Dark angel

Maman's dark angel

Doug's right. She does look sweet, but she does also look like she's saying, "Maman, why are you doing this to me?" I don't think she gets her first Halloween any more than Sam did his at 3 weeks old. The difference was that Sam finally got it, while Fia isn't likely to. Besides, she can't have the chocolate. She'll have to give it to us.

I made all his costumes, from the first one, which was a tiger spotted pajama and a mask in gold paper I made before leaving the office that day -- cutting the eye holes precisely the right width apart the first time so that his little eyes gazed out at the world through them, that's how strong an imprint a baby's face makes on his mother's mind --, to the last, which I cannot remember. How can that be? There was the little devil when he was one, Max from Where the Wild Things Are when he was three, the velvet spider when he was four, his first Tuxedo and a gorgeous black wool cape with red satin lining I made him for his Dracula costume his kindergarten year, when he was five.

There was the failed next Halloween, when he dressed up as Darth Vader and refused to trick or treat. We stood with his grandfather in the street in Old Greenwich, while the children flowed past us in the clear October night, light streaming from the Jack O'Lanterns and doors where the grown-ups who stayed at home handed out candy. I thought it was because we had moved that summer from our old neighborhood near where we were trick or treating to our new apartment in the center of Greenwich. Perhaps Sam felt like a six-year-old interloper, but he swore years later that it really was because the Darth Vader mask he had wanted so much blinded and smothered him, even after we punched the film out of the eye-holes. That had ruined his Halloween.

It was because I hadn't made the costume. That's what it was.

Then, there was James Bond. He wanted to wear a tuxedo again.

But there were two other Halloweens, as well as the one when he was two. How can I forget? I remember what Kyle wore that last Halloween in Greenwich to the International School at Dundee Halloween party. He dressed as an old man. I found him sitting at the side of the gym, while the others all played the games the parents had set up.

"Kyle," I said, surprised to see him sitting there alone, his large plaid shirt covered tummy hanging over the belt buckle at his trouser tops, "what are you doing sitting there?" He grinned at me.

"I'm resting."

Ah, I smiled back, "Old men get tired easily." He nodded, a very slight smile where his lips met the corner of his powdered skin. No wonder he's at SCAD, studying film directing. We all knew that was coming when he was Robin Hood at Sam's 5th birthday party and took his bow and arrows so seriously, redistributing the party favors more equitably. No one dared refuse.

I joke. About the party favor redistribution. Everyone was rich except Sam and I, and it was his birthday so he did pretty well. About Kyle, we really did all know what his future would hold.

Still, I cannot remember those last two Halloweens. I must not have made those costumes, but I have no excuse for the second one, when he was two, other than so many years having passed. Fia will be the first pet to have a Halloween costume. I was too nervous with Baccarat, and God only knows you don't dress up a car.

It was hard being a first-time puppy owner, and it was all I could do to survive the recall command training. Baccarat did as she pleased more often than I like to admit, until the last year of her far too brief life, by which time she had decided to take a charitable attitude with me. I am pretty sure she regretted having been such a challenge once she saw how destroyed I was by her being so sick and having to leave us. Or not. It is not a dog's way to regret anything.

This time, however, I am doing exactly what I knew I could once Baccarat had to leave us; I decided to let Baccarat help me and relax and just have fun this time, and, here it is, Halloween time. Fall has touched the leaves and turned them gold, the pumpkins are in the stores and pots of chrysanthemums in deep purple, yellow and maroon are flying out of them, and my favorite holiday is here again. I heard myself clear her throat and speak.

A costume for Fia. Why not make a costume for little Fia Lux de la Pellousery? That would be fun, wouldn't it? You haven't made one for such a long time.

I thought about it, and an idea came to me before she had even come home from the breeder's.

"A devil. I can make a devil costume for the diablotin."

That's not really very fair, is it? asked myself. I mean, she hasn't even had a chance to misbehave or to prove herself difficult, and here you are thinking of her as a little devil.

It was true. I acknowledged it, and her first 2 weeks at home made me feel even worse about it. She actually wasn't a diablotin at all. Maybe for her second Halloween.

It was the devil wings Doug brought up the other day that got me thinking. Or maybe it was because I was already thinking of making the angel costume and needed wings that he thought of telling Fia that devil's have wings, too.

