Saying goodbye slowly

It's no surprise that I haven't blogged about this until now; it isn't a pleasant subject to dwell on. For the past year, Zephyr, my rottie/shepherd mix, has been battling degenerative myelopathy, for which there is no cure. DM, as it is referred to by the owners of dogs who suffer from it, is the dog version of multiple sclerosis. It often affects shepherds, but I guess any dog can get it. It is genetic, and once we had narrowed the diagnosis, I sent her blood off to confirm that she carries the gene that causes the disease.

In the summer of 2010, Zephyr was diagnosed with Cushing's disease. She'd been ravenously hungry, her hair was falling out and she didn't want to do much else but stay at my feet. Then one night she snuck out of my bedroom to eat a chicken that had been left in the trash, and I knew something was truly wrong. Lots of tests; expensive medication. But she returned to herself again. In fact, her energy came back so intensely that I decided last January to take her to our old dog park for the first time in years. This was to be her reward after a long illness.

Within minutes of arriving at the park, Zephyr was chasing squirrels and birds, and tangled her front wrist in the chain link fence. She hung there by her wrist for a moment before falling back to the ground and we all knew instantly that it wasn't a minor injury. She had torn the ligaments in her wrist and had to have a plate put in; the cost was outrageous, the recovery was interminable. She had to keep off of it for three months. When she was finally able to walk again, her back legs started slipping out from beneath her. At first I thought she just needed to get used to walking again, but it was the beginning stages of DM. It would have revealed itself eventually, but her extended recovery had allowed the disease to take hold sooner.

We started working with hydrotherapy, but she contracted an infection that made it impossible to continue with that. We've tried acupuncture. But the most I can hope for is that it makes the transition easier for her. After our last session of acupuncture last Wednesday, Zephyr has been virtually unable to walk without my assistance. This is incredibly painful, because she used to be so incredibly active an athletic. Now even when drinking water she prefers to lay down. Because of the way she drags herself, I have to wipe her down throughout the day to prevent urine burn. Yet she's still my cheerful Zephyr.

The disease isn't painful, but that's one of the things that everyone has advised me makes it most difficult; we don't know what our dogs are feeling or thinking and we can't explain to them why things aren't the same as they once were.

So I'm blocking off some time to spend with her and the other dogs, up in our house in Mississippi. DM doesn't evolve at a predictable pace, so it might actually be months or even a year before she is paralyzed to the point that she begins to lose other functions. Or it could be sooner. In the meantime, I want to spend some time hanging out together on the porch, just being happy with each other's company.

I've got a new book coming out (and still have a spare Rottweiler)

I've been so busy getting the manuscript ready for a new book that my blogging has slowed to nothing--and even my Tweeting and Facebooking have become scarce. Hopefully that will all change as I begin to shift gears to work on something entirely new and different.

My new book, coming out on October 16th, is called I'm a Good Dog: Pit Bulls, America's Most Beautiful (and Misunderstood) Pet And yes, it is about pit bulls. Penguin Books is putting it out, and it is remarkably close to the book I wanted to do five years ago, but at that time the subject of pit bulls was still too risky. (One publisher at the time told me that people on their editorial board threatened to quit if the book was published.) Things have changed. Not only is Penguin committed to this book, but also Knopf has signed up Bronwen Dickey for a pit-centric book of her own, due a few years from now.

I'll share the story of the roundabout way this book suddenly landed in my lap, but in the meantime, here's the cover:

The Spare Rottweilers

A few months ago, the writer Julie Klam was in town for a booksigning and potential

material for her new book, "Love at First Bark: How Saving a Dog Can Sometimes Help You Save Yourself." As I drove her and her husband Paul around town, we turned a corner onto Chartres Street in Bywater and there, several blocks away, was a rottweiler roaming the middle of the street. It seemed too ridiculous to be true, but I drove closer and we hopped out of the car to pursue him. Of course, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with Julie or I, sensing, perhaps, that we were opportunists. But he did allow Julie's husband to approach him. Still, he was slippery, and it wasn't until later in the evening that some volunteers from Dogs of the 9th Ward called saying they had him. The next day I whisked him to my vet and we began the process of getting him healthy and treating his heartworms. He's moved from being a shy, timid boy to a healthy one, but, of course, he's still looking for a home.

