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Thyroid Gordie

Scott paused in the middle of a serious hand of Dominos.
"Gordie, shut the hell up," he barked. "You've been at it for an hour."
The little pug had indeed been standing by the fence barking at who knows what. He's nearly blind so he must have been commenting on the shadows or the sound of a distant lawnmower. Gord has an old man bark now, raspy like an elderly bluesman whose voice has been blown out by cigars and whiskey. His bark used to be annoying, but today it is music to my ears.
Gordie was nearly put down a few weeks ago. He was so sick he rarely got up off his pillow and fell down when he went for a pee. Most of the time, he didn't know where he was and was often startled when I went to pet him. His fur had the consistency of the dust dragged out of an ancient vacuum cleaner, all spotted with dandruff. Gordie's eyes were constantly cemented shut with goo and his nose looked perfectly prehistoric.
When my son Nick was born, he had a congenital birth defect. Nick was born without a thyroid and has been on thyroid replacement ever since. When he took to the streets as a teen, he stopped taking his thyroid and when he finally came home, he had many of the same symptoms as Gordie. I hoped and prayed that Gordie was hypothyroid and a visit to the vet confirmed it.
Since then he's been on thyroid replacement and he is a new man. He barks, he fights with Finnigan over food and snorfles around the back yard. Unfortunately, he's still not too steady on his feet but with each day he's getting stronger. We have real hope.
Today, we are going to the vet for a recheck. There is a concern that Gordie might also have Addison's Disease as well, which isn't great. My first husband had Addison's and nearly died from it. If the test is positive, that will be another set of medication, but it's also treatable.
We are hopeful for the little guy.
We hope he'll be around for his bar mitzvah next year.

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