I forget a lot of things these days. Soon I will need to sit and rest along the gym wall and watch the young 'uns have their fun.

But, it started to come together. I would make Fia angel wings and a halo. Fia is a Scottish name that means "arising from a dark peace" or "dark fairy". It would be perfect for her. I would only need to go to Truffaut again -- I had already gotten more red felt for a cape and some nifty red felt hearts in a chain I thought I could attach to her collar, as a gesture, you know, of her being really pretty good -- and get some stuff. I attached Fia's leash to her and tried to be very authoritative to get her to follow me to the damn car. When she got a whiff of where we were headed, she balked -- in the middle of the road.

I don't know why she doesn't like to get in the car. We do such fun things when we go places, and she gets to be with me.

We went first to the bank and deposited some money in the poor bank account and then went to the vet to weigh her for her 12 week birthday. 6 kgs! That's another kilo in the last week. She's still littler than Baccarat was at 8 weeks, but there were twice as many puppies in her littler. She'll catch up. Then, we drove over to Truffaut and Fia got in her place in the cart. I had some pheasant food to return for the pheasant I found limping in the road Sunday night, on my way home from dropping Sam at the train station, who didn't stay for breakfast; as well as things to pick up for her costume.

-- I had managed to get it out from behind an old mattress, propped against a stone wall, behind which it had taken refuge from my terrifying approach -- it was that or let the hunters shoot it in the middle of the Grande Rue the next day -- and take it home, where Audouin made it a dry leaf nest in the big black plastic tub I bought for the frogs back when we had to empty the old fountain of fish, frogs, plants and water to repair it. The next morning, I had gone over to Truffaut for some pheasant food and a water distributor, but when I removed the wood planks from the top of the tub, it found the strength it had lacked the previous night to take off at full wingspan, nearly knocking me over backwards and pooping all over Rapide in the process of taking flight. Audouin's daughter had nearly fallen over backwards from laughter --

We approached the accueil, and the security guy turned around to see who was approaching. A smile crept over his face when he saw the small black dog in the basket, and he glanced up at me, my new used Nikon D300 hanging around my neck. The cashier looked up and smiled, too.

"Je peux avoir cet appareil de photo?" he asked, breaking into a chuckle.

"Ca, non," I told him, "mais je prendrai votre photo," I offered. He laughed. I explained that I needed to make a return before doing my shopping, and he got the cashier's attention, who looked at the bag of pheasant food and the plastic drinking apparatus I was returning, along with a bag of ProPlan puppy food (Orijen this time, for both dogs).

"Quel est le problème avec ces produits?" asked the nice cashier.

"Bon, les produits sont très bien, mais le faisan blessé que j'ai accueilli est parti avant le petit déj, alors il paraîtrait qu'il ne soit si blessé que ça finalement," I replied. She laughed and wrote up the slip for me to take to have signed while the security guy went to see Fia.

"Allez," I said, "Je vous ai dit que je prendrais votre photo, alors!"

I lifted the camera up in front of my face -- the only way I can really see the world and my loved ones --, and he laughed out loud, delighted, while I snapped his picture with Fia, and then he walked me back to the animal supply department for the signature.

"Vous êtes anglaise d'origine?" he asked me as we walked to the back of the store, me pushing Fia in the cart.

"Non, américaine."

"Ah!" he turned and smiled at me. "Moi, je suis marocain d'origine. Vous savez qui était le premier à reconnaître les EtasèUnis?" he asked.

"Le Maroc?"

"Oui!," he said, beaming at me as we turned the corner into the animal needs department. I smiled back. Fia looked around. I hoped she wouldn't ask for a new collar or toy.

We stopped in front of the display of aquarium supplies, including the sea salt I had used to save George the Koi's life.

"Vous êtes photographe?" he asked me.

"Oh! Non! Non, je suis architecte, mais j'adore la photographie, et j'écris."

I sort of made the last part up. It makes me feel better about not doing any architecture, except the house renovation that I ignore and put off as much as possible.

"J'ai fais de la photographie," he told me. He had done weddings, until staying out every weekend night until 6 am cured him of his desire to be a photographer. Of weddings, anyway. I thought of the story another friend had told me, about when he worked for a newspaper and someone had borrowed the Mamiya to photograph a friend's wedding. When he'd opened the camera, he discovered the film hadn't caught and every time he had advanced and shot a photo, he'd been shooting on air.