About a month later, driving back from teaching at Carver, I spotted another stray rottweiler--or at least I thought it was a rottie. It was hard to tell, because half her fur was missing and she was about 40 pounds underweight. As I chased her cautiously through the neighborhood, someone stopped to ask what I was doing. "Trying to get that dog," I said. "Well, she's a neighborhood dog. We all take care of her," he said. "Well," I said, "she's going to die soon." The man told me to "do what you have to do." And at about that same moment it occurred to me that this dog was too weak to outrun me. So I scooped her up as the other dogs in the neighborhood looked quizzically on. (HER? they seemed to be asking.) Louisa is now full weight and heartworm free, and like Paul, still looking for a home.

So if you know anyone who needs a spare rottie, email dogswhofoundme@gmail.com.

Pitty FAIRness in Louisville this Saturday

If you are in the Louisville area this Saturday, be sure to come by the first annual Pitty FAIRness artand music fair, sponsored by Saving Sunny. Shorty and Hercules will be there, and I will be speaking and signing books at a booth I'm sharing with Carmichael's books. The event runs from 10am-5pm at Central Park, 1340 S. Fourth Street. And it is FREE!

My summer mini-tour

I'm somewhat unexpectedly hitting the road this month, with two big events in Charlotte and Louisville. I'd been hoping a third would pop up, just for the claim of being "on tour." But so far, it's just a pair of dates at two pit bull festivals with lots of live music and an appearance by Shorty Rossi and Hercules, from the TV show Pit Boss.

Saturday July 16th: Charlotte, NC, 2pm-6pm
American Pit Bull Foundation Summer Concert
Amos' Southend
1423 South Tryon Street
with Shorty Rossi, Pinups for Pit Bulls, John Shipe and more.
Tickets are $25

Saturday July 30th: Louisville, KY 10am-5pm
Pitty FAIRness sponsored by Saving Sunny
Central Park
1340 South Fourth Street
with Shorty Rossi, contests, music, dogs

Introducing Miss Bananas Foster

For the past six months there's been an absence in the house. After fostering Bonnie (who came from a Florida dogfighting case and suffered neurological damage), she was adopted into a wonderful home and there was no longer an adorable female pit bull in the house. At times the vacuum was so startling to me that it stopped me in my tracks. One day, there would be a permanent girl moving into the house. Of this, I was sure. But when? Brando is eleven and has thyroid issues as well as some mobility problems that require injections of Adequan. Zephyr has Cushings disease, recently had to have a plate implanted in her wrist, and recently was diagnosed with degenerative myelopathy (the canine equivalent of MS). Meanwhile, Doug has been twiddling his paws and daydreaming about the days when we were able to wander into the French Quarter where he imagined himself as a sort of celebrity busker. I wasn't sure that any of them were ready for a new dog and my own antsy daydreams of moving added one final reason to put off any decision.

And then, a few months ago, I drove past a gas station where a young couple was selling pit bull puppies from the back of their car. I kept going, then turned back around to introduce myself. Or, I said it was just to introduce myself. I pulled a Sula Foundation calendar from the back of the car and explained the work we do. The couple explained that they hadn't intended to breed the litter, and had already had the female spayed after the birth of the pups. They had all had their shots, and were gorgeous shades of blue and blue brindle. But they couldn't find any takers. I didn't want a litter of puppies, since the Sula Foundation already has a group of adult foster dogs waiting for homes. But I gave them my contact number and offered to help if I could.

The entire time, behind her four rambunctious siblings, the runt of the litter sat very still and seemed to be taking in every word I said. When they emailed me for help a few weeks later, I knew, if nothing else, I was going to take her off their hands. But how could I take one and not help the others? So a Saints player, on the advice of one of our Sula volunteers, took a male puppy. And the other three went to the LA-SPCA with a promise of a spot in their adoption room. (Things didn't turn out quite the way we planned, but I'll tell that story another time--they all did find homes in the end.)

