The story so far...
Monday, May 10 2010… Just finished the first draft of my fourth screenplay. Entitled The Head of a Pin, it’s the story of a man who is cursed with the worst luck in the world, for one year. He’s then forced to go on the run with a small Pekingese dog that he’s watching for a friend. I’ve been working on it for about six months and only tonight, after smoking the last cigarette in this pack, was able to rattle out those final words FADE OUT. A great swell of satisfaction sends me off to bed. Tomorrow, I’ll try to send it around and get some notes. TV off, computer monitor off, lights off, good night.
Tuesday, May 11 2010… Woke up this morning, as every morning, surrounded by dogs. I have two, that were both thrust into my lap by a girl I went out with once, a year and a half ago.
You know the story, she asked me to watch them for a week, and didn’t come back to get them (or return my calls) for 3 months. During that three months, I found out through friends that she had been passing them around to everyone she knew as she travelled the globe trying to get modeling gigs that didn’t pan out. These uber-cuties had been apparently beaten, neglected, kept in a box for days, left in cars for hours on end, and generally received treatment that would rival that of a P.O.W. So when she eventually returned and requested her dogs, I think my exact words were “Uh. #### no. You can’t have them back.” During those three months I had also taken them to the vet a half a dozen times, and was appalled to discover that one needed stitches taken out, the other needed all of her teeth removed, and they both had skin and fur conditions that, to say the least, were upsetting.
Brooklyn is an adorable brown and beige, three year old, Pekingese with movie star looks and the energy of Chuck Norris. He’s the cutest little dog that has ever graced the face of the earth… and he knows it. He sits half on-half off my head as I sleep. From what I can gather, my ear makes a good foot-rest. Nestled around my ankles is Marianne, my Pomeranian-Chihuahua mix. She’s equally cute, and a complete charity case. She has no teeth and is missing an ear, and she can moonwalk, and turns in circles when she’s excited. Both of these dogs are ready for the circus.
So, I wake up, find my shoes, and take these little beggers out to the grassy knoll beside my apartment for their morning constitutional. It’s a bright sunny day. A light breeze wafts through the palms. They’re happy as clams…
I come back inside and send a text to my next-door neighbor and screenwriting partner. I could knock on his door, but I’m lazy. I can’t wait to tell him about finishing my script. I can tell he got my text because Brooklyn is wagging his tail and looking excited at someone coming up the walkway outside my door. Brooklyn excitedly hops inside the room and is barking excitedly on the carpet as my neighbor enters the room.
He only gets a half sentence out of his mouth before things go bad… “Hey bro, that’s great you finished your… Whoa, what’s going on with your dog?” I turn to find Brooklyn, crazed look on his face, waddling like a seal, in little circles on the floor, his rear legs dragging behind him ominously. My initial instinct is “Did he give himself a charley horse or something”. I think I verbalized it as “What the #### is going on here?” As I bend down to examine him, it’s clear that something isn’t right. In fact, something is terribly, terribly wrong. He can’t move or use his back legs at all and is freaking out, fishtailing around me as I sit, bug-eyed and scared. My friend and I look at each other and my hands start to shake. “Uhhh… What do I do?”
My friend drops the suit he’s carrying, and we immediately give the dog a good once over, checking for any indication of what’s physically going on with the little guy. He has no signs of injury, is only making the most miniscule of whimpers, yet his legs are as limp as a wet sock.
I don’t have a car, so I tell my friend that he needs to drive me to the emergency vet, and quick. Unfortunately he’s on his way to a job interview, his first in a year, so I can hardly be angry at him for not being able to rush us to the doctor. I grab my phone, hand shaking, and call my friend Jenny. Great, she’s available, and at my doorstep in five minutes.
I’m feeling both hot and cold flashes as we drive as fast as one can in Tuesday morning rush hour traffic in Los Angeles. Brooklyn keeps eye contact with me, and I sense it’s his only way to truly make me visualize the horror that he’s experiencing. Clearly something is wrong with his back as his head keeps dipping slightly and then pushing backward. I’m starting to lose what little of my cool that’s left. I yell at traffic and keep him as still as possible, draped across my lap to try and keep his spine from any unnatural movement.
As we race to his normal doctor, twenty miles away, I realize that I only have $254 in my wallet and that my bank account is $600 overdrawn. Did I also mention that I haven’t had a job for a year?
We finally pull into the parking lot and this devout agnostic says a little prayer inside his head addressed “To Whom It May Concern”. I hope beyond hope that the doctors will be able to do something to fix him on a budget, since they know him and have already played a part in making him healthy. I’ve already spent upwards of $2000 with them, so logically they’d have some compassion and want to help this beautiful little dog.
After a short and frantic wait in the foyer, I’m ushered immediately into an examination room. The nurse quickly says “It’s a good thing you got here so quick. Don’t worry… We’re gonna help him.” She puts a hand on my shoulder and smiles at me in an assuring way. It’s only now that I feel some sense of relief. He’s in good hands. He’s with people that know and can do something about whatever is going on with him. It’s not the last time I’ll be wrong today…
The doctor enters, does a precursory two minute examination, and tells me he has a slipped or “extruded” disc. Sounds reasonable, but why is he paralyzed? Well, it is apparently common in dogs with small, but long, bodies and short legs. It apparently happens when they jump on and off things like couches, or beds. Brooklyn loved to do this often. So the doctor says that Brooklyn will need surgery, immediately, and that the nurse will have me fill out some forms and then they’ll do some X-rays and take some blood to find out whatever they can. I say “Great”. He leaves. It’s the last time I will ever see that doctor.
The nurse re-enters, hands me a form which has a bill for the immediate services to be rendered. By line it states Examination -$44, Bloodwork - $132, X-rays - $120, and for simply Collecting Blood $8.50. So without any actual care for him, I’m out the entire $300 that I have in the world. She asks me to sign at the bottom. I feel faint, as I tell her that I only have $250. Period. Finito. Her smile fades to a very serious straight line, etched across her face. She turns and walks out of the room, leaving me a blubbering mess. She returns and asks me if I’d like to apply for Care Credit. I say yes. She leaves. She’s gone approximately thirty five seconds before returning to inform me that I was denied this “Care Credit”. I ask her what else can we do? I love this guy, and I just want to help him. She shakes her head and asks me if I want a “minute”.
I take about twenty seconds to compose myself as much as possible, gingerly pick up Brooklyn and march out to the front desk, begging her again to please help my dog. She gives me one of those painful smiles that mean “I’m sorry, you’re screwed”. I should mention that at this point, the nurse has not asked me for any money at all, only presented me with a billing estimate. As I leave, the friend that drove me there is in shock as well at the callousness of the vet and his staff. Brooklyn is still wide eyed and panting. He looks like he’s in pain, and I’m quickly losing my mind.
Out of options we return to my apartment where I begin making phone calls at an extremely rapid rate. I’m posting on Facebook, Myspace, the Humane Society… Everywhere and anywhere that someone might have a lead on a vet that can help him.
Over the next few hours I make sobbing phone calls to vets to try and find some kind of emergency services or advice as to where a guy can find help for his dog for under $250.
I hear back fairly quickly from most of these places, and they all deny me any kind of help. By about the third call, I can barely talk. I’m hysterical. Brooklyn is sitting on a folded blanket, he’s not comfortable at all. He’s exhausted and wants to sleep, but his spine is obviously distressed as he can’t put his head down without it rising back up again. At this point I’m seriously considering getting a gun and forcing a vet to fix him, regardless of the fact that I would eventually go to jail.
After talking to everyone and their brother that has anything to do with pet care, and having them send me back around the circle again, “Hey, you should call the humane society”. “I just did, they told me to call you”. I’m in the depths of utter depression, when a friend of mine on facebook happens to recommend a vet clinic in Pasadena that has very cheap rates on X-rays and Bloodwork. Realizing that I still have my $250, I give them a call. It’s walk-in only, and too late in the day to go now.
For the rest of the night, I monitor Brooklyn closely. He won’t eat or drink and looks at me like “Why aren’t you helping me?” It’s breaking my heart to see him like this, but there’s little I can do at the moment. He sleeps a restless sleep, next to me on the floor.
Wednesday, May 12 2010… I wake up in a puddle of puppy pee that actually gives me as much relief as I’m sure it did him. At least he’s able to rid his kidneys of anything that might cause more damage. I immediately check the clock and note that it’s only 5:30am. Still have to wait two and a half hours to take him in. I call Jenny at the un-godly hour and make sure she’s still able to take me. I then sit and massage Brooklyn’s little legs as we watch M.A.S.H. on literal pins and needles. He looks sleepy, and slightly confused.
Exactly at 7am, the phone rings. It’s Brooklyn’s vet, and for a second I’m elated, thinking, “They had a change of heart. They’re going to help him.” Wrong again. It’s the nurse from the day before, informing me that unless I return to their office and pay the $44 examination fee TODAY, she’s going to “turn me over to the district attourney”. Those were her exact words. I quickly tell her that my dog is still broken, and that she’s doing a fantastic job. She hangs up. I cry some more.
8 am rolls around, and I scoop him up, gently, piling into her car to try our luck at Pet Vet Roulette. We make it to the doctor’s office, and the sun is already hot. I make my way through the walk-in crowds and sign in to await our fate.
Jenny follows shortly, telling me she has to leave as her brother has an emergency as well. “No problem” I say, knowing in the back of my mind that I have no way to leave this place once she is gone. My poor crippled and hurting dog and I are twenty miles from home, with no way back, and no money… and my phone is running out of power.
Eventually we’re called into an examination room, and within about ten seconds, the doctor tells me again about it being a slipped disc. He says that Brooklyn needs an Orthopedic specialist. At which point I break down in tears again, whining about having only $250 to my name. He is one of the heroes of the day, and kindly tells me he’s going to wave the examination fee. He tells me to go quickly and says he hopes I have good luck at the Ortho clinic that he’s recommended.
I sit outside the vet’s office for an hour, trying to find a spot in the shade where Brooklyn will be comfortable, and I can contemplate how to get us “the #### out of here”. I manage to get another friend on the phone that is available to give us a ride. We wait for her to show up, Brooklyn panting and trying to stay comfortable. I honestly think at this point he was trying to lift MY spirits, because I’m losing it… fast.
We drive to the Ortho, and she drops me off, since she has to go directly to work from there. I rush inside this massive complex, thinking “This is the Mount Sinai of doggie hospitals”. Surely they’ll help us in here. The nurse takes one look at Brooklyn, and before I even tell her my name, they’ve taken the little exhausted guy away to examine him. As I fill out the paperwork, an orderly asks me questions about Brooklyn’s medical history and such.
I’m eventually ushered into a room where a doctor tells me all about his probably condition, she’s very nice and extremely detailed about this condition being somewhat hereditary to Pekingese dogs. She says at the end , her hand on my arm, “Don’t worry, we’re going to help him”. She then leaves, returning with a billing estimate that almost gives me a heart attack. There are two pages of line items including everything from usage of surgical instruments, to X-rays, to suture packs. The estimate falls between $5000 and $9000, of which I have exactly $250. I tell her this, again, sobbing.
She leaves and moments later, reenters the room with a single page bill totaling $250. It is for an emergency exam, bloodwork, a medical waste fee, and Prednisone – a puppy steroid medicine. She then regales me with the possibility of having my dog live with this condition of paralysis, and ushers me back out into the waiting room. I pay her the money.
As I try not to lose my cool, I call my neighbor, who thankfully is able to give us a ride home. By the time he gets there, they’ve brought Brooklyn back out to me and showed me how to “Express Him” or how to make him pee and poo.
We drive home and I immediately get back on the phone trying to find funding for surgery. I call the AAHA, Actors & Others, Angels for Animals, Lifeline Grants, PawsLA, IMOM, the United Animal Nations, Pet and Wildlife.com, Petorphans.com, Petfund, the Sam Simon Foundation and several other agencies that I can’t recall. Each and every one, in turn, tells me that they’re underfunded and over stressed with the requests for help from their foundation.
By this point, both myself and little Brooklyn are completely exhausted. It’s 4 pm and we’ve been on the go all day. He’s able to find moments of sleep in between his still slightly bobbing head and trying to get a bearing on the fact that he can’t walk. I’m feeling dehydrated and dirty due to crying and not showering for two days.
I check my email and find that several dozen people have responded to me on facebook about it. To be completely honest, that’s where I got the best and most accurate advice. Not from the doctors, not from the foundations, but from Facebook. A friend of a friend, whom I’ve never even met, has offered to help me set up a ChipIn donation page and gather funds for whatever type of surgery or care that little Brookie needs.
As of this writing, two days later, the account has accrued $290. A paltry sum compared to the astronomically high surgery cost quote, but a heartwarming amount from people that Brooklyn and I don’t even know. It’s times like these that you see the true essence of people.
Brooklyn is currently resting comfortably, doesn’t even appear to remember ever having legs. He pees down my leg whenever I pick him up, and has to be kept in the confines of my small studio apartment, hanging out in a space the size of an office cubicle between my couch and my bookshelf. If not for the loss of mobility, he appears to be more or less happy. After hearing many horror stories about surgery and dealing with the cold, money motivated, world of Veterinary Medicine, I’m inclined to think that Brooklyn will be just fine… as long as I get him regular check ups and eventually a little wheelchair. Who knows, he may even be able to heal himself.
I’m taking baths with him, trying to give his lame little legs some aqua therapy. He seems to dig it. He still needs donations for the costly therapy and vet visits, and I still don’t have any money for a wheelchair for the little guy, although I’ve talked to several wheelchair makers, who offered a discount after hearing of Brooklyn’s story.
If anyone wants to help a beautiful little boy become a handsomely handicapped man, please donate to his fund:
http://itsforbrooklyn.chipin.com/brooklyn-the-pekingeses-back-surgery