No wedding pictures.

I'd done that, but never for anything like a wedding.

He got my signature, I ran into the employee who had told me that George the Koi was good for a plastic bag in the freezer and told him I'd been on the look-out for him to tell him the good news -- isolation in a 3% salt solution and the Baytril Nifurpirinol antibiotic tablets another employee had said wouldn't work did work, and then I went off to scout what was on hand in the arts and crafts section to make Fia's costume. We found wire, black tissue paper, silver star confetti (for her halo), black feathers, and a hot glue gun and the glue sticks for it, and then we went off to look for a garland, the only reason I could be happy to see Christmas decorations before all the leaves had turned, for her halo.

I found a pink boa with silver flecks and the security guy, who told me the rest of the Christmas stuff would be available for shopping the next day. I touched the pink and silver boa, the question Who would put this on their Christmas tree? flying through my head right before the joy of having found the perfect accessory for a dark angel.

"Non! C'est très bien, " I said, looking around me, reaching for the pink and silver boa. "Elle doit avoir ça!" I said, wrapping it around and around her small neck. It was perfect! "Elle devrait toujours porter ça au lieu d'un collier!" I added, laughing.

He wanted to know if I sold my cameras. I told him all about eBay and went back to arts and crafts for something to decorate the pipe cleaners I'd decided on the spot I'd make into her halo instead of a garland, and stopping along the way to chat with more dog owners and small children in my joyful delirium. I found silver star confetti. How absolutely perfect! This was such fun!

Fia was looking -- like she was having less fun. We went and got in the car.



Halloween is definitely for kids and parents.
....

The other patient

The koi in its Nifurpirinol bath, Day 13

It could really use a name now, couldn't it? I am nearly certain it's a female, but not enough to commit to a name. Maybe I should call it George, as in George Eliot.

No. That stinks. I'll just refer to it has "he" and "him" until I have a better idea.

I need to put together a series of photos, from the first day I put him in quarantine and began salt and anti-bacterial/antibiotic treatments to the present, to see if he really has improved as we think he has. His eyes seem to be less protuberant, and there is a less marked difference between the scales of his body from those of his tail, which is also to say that the scales of his tale now seem to stick out a little, too, but the rest perhaps less.

I pour over pictures of different varieties of koi, looking to see if his scales appear normal now by some variety standards, and one very encouraging thing is that the enlarged blood vessels around his right eye that appeared just after I began treatment disappeared within a couple of days of treatment, and they have not returned. Another is that he appears no worse, if not necessarily certainly all better. He is lonely in his quarantine tub, but that is better than dead. Sometimes he comes out when I come to visit him. He also seems to accept my removing him when it is time to change his water, to which I add a Nifurpirinol tablet, in addition to the salt, to his water, and I am no longer doing the concentrated, brief Nifurpirinol baths.

I am not sure he is eating anything, but that's probably just as well for his system, and besides, hiding all day behind his rock and plants doesn't require a large amount of calories. If he continues to do as well, I will return him to the "bassin" in a week or two and see how it goes, but don't say anything to him; I haven't told him yet, and I don't want to get his hopes up.

It's time to leave to go see Baccarat for the afternoon. It's her last afternoon before open heart surgery, and I am doing things I don't recognize that I am to stay calm. I don't know what you call it, but it's a lot like that afternoon when I knew Audouin would come home with the lab results for my melanoma. I remember thinking, up on my ladder painting the Orange Room, "Soon, you could get news that will change your life forever. You could learn that you won't live much longer," and I looked out the window at the sunshine in the flowers, the dogs and Shadow sleeping on the lawn, and myself spoke to me, Just enjoy this afternoon, this moment. It's what you have, and I felt peaceful, happy.

Sometimes, that's enough.

This evening, Sam will call me when he finishes work, and we will meet up on the Champs-Elysées to go see Toy Story 3. Like he was just the right age for Harry Potter when it came, and made a reader of him, he was the right age for Toy Story, so that 11 years later, when Andy is going to college and leaving his childhood room, so is Sam. We'll spend time together and enjoy that, and tomorrow will bring what it will. Each moment until they have the result of the biopsy is a moment of the present, when Baccarat is still alive and there is hope.