So Bananas, the runt, came home with me. I figured if it didn't work out, I could find a home for her somewhere. The first night, Brando was terrified by her presence. As she stepped towards him, he backed up the whole distance of the living room. Rut ro! Doug was indifferent. Zephyr aloof.

Of course, within a few days, Brando and Bananas were inseparable, and as she came out of her shell, she began to demonstrate all the ridiculous, affectionate traits of a great pit bull. My favorite move: when I sit on the steps of the deck behind our house, she likes to run up from behind and squeeze her head under my arm to kiss me.

The House of Blue Leaves

Earlier this week, I went to see a preview of the new revival of "The House of Blue Leaves," the John Guare play that was first produced in 1971. I'd never seen a live production of the show, but I had seen a televised performance from the 1986 production that starred Swoosie Kurtz and John Mahoney. Ben Stiller, who played the son in that production, now plays the father, Artie, and Edie Falco plays his wife, Bananas, with Jennifer Jason Leigh as his girlfriend, Bunny.

First the superficial details: the set is gorgeous. Unfortunately, it is also needlessly filled with obstructions, particularly if you are sitting, as we were, in the fifth row on either the right or left. Performances disappeared behind furniture, in doorways, into alcoves, and even, frequently, behind other performers on the stage. Get seats in the balcony or center orchestra if you go. But, you really should go. While Ben Stiller is a bit stiff in the early scenes, he loosens up and becomes more confident as the show goes on. Edie Falco and Jennifer Jason Leigh seemed miscast (shouldn't they switch roles?) but, in fact, they are both fantastic. Falco makes Bananas simultaneously absurd and tragic; Jennifer Jason Leigh manages to own her role as a superficial, celebrity-obsessed social climber. Some early online reviews claimed she was a complete failure in the part, but at the performance I saw, she got the biggest laughs.

I did have some issues with the direction. I know they were going for a darker version of the play than previous incarnations. But it didn't always work. In particular, the slapstick staging in the second act seemed out of place next to the more naturalistic tone. Also, it seems an odd choice to bring a greater sense of realism to a play that constantly addresses the audience as if the characters expect their lives to be lived on a stage. But the performances, particularly by the women, make it worthwhile.

Obviously, my vow to blog again didn't quite take hold

Twitter and Facebook continue to keep me from my once very active blogsite, because, after all, why try to form fully realized thoughts and paragraphs when you can just link and blurt in 140 characters?

But tonight up doing laundry and heading to--well never mind where I'm heading to. But it made me think, I really should try to get back to the blogging habit. Blogging actually seemed to help me get around to more serious writing, and as I'm now working on another manuscript, it seems like this will be good practice again for keeping that tiny section of my brain working.

On Sunday, the 24th, Season Two of TREME begins on HBO. I know a lot of people had mixed feelings about Season One. I liked it at the time, but my feelings faded after the season concluded. Season Two covers some events that I was a part of in "real life" so the past few months I've been on the phone with fact checkers wanting to get everything right--or at least wanting to seem that they want to get everything right. This past Sunday I got to see the first two episodes of the new season and I have to say--its pretty great. It feels looser than last season, and has so much more humor, even as it moves into one of the grimmest periods of the recovery, including the murders of Dinneral Shavers and Helen Hill.

And here's another reason to start blogging again--I just passed the one year mark of my horrendous week in the Tulane Hospital. There is hope.

Voodoo or Voodon't?

I keep promising to myself that I'll get back to blogging on a regular basis, but instead, I find myself sucked into Facebook and Twitter...and, well, work.

This past semester I've been teaching at three different schools: alternating mornings at Sophie B. Wright and Carver with the Bard Early College program and afternoons teaching creative writing at NOCCA. It's been quite an experience, and I enjoyed being busy for the first time in years, but I've also realized that working full-time means having to cut back on all the volunteer work I've become accustomed to. For the past few years, in addition to my own organization, The Sula Foundation, I've been on the founding boards of two other organizations. No more!

