Living with a dog

The last couple of weeks have been quite interesting. As I mentioned in the past, I never had a dog, but some cats who we kept for years living in the garden, outside my parents’ house. So, I didn’t really know what to expect, but I had prepared myself for the worst.

Hello you

On the contrary, Penny has proven to be quite a surprise. We didn't have any chewed shoes or furniture. She’s not begging for food when we eat and gladly welcomes other people, children or pets when out and about. She doesn't bark much and happily sits on her cushion napping or observing what we do (most of the time). She was somewhat house trained on her previous homes and we didn't have to do much. She also does this ridiculously cute thing of standing up on her back legs and moves frantically her front ones in the air! It’s adorable.

Someone's outside... 

New Chewy toy

The first day we got her was a nightmare though. She cried during the night and I was extremely unsettled and couldn't sleep at all. To be honest her cry didn't last for long, but it was enough to make me miserable for the whole night. I was twisting and turning fearing that we’re making the poor creature’s life a living hell, which of course is not true. During the first days, we also had a couple of misfortunes when she left us some surprises on the dining room floor.

Going frantic over a tennis ball 

Since then, we changed her eating time and I’m glad to say it hasn't happened since. We’re managing to keep a schedule of long morning and evening walks which occur more or less at the same time of the day.  We’re also adding walks during the way, but these depend on our work and can’t be daily planned. Since she’s not allowed inside shops, we can’t really take her with us when we go grocery shopping or running errands since for the time being I can’t just tie her and leave her outside, it’s too soon.

Exploring the world

Yesterday night we had a minor incident that we’ll need to look into. Penny woke up during the night when JJ left for work and started crying again. I’m not a happy camper when I’m been woken up like this at 3:30 am. I only managed to fall asleep at 5:20 for 30 minutes before I had to get up to take her for her morning walk. We need to make her a bit more independent.

During the last week whenever we left to go to work there was really no problem. She just watched us from the bay window leave and when we returned she was napping on her cushion. I’m not sure whether she didn't want to be left alone after spending the whole weekend with us, or maybe we pampered her too much. She’s started following us around the house wherever we go again.

Someone's hungry

I’m pretty sure we’ll deal with this. I was reading that there is a honeymoon period with rehomed dogs and they tend to taste the waters for a period afterwards. I think she’s now trying to see if she will be given access to our bedroom or to sleep on the armchair. She’s generally not allowed either. We have established some ground rules with Penny that we intend to keep. We fell in love with her but we also need to be firm with her, it’s the whole alpha male of the pact that Cesar Millan keeps saying...    

The loves of my life happily having coffee

Introducing: Penny

I have mentioned in the past that we were looking into getting a dog. It was an idea that were discussing in length. At first we mentioned getting a puppy. Then we realised that a puppy has needs that we couldn't meet since we're both working full time. And the decision was made to visit a dog shelter to get a dog. We would preferably look into an adolescent or adult dog, somewhat house trained of small to medium size.

So, two weekends ago we visited the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. We registered, had an interview with a member of the staff and walked through the kennels. By the time we were there, most of the dogs were already taken by other people. So, we decided to visit the centre again, which we did, last weekend.

On that visit we saw a dog called Bart. He was very cute and happy to get to know us. Unfortunately we were told that his medical examinations weren't cleared and they could take up to some weeks and we were asked whether we’d be interested to meet Penny who looked very similar to Bart and we said yes. As they say, it’s all history after that.

Penny at the kennels

Penny is an 18 month old Jack Russell mixed breed. She was at the shelter for only a few days. One of her previous owners had asthma and the other were expecting a baby and couldn't take care of her. At first we stayed alone in a room with Penny for about 30 minutes. She was a bit apprehensive. She didn't bark at all but was reluctantly friendly. We played catch with a tennis ball and since it was going all well, we went for a walk around the shelter building accompanied by a member of the staff.

It was love at first sight. As we ‘speak’ JJ is picking her up from the shelter. She finished all her medical examinations even dental cleaning, she got a chip and was spayed. I can’t wait to go back home to properly meet her.

And the diagnosis is in

Familial hypercholesterolaemia. Doctors love to use long words, don't they? Even if it is for something simple that could be described as hereditary cholesterol. But the GP couldn't say that, could he? He had to use the slightly more complicated wording, probably just to confuse me, so that I had to ask (slightly terrified) 'what'? Anyway, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

Since we moved to our property I had to register to a local GP. JJ was pushing me to do that for let's say some weeks (months) and I finally gave in. I don't really like going to the doctor's and to be honest if I can postpone it, I will. To give you an idea of how bad it was, the previous GP I was registered to, was close to my third from last address! I kept saying that since I will soon move again, what's the point? But now that excuse doesn't work since I’m no longer renting and I plan on staying put.

Doctor?

So, the week before leaving for Greece I visited my local practice and one day before leaving for my holidays I took some blood tests. While I was on holidays, a nurse left a message on our answering machine. That was quite funny. She had a thick Eastern European accent * and without being able to pronounce my name (that wasn't her fault) she said I should arrange a meeting to discuss my 'leakage'. JJ played that message to me a couple of times on the phone. He was scheduled to come to Athens the following day and meet me there, so he was still in London when we got the call. She wasn't being very clear, but the word used came strongly as being 'leakage'! JJ suggested ordering a handful of diapers just in case. They were on offer online.

Anyway, after coming back I met with a GP. He then told me 'familial hypercholesterolaemia'. All my other vitals are perfectly fine including my triglycerides. But my 'bad' cholesterol is 8.1 when it should be around 5.5! My 'good' cholesterol is also high. In UK they use a different metric system for that as well! In Greece I used to know around 200 to 210 the normal value and everything above that to be bad, but not in the UK. I think equivalent I'm in my 310s. I know that I'm slightly overweight by a few kilos, have some stored fat around my belly and I'm not eating as many fruits as I should. But I do regular exercise, eat my salads and I'm relatively young to have that high LDL. That can only be explained by my family bad history when it comes to heart disease. I had some signs that FH could be the case since it’s not the first time I was blood tested and had slightly higher cholesterol, just not by that much. So, something needs to be done.

That's the enemy

Since my diagnosis, I'm in the process of changing my eating habits. I know it’s still very early to say that I've successfully changed them but at the moment I'm trying to lower my fat and calories intake. I really hope that even small changes like swapping cappuccinos to black americanos without sugar or only having cereal for breakfast instead of toast with cheese might help. If I combine that with avoiding fried stuff altogether and fatty food, I might be able to lower my LDL in the long term. I've been doing that for a week already and I’m feeling confident on keeping on. Already I weight a bit less than before. Although I know that the real test will be in a couple months down the road or when we go on holidays. Will I still be able to keep up? I pray I will.

At the same time, I’m being referred to a hospital for further examinations. My GP said he will arrange the documents and post me the referral soon. It could be I have insulin intolerance caused by a gene deficiency. We'll see. My best hope is to consult with a dietician and avoid start taking medications. I read online that after you start taking stuff like statins, it's very difficult to stop. I know that I need to lower my LDL by about 30% though! That will not be easy and will take some time.

That wasn’t the nicest of posts, I know. But it's something that's on my mind and wanted to write about. I could have written about my visit to Greece, which was amazing by the way, but I couldn't. Suffering a heart attack or a stroke is not a very pleasant conversation subject. Now, I really need to convince my brother to go get tested.

* having a heavy Greek / Mediterranean accent myself, I can make fun of people with funny accents. We now believe she was trying to say 'liver' that came up as 'leakage'.