Everyone knows that it is already almost a miracle that she is still alive with this mass taking up nearly all the space inside her right heart, reducing the blood flow to a trickle, her circulation to a a stream in the desert. Her heart could fail at any moment, her brain be destroyed, but say the name of one of her beloved people, and the head darts up, the tail starts.

"Baccarat! Guess who's coming to see you! Sam! Sam's coming to see you!" and the tail is going. Everyone laughs because I could tell her in the same tone of voice that we were going to force feed her some more of that protein-rich food, and she'd stare out past the legs of the chairs and people and sigh heavily. She is still there.

"C'est un bon signe," they tell me, "qu'elle se bat. Elle aurait pu se laisser aller, mais elle reste avec nous et elle s'intéresse; elle se bat." It's true. She could let herself go; she could let herself die, but she is interested in what is happening around her, and she is hanging on.

"L'hôpital va lui manquer," I laughed, "Parce qu'ici, l'où elle va, elle est accompagnée par tous ses amis, un petit groupe d'étudiants, d'internes et de résidents! C'est très agréable!"

And, this is true, too. She will miss the hospital and all her friends there because wherever she goes, she is accompanied by a small troupe of friends, students, interns and residents. It is very nice to be so cared for.

Tomorrow, the car will take her and two vets, including Dr. Gouni, to Montsouris. At noon, the perfusionist will attach her to the cardiopulmonary pump, and they will begin open heart surgery. She is one of the very few dogs ever to undergo this surgery, which would be out of the question in the United States. Even here, where the surgeons are donating their time in the interest of trying to save her and to learn more, it is going to cost more than my son's lycée, as much as one year of his school in Paris during collège.

"There is no price that can be put on her life, Mom," he tells me again and again.

"There is, Sam. For everyone, there is a limit, a moment when they cannot spend any more. They just can't. For us, we are willing to make this sacrifice because she is so young, and because we love her, you love her so much, but for others, for most people, it would be out of the question." It is hard for him to accept this.

"Il faut être un peu psychologue dans notre travail," said Dr. Gouni yesterday, as I filled out the papers and wrote a check to IMM Recherche. My fingers spelled the sum out easily. I didn't need to make a list of all the things I could live without to make it possible. Like my friend said, we can eat potatoes for a couple months. "La plupart des gens ne pourrait pas se permettre de payer une chirurgie et les soins. On le sait et on leur n'en parle pas." One must, she said, be a bit of a psychologist in our work because most people could not pay for this surgery and the medical bills. We know it, she said, and we don't even suggest it to them.

"Je pense au chien," I answered. "Il n'a que son amour à offrir à son maître. Il n'a pas d'argent pour payer quoique ce soit. Si son maître est en train de mourir d'un cancer, on ne lui demanderait jamais de payer ses soins, de lui sauver la vie, alors, pour lui, c'est normal qu'on lui offre ce qu'on a, l'amour et de l'accompagner dans le temps qu'il lui reste. C'est bien à ses yeux.""

I think, I told her, of the dog. He has no money to pay for his master's medical bills were he dying of cancer. He only has his love to offer, and he will give it until the last. So, for him, it is normal that we only offer him the same if it is all we have. It is good in his eyes.

I need to go now. I am late.
....

The country life for me

The koi finds a friend

Please, don't tell it that it's its own self; I haven't let on yet.

Koi, like goldfish, are highly sociable creatures and don't like being alone in their own pond in quarantine very much, although this one seems to be starting to get used to the fact and the new rhythm of life, including 30 minute to one hour Nifrupirinol bath treatments in the afternoon. We are staving off the Ziploc bag in the freezer option as long as we can continue to give the antibiotics I can get in the store and the sea-salt regime a chance of working. It isn't eating anymore, aside from the perhaps accidental ingestion of a koi stick the day before yesterday, when I put it in the clear salad bowl of Nifurpirinol solution for the first time, which isn't so great a sign.

Neither were the enlarged blood vessels around its right eye yesterday. They don't look much worse, and possibly a little better today.

Word must be getting out, however, that I am something of an animal recovery and treatment center because the neighbor turned up at the gate with her 3-year-old and her 5-year-old niece in tow earlier than I expected them to come for a swim.

