Tuesday, May 28th was Cooper’s 7th birthday. Well, kind of.

See, I adopted him in June of 2007, at which point I knew only that he was “about 13 months old.” My beloved, living-caricature-of-a-Nanny-dog, oversized Sheltie from childhood – Lucky – was born on April 28th; that we know for sure. And since my birthday is June 28th, and we don’t really know Cooper’s actual birthdate, and I’m really crappy at remembering these things as it is, when asked at his first vet appointment for his birthdate, I just sort of went with MAY 28th. Easy to remember, honors he-to-whom-I-owe-my-love-of-all-things-canine,  in the right ballpark…works for me.

While I’ve already written about how disproportionately I love this little guy here, I’ve never shared the story of quite how he came to be MY “little man”/ “squirrel pants”/ “crazy sprout”, and it’s a good one. Quick, bubblebursting sidebar: None of these, or any other of his nicknames have any root in logic or story, even “little man”, as he both looks and prances about like a prissy girl dog. He even pees like a girl dog (which I’m totally cool with). As with most nicknames, they came, they were uttered, and they stuck. I pretty much only call him “Cooper” when I’m mad at or embarrassed by him. Madge generally even sticks with just “Coop”, if not her preferred, sneering, swears-she’s-kidding-but-I-only-think-kind-of, “NASty little dawg”.

So. May, 2007. …

I’m in the process of moving out of my 3rd floor apartment, with 10 days’ notice and ownership of essentially everything in the apartment that wasn’t my roommate’s bedroom furniture, makeup, clothes, or limited kitchenwares. I’m wrapping up my sophomore year of college, and just so happen to have all of my finals within the only 5 of the 14 available testing days that also overlap the 10-day get-yer-shit-‘n-get-out period. Unremarkably, I’m feeling rather unwell, as was my usual MO by the end of the semester, but spending my free time maniacally packing boxes rather than resting and doing extra treatments as I normally would and should have been was NOT helping the situation. (The high doses of steroids I was taking, however, were a definite mania-boosting asset.)

In subsequent events that surprised exactly no one, I became incredibly sick, incredibly quickly over the weekend after the big move, but with one final left to go. I normally would have tried to strong arm my doctors into allowing me to just start IV antibiotics and the like at home, and trek up to le hospitale after my exam, but when the buckets of green coming forth from your nose and chest morph into fonts of red, even the most stubborn of us (usually) cry uncle. So finals-be-damned, my dad and I pack the car and head upstate, trying to act like this is a totally normal way to wrap up a college semester. Hey, we’re in the car with luggage, right?

I get there, get checked in, all the normal questions are asked, including the ever-ambiguous “are you having any pain?” Normally, I kind of stress out for about 30 seconds before deciding what, if any, of the white-noise-that-just-IS “pain” I even should bother to mention, but this time, I’m almost giddy someone asks. You know how you can have that headache or that rash or that fever for several days, finally cave and go to the doctor…and you’re fine? I had been having the same thing happening off and on since I was a junior in high school, only that headache was that sucker punch to the kidney that must have occurred in my sleep. But today, on whence I find myself in the purview of a medical professional specifically inquiring about such maladies, I’m actually having the thing instead of just having to say sometimes, there’s this thing, but just not right now. So I bolt up, and say, “Yes, actually! There’s this spot on my side that’s been really bothering me off and on…” other questions are asked, including the rest of the standard intake, and I’m left to my jammies and my teevee.

In the meantime, my mom had been able to finish with her meeting and arrive to take over the in-house Jessie-sitting duties. My dad left for a couple days to finish out his workweek, then turned around and came back, swapping cots again so my mom could get home and wrap up a months-in-the-works closing. When she leaves, everything is still on “boring in the best way possible autopilot”. No sooner than she’s out of cell range, the transport service arrives to take me downstairs for a CT scan. My dad and I share confused glances, then my nurse explains they wanted to get a CT of my abdomen, per my complaints earlier. I’m shocked they’ve been remembered and followed through given their paltry status on the “why I’m here” list, but I’m grateful, and almost giddy to start getting to the bottom of this.

A quick shimmy back and forth through the CT machine, and I’m back up in my room, browsing puppies available for adoption online. I’ve been doing this ad nauseum – emphasis on the nauseum – for months, especially around my parents. Lucky, the aforementioned overgrown sheltie who could do no wrong, was aging at an alarmingly accelerating rate; I was not prepared for life without lint rollers. Besides, after having spent the previous several months with my roommate’s cute little wiener dog running around, and just recently suffered the indignity of moving BACK in with my parents, zomg – I wanted a symbolic external validation of the legitimacy of my adulthood puppy of my own. I probably should have started with a plant, but since they can’t come and jump on you when they need watering, and you can’t dress up or cuddle with a succulent, the motivation and likelihood of my maintaining a furless piece of greenery was zero-to-none. I didn’t need more failure. I needed cuteness. Furry cuteness.