Another by-product of being over-extended is that it has made me more productive with the little scraps of time that I do have. And so, I've finally, finally managed to finish a book proposal I'd been struggling with--and a piece of that proposed book is currently online at Salon.com under the somewhat provocative title "What brought me to the voodoo priestess." And as might be expected, most of the comments, at least the early ones, are responding to the headline rather than the story itself. But, to answer some of the more serious questions raised: the gris-gris bag is considered a hoodoo tradition but this one was, in fact, made by an ordained voodoo priestess; my father's request for me to go to the priestess was not based in any belief in her practices, but more an attempt to convey the desperation he was feeling (also, he knew she lived next door); I didn't have the bag made immediately because I wasn't sure how serious anyone was--and later, I didn't deliver it in a timely because I live more than 1000 miles away from my parents; also, several visits were delayed due to illness (which is mentioned in the essay).

By the time I found a way of writing about this particular episode, I realized that it was really about my parents' relationship with each other, not voodoo. I think most readers understand that too.

An appearance on WWLTV discussing the new Sula Foundation calendar

Brando meets some new neighbors

It's time: Pre-order your 2011 Pit Bulls of New Orleans Calendar

It is that time of the year again; we're racing around town with volunteer photographers, putting together our 2011 Calendar which will be on sale October 16th at the Bark Market at the Bywater Art Market, which once again benefits The Sula Foundation.  Be sure to mark the date, because in addition to our calendar's debut, the market will feature our Fall vaccination clinic with $45 vaccines for all breeds; $15 for pit bulls.  We will also be making our big push offering free spay/neuter surgeries for pit bulls, funded in part by a grant from Animal Farm Foundation. 

Of course, you can also be sure to be among the first to receive the calendar by pre-ordering it online; $18 per copy with a flat rate shipping charge per order.  We're still tweaking the design, but it'll look something like this:

Quantity

One Calendar $18.00Two Calendars $36.00Three Calendars $54.00Four Calendars $72.00Five Calendars $90.00Option 6 $108.00Option 7 $126.00Option 8 $144.00Option 9 $162.00Option 10 $180.00

Reading Comprehension

For the past two weeks, I've been teaching Jamaica Kincaid's book "A Small Place" in two public high schools in New Orleans. It is a tricky piece of literature, because the book is very indirect in the way in which it deals with English colonialism and the history of Antigua. Kincaid is sarcastic, passive-agressive, and seems to disrespect everyone on all sides of the issue. So we're stopping a lot to dissect her language and what it means. Next up is Plato, which, I keep telling the students, will be a challenge for me as well as for them.

The students are doing pretty well sussing out what Kincaid really feels about things. I wish the same could be said for some of the readers of my recent Salon piece, who continue to argue over all the things that weren't said or suggested in the piece. They've been doing quite a bit of projecting their own issues, if they read it at all. For example, I recently heard from someone who was upset about my attitude toward Section 8 housing. I pointed out that the essay very directly criticizes absentee landlords who take advantage of Section 8. But he wouldn't hear any of it, because then he'd have nothing to argue.

My difficult birthday--and "The Story of Doug"

Sometime today I'll be appearing, alongside Tom Piazza and a still-displaced New Orleanian, on the Canadian Broadcasting radio show "The Current," which also airs in the US. We taped the piece a few days ago, and though I don't know how it'll be edited, I think it was a pretty good trio of perspectives on the city.

For a completely different take on the world, you can check out my essay "The Story of Doug" in the September issue of Best Friends magazine. You might even say they are to blame for my bitter Salon piece last week. The editors at Best Friends asked me for a piece on the 5th Anniversary of Katrina and after agreeing, I thought, "I don't really have anything I want to say about Katrina." So I wrote about evacuating for Gustav three years later, the differences in those experiences for everyone, and, of course, the story of Doug, the dog that ended up moving in and keeping old Brando on his toes.

After writing such a cheerful piece, I kept thinking about the other side of things. I wanted to write about the nostalgia we sometimes have for that period after the storm, when things were eerily quiet, but people were united--and happy to see each other. As I revised my way through that, my mugging experience kept distracting the balance of the story, and eventually I decided to just push that to the front.

