back. This seems to fascinate the doctor - that I will always be looking at him, but know what is going on with my partner. Ever since I started going with my partner to see him, he has become softer and gentler. He watches me as he does his work on her and she says it doesn't hurt as much any more, so that's a good thing!

This was going to be the last time my partner saw him and Sergio, the nice man that gives my partner the bottles of pills. It's been 5 years that she's been in this study. But the meat doctor doesn't want to cut her off. He wants her to come back in one year for another check-up, even though she won't be taking any more of those pills. She and Sergio are hoping the bad sickness does not come back again, now that she is stopping those pills. I hope she is OK too...

I've been getting along now with the meat doctor. I give him a sniff when he first comes in and he gives me a scritch under my chin. Then I lay down between him and my partner while they do their long talking. But from the beginning he has always called me "Jasper". That's a BOY'S name!! Can't he recognize a beautiful bitch when he sees one? 

I made my partner get on this silver machine and do her typings to find out what this Jasper actually means. She said it is indeed a boy's name from either Persia or Greece. And that its meaning is "treasure holder" or "semi-precious gemstone". 

Well, with my multi-colors, I certainly LOOK like a gemstone! All my colors flash and gleam in lights, especially the sunlight. I have reds and golds and bronzes and tans. I'm much prettier than any old rock. And I definitely hold treasures. My partner is always telling me that. She says I save her life every day and that I am a treasure to her - one that is priceless and that she would never give up - not for anything! So I guess that it's OK if that meat doctor wants to call me Jasper, and I'll just keep on keeping on.

Kalifornia Kota