I continued to click-and-“aww!” my way through the internet, swiveling my laptop back and forth like a serving tray to show my dad each new little face that he just couldn’t turn dow- except yep, he just did. I eventually gave up, about half an hour or so after he stopped even looking up before sighing, “No, Jessica, you’re not getting a dog.” It’s been hours. He’s exhausted, I’m torn between feeling bratty and pissed off that I feel bratty, and scared and sad that he might be right, and that I’m doing good to keep up with my schoolwork and stay upright and groomed myself, and that I don’t need the responsibility of another creature right now. He includes a fish in that list and laughs, and now I’m just pissed. So I do the obvious, natural thing and move on to retail therapy. 

It’s late in the evening, and I’ve built up quite the impressive just-looking (probably, maybe, it depends so I’ll save it just in case) shopping carts on American Eagle, J. Crew, Sperry Top-Sider and Vera Bradley’s websites, respectively. (Forgive me, classic handbags, for I have sinned). I’m picking over my tray when a team of white coats, none of whom I recognize, waltz in to my room. I glance at my dad, confused (because he’s DAD, dammit so he’s just supposed to KNOW who they are and why they’re here. DUH.). They introduce themselves as NEF-RAL-LO-GISTS, and explain that that means KID-NEY DOCTORS. I suspend my indignation at their condescension, remind myself they have no idea that I’m a frequent flying VIP who knows they spell their specialty with a silent “P”, and forget I was annoyed altogether when I see the quiet one in the back futzing with a clipboard. Clipboards only mean one thing in the hospital – you need to sign something. And once you’re already in a room, with an ID band, you only have to sign more things on clipboards if something is about to cut, zap, or probe you.

The nice lady nefralogist explains that while my referring doctor expected to see some kidney stones due to the duration and location of my “flank pain” (which I still cannot say without thinking of cheap fajita steak), they were expecting something more like several small ones creating a lot of “noise”, and no one quite expected to see one as large as mine. *Pauses for dramatic effect* (*I wish I was kidding*) “It’s about a cubic inch, or roughly the size of a golf ball.”

Because I’m a freak, I’m 95% totally freaked out, wondering and worrying how in the name of calcification they’re going to get this thing out of me, if the aforementioned clipboard would be referencing probes or cuts, and which would honestly be worse. 5% of me is totally impressed with my circus freak organs that they were capable of … growing? hosting? creating? such a freakishly large foreign body and just schlepping along, all keepin’ on keepin’ on, cleanin’ my blood and makin’ my pee, with only the occasional ping-pong knock-knock against my sides to alert me to it’s possible existence.

I’m not left to shame-gloat very long before being informed that first thing in the morning, they’ll be placing a stent in my “Urthethrer Tube” (as Madea would say). This little tube – essentially a Chinese finger trap party favor, only sterile, made of surgical mesh instead of splintery cheapness, and much (but kind of not feeling so much) smaller. Which reminds me, I forgot another clipboard verb – ramming. So no cuts or probes, but this little mesh thing would be rammed placed as necessary to allow my body to prepare for one of two super exciting options: either, as soon as they feel I’m “ready”, and an appointment can be scheduled, I’ll get to lay on a table and have lasers zap my insides from the outsides, as a sort of “sonic blast” to break my golf ball in to more “manageable”, gravel-sized chunks’; after which I’ll be sent home to collect all my tinkle in a bright red bucket…until. Until, I’ve been “able” to “pass” all the gravel-remnants on my own. Judging from tone of presentation, this is clearly supposed to be the preferred option? I’m about to piss myself and render it all moot at the thought of what “Plan B” might entail. Then I find out that with Plan B, I’ll pee through a party favor for a week or three, be forced through a minor growth spurt (with analgesic support along the way); then get blissfully knocked out for a few hours, during which a surgeon will use the lasers with a bit more specificity, then take a teeny surgical equivalent of a big box store, everyone’s-a-winner, stuffed-animal-game-machine claw and pull out the spoils of his work. The party favor will be left in place to make sure any teeeeeeeenytiny remnants are able to pass freely, I wake up, prove I actually can pee, go home, and 4 days later, party favor’s removed in seconds in the office.

Before I can even ask, “I’m sorry, what part of ‘pissing gravel for a month with some tylenol and good luck stickers’ sounds ‘preferable’ to you people?!”,  I’m reminded that the clipboard has nothing to do with either of said options, and only tomorrow’s bright-‘n-early favor ramming procedure. Which thank god, included the signature line for light anesthesia as well, but no sooner was I relieved that I wouldn’t actually have to be awake for this than I remembered that, um, I’m a twenty-something girl who’s been in the hospital for several days now? At the beginning of summer? Certain cultural/self-imposed grooming expectations have been somewhat, neglected, shall we say? And just as I turn to weep in panic at the idea of it all I remember that OH GOD, this is My DAD – I can’t talk to my DAD about THIS! But eventually the not-so-silent “meeps!” forced me to cop to why I was FREAKING THE EFF OUT about something that normally, believe it or not, would not really FREAK ME THE EFF OUT.

Between a few very awkward but now very warmly remembered conversations, and a frank confirmation from the nurses who’d be downstairs with me in the morning (literally and figuratively) – I was reassured that at my worst, I was in no way the worst that any of them had, or would ever, see. Not even on the left side of the curve. Under 350 lbs? check. Under 70? check. Bathed in the last 2 weeks? freaking seriouusslly? Yes, SERIOUSLY. Holy crap, um, YES. CHECK.