But, enough of that. Tomorrow is my birthday. Want to give me something? Donate to the fund for Perry and other dogs featured a few posts below. I know a surprising number of people who share September 2nd as a birthday and we all agree that it is an awful time for a party. It is always the day before school starts, or registration day, or labor day, or just before labor day, or just after the start of school. Particularly in adulthood, it is a easier to just let it pass by unnoticed.

Five years ago, I arrived in Atlanta on my birthday, after being stuck in Mississippi without electricity or access to news for almost a week. My friends gave me new clothes for my birthday that year.

Five years later

I've been more or less ignoring the Five Year Anniversary events of this past week, but it always seems like a good time to look back on my blog of that week and remind myself where I was. The day we left, Sula ran away and I had to chase her through the neighborhood. I still miss her. I've also lost both my parents and a few friends (some of whom are technically still living). I've published two more books, and I've written forewords and introductions for several more. I have founded four non-profits. I've purchases two homes. I've almost, but not quite, finished my Ph.D. I need to get on that!

Top ten funniest things about the "Race Realists" who have been contacting me (a work in progress)

1. They think their anonymous email addresses are actually anonymous.
2. They think that by threatening me with violence, they are making an effective case for proving that white people are the less violent race.
3. They insist on using free speech to defend themselves while telling me I have no right to speak.
4. They question statistics of crime worldwide, but use statistics to support their claims when the numbers are in their favor.
5. Another variation on the numbers game: they claim all foreign stats are questionable, but all US stats are accurate. Now, that's really funny!
6. They say that I deserved to be attacked for living in my neighborhood, but ignore the fact that the attack took place somewhere else. (But ignoring facts is their life's mission).
7. When sending their not-really-anonymous emails, they always put something about dogs in the subject line, because they want to make sure I open their threats.
8. They smugly tell me that I'm smug.
9. They assume that procreation is essential my identity as well as their own.

Help pay for Perry's surgery (and fund vaccination clinics this fall)

from The Sula Foundation:

Recently we told you about Perry, who was transferred from the Louisiana SPCA's adoption room and then diagnosed with a serious orthopedic problem in both knees. He's recooperating from the procedures, but now we're hoping to replace the funds that were used to pay the bill. If we reach our goal, we hope to be able to expand to two low-cost vaccination clinic events this fall.

There's nothing as unpopular as being a victim

Yesterday Salon published another of my essays, which they titled, "Please don't come back to New Orleans." They had actually wanted to title it "Don't come back to New Orleans" but I asked them to add the word "Please." They said they needed to be provocative in order to get people to click on the story, because no one really cares about New Orleans anymore.

Of course, my editor and I both knew that the story was likely to generate a lot of hate--because people don't hate anything more than someone who has been a victim of meaningless violence, and because we're only supposed to say nice things about New Orleans. And that is why we both felt it was important to go ahead with the piece. Initially, I'd imagined it as a lighter piece, in which I pine for the quiet days of my then-abandoned neighborhood. But in an early draft, my mugging appeared, and I knew that people would point to that, whether I wanted them to or not, and decided to just push that to the front of the piece.

I also decided not to read any of the idiotic comments that were likely to follow. But a few people have filled me. Apparently I deserved it. Because I moved to a black neighborhood, and I should have known better than that. Aside from the fact that this theory actually ignores the specifics of the story (the mugging didn't happen in my neighborhood), it is also a mortifying racist suggestion in response to a story that doesn't once mention race. But that's the internet for you, isn't it?