"Ah, on a eu un changement du programme?" I called from where I was peering into the quarantine basin. They were to have taken a postprandial nap before coming for a tea time swim.

"Non, on a trouvé un bébé crapeau dans le bac à sable, et on a pensé l'amener ici."

Why, merci beaucoup!

In short, they found a baby toad cowering in a corner of the sandbox, and they thought they'd bring it to me. Well, as it happens, I have a toad house or two available, with piscine, in the border. I invited them in through the gate, and led the girls, followed by my neighbor, to the very spot, an empty orange juice bottle filled with water for the toad pool in hand. This, I handed to her small daughter, standing next to me in her ruffle-bottom swimsuit, and asked if she would like to fill the toad pool herself before we released the bébé crapeau into it.

She began to show advanced stages of doubt and trepidation, standing there clutching the one liter -- plus 15cl gratuit! -- orange juice bottle against her bare belly, eyebrows drawing together and lowering several centimeters as her lower lip protruded worrisomely, and then quivered. She cast her glance demurely down to the right and refused all further action or offer of assistance.

"Tu veux que je le fais moi?" I asked, certain of failure. She raised her eyes and their brows a millimeter in my direction, and I detected the faintest nod. Oui. "D'accord, je le ferai." I reached for the bottle, which she released, and poured it carefully into the dish. I pointed to the clay flower pots, decorated with stones and sunk into the dirt on their sides below the yew tree. Chez Eugénie G, half-way house to toads not inclined to stick around.

"Ca c'est l'une des maisons. L'autre," I pointed to where the second one was, behind a hosta, "est là." She nodded, her blond hair drawn up into a ponytail leaving wisps of honey colored hair along her brow and round cheeks. Her mother smiled, amused by the seriousness of the event, and handed me the sandbox toys that contained the small toad. I opened them carefully to reveal a bébé crapeau, standing on its hind legs, eager to find la sortie. I lowered it to the dish and it hopped directly into the shallow water and on past it to crouch at the base of the Falstaff rose and clematis ('Niobe'?).

"Tu le vois, Lili?" asked her mother, as the older cousin looked on, silently. She nodded.

"Il y a quelque chose d'autre de l'autre côté," said Lili, her nickname. I peered, trying to understand to which of the many things possible she might most likely be referring. The holly berries, an eye-catching shade of a dusty violet-blue, seemed most likely. She pointed toward them. "Les choses bleues," said Lili. The holly berries. I reached and broke a bunch off.

"Ce sont les fruits du houx," I told her.

"Ca ne se mange pas," added her mother. No, I confirmed, we don't eat them. They would taste very bitter and give us a stomach ache. Of course, I am not sure of that, but it works with preschoolers.

"Ils sont les graines de la plante," I explained, "pour que le houx puisse en faire d'autres houx." The girls nodded together, ready for lycée. "Tu veux les prendre?" I asked the older one, who reached out and took the little bunch of violet-blue fruits. "Ils ne te feront pas de mal si tu ne les manges pas."

I briefly considered a job as a teacher, or a gouvernante for a wealthy family with vast gardens, and exceedingly well-behaved children, interested in nature, literature and foreign languages, art and alpine sports. Perhaps yoga in the shrubbery.

We looked at the frogs in the bassin, and I accompanied them to the gate to go home for their nap so they could come back and enjoy our pool.

Ah, the joys of country village living, such as they are. Second only to the joys of marriage and your child being "admis" by the Académie pour son Bac.

Time to go remove the pool summer cover and vacuum it.
....

Dropsy

In a Nifurpirinol treatment
baktopur direct

I was going to give up, and then I went online one more time and googled "Dropsy" and "Hydropisie". I found just enough hope not to go get larger Ziploc bags and prepare myself to euthanize my koi in the freezer.

One site I had not read yet said:

My heart goes out to any koi or goldfish I see that has dropsy. It's such a nasty infection and almost always fatal. It's basically an infection of an internal organ, often the kidney. The fish is no longer able to process its fluids. They build up inside the fish causing the tell-tell [sic] signs of bloat. You could probably wquate the effect it has on the fish to the effect kidney failure has on us.

There's very little we can do to help a fish in the advanced stages of dropsy. We can, however, do things to help prevent it [great] and treat the fish we suspect could have early stages of it.