OK then. You really have NO reason to worry.

Gulp. My gratitude again for that which you voluntarily endure, compassionate and respectful medical pros.

Not long after the whitecoats leave, the phone rings. It’s my mom, just calling to check in, see how things are going… My dad fills her in, and she flips a little, in the way that only hippie dippie woo woo moms who believe their presence has some sort of power to prevent negative and painful things from crossing their children’s paths can do. Kind of whimpers a bit about how this is just really uncool and unfair for her little baby to be spending yet another college summer dealing with stupid health stuff instead of being young and carefree and all that other country-song stuff, then feeling guilty that she’s not there, as if just having my mom instead of my dad would make it any less mortifying to have to have a procedure on my woowoo. (Ok, it kind of would have helped earlier, but at this point in the day, I’m good). Dad kind of agrees,  reassures her we’re both fine, gets a little blue, I think – at least, to the extent that stoic people ever “get” any visible emotion – and we go on about our evening.

So, I’ve calmed down and gotten all zen, “it-is-what-it-is” about the whole voluntary violation in the morning, and gotten to work painting my toes an obnoxious, glittery pink I wouldn’t normally wear “on the outside”; my unspoken cue that I am a girl-person, a very girly-girl-person, who under normal circumstances, takes very good care of herself thank-you-very-much. Then the whole, Pick-A-Plan situation starts to creep back in to my head. Oh. Mah. Gahd. I’m totally sold on Plan B, and really don’t understand why there’s any question, besides that silly little “spinal anesthesia can totally render you a noodle from the needle down” thing, but um, if I pass out and die trying to push a camel through the eye of a needle, or whatever it is the Good Book says, then even that’s kind of a wash, is it not?

Thankfully for me (and Cooper), my dad did not immediately grasp the gravity of the contrast between these two options. As in, to a dude, they both sounded TERRIBLE. He’s not saying any of this, of course, but I hear him tap-tap-tapping on his laptop and assume he’s doing research on the various pros and cons of each. (Apple, tree. It’s what we do.) So there I sit, totally-in-the-moment-with-my-glittery-toes-because-oh-my-god-NO-BRAINING-RIGHT-NOW!, when he turns his laptop around, asking, “what do you think about him?” I’m assuming it’ll be some nephrologist, or urologist, or effitallogist that has some hybrid, best-of-both-worlds option I should check in to, and I’m appreciative, but I’m tired…and glitter…and then “OH MY GOD. Dad, DO NOT mess with me right now.”

“I’m not, Jess. Seriously. What do you think of this little guy?”

Along with a first-person, “why you should adopt me” narrative, this little face is staring back at me:

Not only was that one of the sweetest faces, and most endearingly giant ears, I had seen in my entire rescue-puppy search, but he was potty trained! He was crate trained! (Lucky-the-infallable wasn’t even crate trained!) He was leash trained! Just barely a year old!

“Dad, seriously, do NOT mess with me on this.”

“Jess! I’m not. Are you interested or not?”

(Blank stare of FREAKING DUH YES, DUDE).

Then the hook: “Ok, I’m going to go ahead and email her. But prepare yourself, if mom says no, then it’s a no.”

My mom still laughs with a twinge of resentment recounting her version, saying, “oh, what, now I’M supposed to tell my sick, scared kid no? When I’m not even there?”

That was a really, really fun phone call to get to eavesdrop on. No seriously, it was. My dad sounded like a little kid who had broken something, but-I-swear-it’s-all-fixed-now-please-don’t-ground-me! and my mom was clearly amused, and clearly very not, all at the same time.

The next day, shortly after my woowoo party favor placement (which was also as much of a non-event as I was convinced it wouldn’t be), my mom arrived, with the much-coveted, latest issue of Vanity Fair, featuring my celbredork of the moment, Anderson Cooper.

See where this is going? 

Emails were exchanged, and a “home visit” was scheduled for shortly after my anticipated release. To inspect US. I did more research on pet-dangerous houseplants that week than I ever have before or since, even though my dad was right, “They don’t really care about any of that, Jess, they just want to make sure we’re normal people and they aren’t handing him off from one bad situation to another.” My mom and I spent the week debating and discussing names for the new little guy, since his current “Buddy” non-name was not. going. to. work. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, “Cooper” was chosen, but honestly, truly, not in homage to my then-favorite journalist; simply because my then-favorite journalist happened to have a name that also seemed to fit the sweet-but-mischievous, let-me-please-bestow-some-semblance-of-class-or-preppyhood-on-this-scraggly-creature goals I had in the naming process.

Upon revealing our decision, my dad made only one request, which then became an insistance. An ultimatium, really, as in, “it’s at least gotta be his MIDDLE name, or no dog.”

And so.

Happy Birthday, Sir Cooper Stone.

You make me happier, and crazier, and have taught me more about unconditional love than I thought a scraggley-coated, hyper-allergic, separation-anxious, not-so-potty-leash-or-crate-trained little critter ever could.

Also, he is dressed as a banana. Not a klansman. Just to clarify.