The Lost Dogs

If you haven't yet seen today's PARADE magazine, you should rifle through the funnies and find it--there's a great excerpt from Jim Gorant's book THE LOST DOGS, and a pit bull on the cover. I read Jim's manuscript a few months ago, and provided this quote for the back jacket:

“Jim Gorant’s remarkably even-handed The Lost Dogs is a gripping story of redemption that uncovers the other side of the Michael Vick story. A portrait of dogs as individuals, caught up in events that reveal the best and worst of human nature, The Lost Dogs will validate dog lovers and possibly transform cynics as well. In the fate of dogs like Jasmine, Leo, and Hector, we can see ourselves—and the complicated world around us.”
—Ken Foster, author of The Dogs Who Found Me

Jim's story began with a Sports Illustrated cover story last year, which made me green with envy until I realized that he was in a much better position than I as far as reversing the stigma people have regarding pit bulls. At this point, people expect me to make the rational argument in their defense. But Jim doesn't own pit bulls; in fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't own a dog at all. And he's one of the most poker-faced reporters I've ever encountered. He's agenda-free. Which makes his account much more powerful.

Ever since The Dogs Who Found Me came out, I'd been trying to sell a publisher on doing a cultural history of the pit bull. No one wanted it. My own publisher, which bragged of their success with The Dogs Who Found Me, didn't want it, and they also had huge issues with the image of Brando that I wanted on the cover of my follow-up, Dogs I Have Met. They apparently weren't aware that there were pit bulls in The Dogs Who Found Me, as well as one peering out sympathetically from the book's cover.

PARADE magazine also approached me about writing for them, but like many editorial staffs, they had a relatively narrow idea of what would work for their magazine. When I tried to pitch a story about pit bulls and other maligned breeds, it was literally as if they didn't understand a word I was saying. In the end, they assigned me to follow therapy dogs in a nursing home, and then killed the piece, admitting that it hadn't been such a good idea after all. Last year, they ran a small piece by a conservative journalist, asking whether pit bulls should be banned, and skewing the numbers to make it seem that yes, they should. I wrote to the editors that I had worked with to express my disappointment, particularly since they had already heard from me, in my previous pitches, that these statistics were not true. No surprise, I got no response.

So it is great to see THE LOST DOGS on the cover of PARADE, riding high on the Amazon bestseller list with a great line-up of radio appearances coming up--all a month before publication. Maybe things are looking up!

In defense of Elizabeth Gilbert and "Eat, Pray, Love"

Earlier this morning I got into a strange, pointless debate on Twitter regarding Elizabeth Gilbert and her memoir "Eat, Pray, Love." What started me off on this topic was the backlash that has been aimed lately at the book and now the movie of the book (which I haven't seen.) What is curious is that a lot of the print backlash (which is limited to a single argument/complaint: "its all about her, not about me") comes from the same sources that embraced and promoted the book to begin with.

The problem with this line of critique is that the book "Eat, Pray, Love" never pretended to be about anything other than Liz Gilbert. That this became a phenomenon is not the fault of the author, nor is she responsible for the thousands of women who have decided that they should follow her path to find themselves.

I should disclose: I know Liz Gilbert, or, I should say, I knew her. Back in the 90s, she was a frequent reader at the KGB Bar reading series that I curated. She hadn't yet published a book, but her short stories, and her journalism, were great pieces that lent themselves well to being read to a crowd. I was particularly taken with her non-fiction, because she always found a way of using it to critique herself as much as her subject; to me, this seemed a fair approach. She was also willing to share stories about her writing career: her embarrassment at having an editor point out her writing tics, her success at accidentally resubmitting a rejected story to one magazine, which found the unchanged draft suddenly perfect.

When the KGB Bar Reader came out, we did our first radio interview together and complimented each other on our practiced eloquence and charm. Every Halloween, she and her husband hosted a huge party in their small apartment overlooking the parade. These social occasions always seemed less fun to me; this might have been my own social awkwardness, but in retrospect I also wondered if it was because she wasn't really having as much fun as she always claimed.

We fell out of touch around the same time my collection of stories came out; later, reading her memoir, I realized that this was probably around the same time her life was falling apart. Just before its publication, I interviewed Liz for Time Out New York. We actually both had memoirs coming out, and although it never made it into the printed piece, we talked about how strange it was, how unimaginable, that the two of us, of all people, had memoirs coming out (The Dogs Who Found Me was due out in a few months). But we both felt really good about our books; in fact, we both felt completely confident in what we had written, and unconcerned about how they might be received. This was a completely new and liberating experience for ourselves. I remember saying something along the lines of "I feel like people will really like my book, if they read it. I don't know how many people will find it, but I feel like it has good things to say." Liz felt the same about her own.