Well, that cheered me right up. About as effective as thinking of the bac results being available tomorrow. I read on, listlessly.

What makes dropsy so hard to diagnose in time to treat it is that the symptoms that we know as dropsy do not come out until the fish has entered the final stages of the disease. The fish literally blows up like a balloon. Its scales stick out, making the fish resemble a pinecone [sic]. In fact, dropsy is often called Pinecone [sic] Disease because of it. The eyes will bulge out from the trapped fluids beneath.

Dropsy is also often accompanied by external bacterial infections including fin rot, mouth rot and ulcers. In some cases I've seen almost any and all symptoms. It's really a sad sight to see.

There was a picture of a dead koi, lying on its side, a sort of medical tool lifting one of its raised scales.

My eyes continued scanning the page.

What was the point? My koi might not have ulcers or enlarged blood vessels, but it definitely has raised scales, even if it doesn't look like a cartoon of a koi that has breathed in the air from a balloon it was blowing up.

I have a bad habit of giving up when I hear the symptoms of dropsy described to me by a customer [Hunh? He had my attention]. I will always say that there's really nothing they can do for it [Oh] -- just to make it comfortable and let it live out its short life in a stress-free environment [well, that's not the Ziploc bag in the freezer, anyway]. I was happily reminded [Hunh? What's that?] just this spring that every now and then a fish actually survives dropsy -- even after it has swollen up from it [Smile!].

And ours isn't that swollen. Yet.

The treatment regimen [All eyes here] that worked on the lucky koi who survived this year was feeding it triple antibiotic food and keeping him in .3% non-iodized salt. This was such a no-nonsense approach and so basically simple! The triple antibiotic food kept the internal infection at bay while the salt prevented water from seeping into the sores or skin of the koi and keeping his protective slime coat intact.

That leads me to believe that there is hope for a koi or goldfish who has dropsy as long as the fish is still eating [Oh].

I hopped in the car and headed to Truffaut. The young woman has helped me before, and she told me the bacterial tablets I had picked up wouldn't work, even though I had read the notice, and it did mention the symptoms of dropsy and treatment, and showed me to shelves with the big bags of non-idodized sea salt. I put the tablets back and went to the cash register, feeling a little regretful.

I drove over to Jardin de France and looked for and found the tablets, picked out a pair of natural rubber garden clogs, some sock things that prevent human fungal infections or keep your feet warm in cold-weather gardening, looked at expensive cat litter boxes, tried on a few more straw hats, exercised some self-control and left them in the store and went to pay.

I drove home, hitting a bird of some type that was sitting on the road. I backed up, trying not to do the same to two kids on bikes, whose grandfather and younger sibling were watching from father up the road, and got out of the car. The wings flapped, the dog in the garden on the other side of the link fence came charging up, barking, and the grandfather looked at me -- oddly. I smiled -- forcedly. The bird folded its wings. Everyone peddled on by, the dog kept going crazy, and I started to reach down, uncertain what exactly to do, when it spread its wings and lifted at an unnatural angle into the sky, trailing a broken rear leg behind it, and disappeared into the branches of a tree across the street. I returned to my car and drove the last two kilometers, trying to not damage anything else.

The koi has had a 30 minute bath in the dissolved Nifurpirinol (antibiotic that is easily absorbed through the skin) "baktopur direct" tablet, over which Baccarat and I presided, and which it seemed not to dislike, and returned it to 60 liters of basin water with 280 grams of dissolved sea salt and two élodée (or elodea) plants for oxygen and company, and sat back on my heels with Baccarat to watch it.

It swam around more than it did in the malachite green solution.

It is not particularly interested in eating, although it did eat one koi stick at the beginning of its Nifupirinol treatment, but it has been moved about so much.

I have emailed a company in the US to see if they will mail their antibiotic food, not available in the UK and France, which has been said to have some success with dropsy, here.

Dare I call the vet to see about antibiotics?
....


















Update May 28, 2012: Over time, many people have read this page, and I thought it might be a good idea to add that as of this date, this carp koi is healthy, growing and in all ways thriving. I went back to the garden store to tell the young man who suggested I put it in a plastic bag in the freeze to end its life gently that my treatment worked, and he was on third interested, one third probably trying to remember who I was (despite my accent), and one third-distracted.