"" bshawise: Dr. Jackson

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Dr. Jackson


Have you met Miss Jackson? She's some dog. She grew up on the mean streets of Clifton biting rocks and splashing around in our slime-covered toilet. She christened my first post-college apartment by eating the vinyl kitchen floor. I remember coming home seeing the shredded floor and just staring at Miss J. dumbfounded. I wasn't even mad. Large portions of the vinyl were gone.
Not only did she destroy it she ate it. She's hardcore. What I didn't know then was this was her first display of her clairvoyance. A month after this incident the water hose on my washing machine broke. I got a call at work from the super saying my apartment had a flood. They found water pouring thru the ceiling of the recently-vacated apartment below me. My exposed, vinyl-less kitchen floor worked as a sponge sucking up the water and sending it downstairs instead of throughout my apartment. Miss must've seen the future. She swallowed all that faux tile to save my Value City furniture.

Early this morning we realized that she is also a psychic doctor. Don't let the staring-out-the-window video fool you.

I have the diabetes. This means that from time to time my blood sugar goes dangerously low. When this happens in the middle of the night weird things can happen because the confusion of hypoglycemia combines with a half-awake dream walk.
Kind of hard to explain. But for example, in college, I woke up low and stumbled into the kitchen. I pulled out milk and a box of HoneyComb but didn't know what to do after that. This sounds made up, but I fell to my knees and started crying because I didn't know how to make cereal. That same year I had a "dream" that I had to find a granola bar before leaving the house. I "dreamt" that I was digging thru a closet certain there was a bar of granola under the countless boxes. I never found it. At some point I woke up feeling like somebody punched me in the face. I was lying underneath an ironing board upstairs in the spare bedroom. Boxes were everywhere. So was the iron that fell onto my face. I grabbed my nose (the pain nucleus) to find it covered in blood. I still have the scar to prove it. That iron was centimeters from turning me into a pirate. All that to say, late night low blood sugar is a weird thing. Sometimes it ends in seizures and wild interactions with EMTs. That's a whole different post. I got some stories.

So today at 6am I woke up low. I went into the bathroom and stood there. I woke up because Miss Jackson pressed her nose into my face. Then, as I stood in the bathroom confused (classic sign of being low) she ran back and forth from the bathroom to Leah. Leah got up, brought me some juice and our hyperactive dog followed. As I sat on the toilet (pants up) drinking the juice Miss Jackson instantly calmed down and rested her head on my feet. When I "woke up" we realized/put it together that this has happened the past three times I've gone low in the middle of the night. Miss wakes me up and then runs around all hyper until I'm eating or drinking something. Then she goes back to sleep. Psychic endocrinologist.

It makes me wonder how many times she did this when I was living by myself. If I think back to those midnight cereal-eating and juice-guzzling adventures she was always standing two inches from me. And I think for more than just the spilled Fruity Pebbles and Oreos. She's seriously been saving my assets (double meaning intended) for years and I've never really given her credit. Maybe I should give her a bouquet of vinyl and rocks. Something that shows her I care. She's some dog.

4 comments:

John Arns said...

man's best friend indeed -- way to go miss jackson ! (and leah)

Clarke said...

i do think dogs have some sort of sense about those things... diabetes, seizures, etc. it blows my mind & i really wanna know how she knows.

bshawise said...

jessica, if only you knew some doctors who had access to doctor research and doctor books..

Clarke said...

In addition to the traditional five senses, certain dogs seem to possess a “sixth sense.” These dogs have the ability to detect impending seizures in epileptics, cancer in people showing no symptoms, or earthquakes before they happen. Science has yet to uncover how some dogs are able to make these detections. But no matter how they do it, this ability to “see” beyond the obvious is one more reason dogs are such incredible creatures!


http://news.aol.com/story/_a/dogs-could-be-a-diabetics-best-friend/n20080203090209990004

**no dr. books required, just google