Of course, my book was being published on a much smaller scale. The initial printing was about 2000 copies. The orders were even less. Fourteen printings later, it has about 60-70,000 copies in print. So I feel like a also know a little bit about the frenzy that comes when a book exceeds its audience. As a writer, you feel an obligation to the readers who have found your book valuable. You hear from people who are grateful that you have given them, in some way, a voice. So, you keep talking. You keep granting interviews. You keep going on reading tours. Because you know you probably aren't going to have this chance again, this opportunity to say that there are a few things that matter to you, this chance to let other people speak alongside you.

And with that comes the growing number of voices who ask, quite reasonably, "Who do you think you are?" You can see this effect particularly on places like Amazon, where the growing number of reviews include people who feel the need to take the book down a notch or two, who slight it for being about a flawed person, who claim, in some cases, to be a better person than the author, a more worthy subject for examination. What has happened is the book has reached beyond its actual audience into a readership for which it was never really intended.

And that is when you realize how very lucky you are.

The latest on my heart, my pacemaker and incompetence at Tulane Medical

You may remember that a few months back, in April, I had a little heart incident and ended up at the nightmarish Tulane Hospital, where they refused to release me but also didn't have time to treat me. Eventually, I called a lawyer and they finally found the time to do the relatively simple procedure of switching my old pacemaker for a new one. After I blogged about the experience, I began to hear from former and current employees, all of whom confirmed that the poor treatment I received was not only a violation of basic standards, including HIPA, but also par for the course at Tulane. In fact, within a week of my release, the substandard "over-flow" area that I had been trapped in was cleared out--but only for a day, to keep an accreditation team from seeing what goes on.

Meanwhile, employees concerned about losing their jobs had a series of meetings with me in which they apologized for the care I'd received. The head of one department asked me if I would come in and talk to the staff and part of a training, so that they would understand what not to do. This seemed like a strange request, but I agreed to it anyway, because I was pretty certain the woman had no intention of contacting me again. She just didn't want to deal with a potential lawsuit. And, of course, I was right. She walked away feeling that she'd covered her ass and needed be bothered with keeping her word.

Another thing happened immediately after leaving the hospital: my pacemaker began pacing my diaphragm instead of my heart. I knew why: they had an inexperienced staff member insert the leads in my chest and one was so misplaced that the supervising doctor instructed him to removed it and try again. Apparently the lead was still misplaced. But when I returned to have this corrected, everyone insisted it was normal and fine, and they lowered the voltage of the pacemaker so that the diaphragn wouldn't be bothered anymore. I asked if it was still able to pace my heart, and the doctors assured me it was fine.

Last month I went for a check up with my new cardiologist, who had already expressed befuddlement at the records from my Tulane stay and the mountain of medications that they had put me on. Now, three months after implantation, they had a Medtronic rep in to check the pacemaker's record of activity and other settings. Ooops, it turns out that it wasn't capturing on one side! Why? Because the voltage had been turned down.

Anyone else have any stories about treatment at Tulane that they'd like to share?

Is it time for school to start already?

I continue to promise more frequent postings here, but I've been so busy trying to get a few things done before the end of the summer that I haven't had time to think--and I hate to post things without thinking. So, what have I been up to? Trying to work on a book proposal that is outlined by the major events of my past three years--yet with three deaths, one near death, a mugging, a skin graft, several murders, a shooting, and a few other crisis, it is a struggle to keep it from becoming melodramatic.

I've also written a few short pieces, including one coming up in Best Friends magazine and another for Salon.com. And I don't know that there could be two more different pieces of writing.

And, of course, I've been up to my ears in dogs, including Bonnie, who came from a dogfighting bust in Tallahassee and appears to be blind from either a blow to the head, or early disease. You can watch her playing with Zephyr (sort of) below: