Dog Years

Our dog, , is about 90 in dog years.

She no longer gets up from her bed each time I come into the kitchen, and she doesn’t hear me when I call her to come.

If she takes a corner too quickly on the hardwood floor, her back legs slip out from under her like bald tires on black ice and she lands with a thump on her side.

The other day, instead of standing at the backyard door to signal she needed to go out, she stood patiently waiting for me with her head and shoulders in the utility closet, one door over to the right. She seems to have canine Alzheimer’s, or at least a touch of doggy dementia.

It’s scary to watch, and her veterinary bills are equally daunting. It just doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that we adopted her as a puppy from the  

Worst of all is that if Frances is heading around the bend, I am starting to realize that I might be a leash-length behind. In my head I am still sixteen, or at least under thirty. But the years are slipping by and the evidence is everywhere.

Case in point: The other day, I was chatting with a much younger friend who attended a Hollywood Oscar party where she met Tom Hanks.

I was starstruck. I love Tom Hanks – smart, humble, human and a Skyline High local boy. (Two of my favorite movies are You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle. I wanted to be Meg Ryan, walk down that wooden pier, onto that houseboat and fall into his arms forever.)

My friend said, “Oh, I just love Tom Hanks, too! He reminds me of my father.”

Father — I kid you not. She said that. Then I realized that she was probably young enough to be his daughter, closer to my daughter’s age than mine.

A while ago I saw a picture of Robert Redford’s son in the Parade section of the San Francisco Chronicle. He looked older in that picture than how I picture his father should look. My world is changing.

I am not sixteen, nor under thirty. Last September, my doctor authorized my first colonoscopy exam – a right of passage to the second half of a century.

After reassurances from several close friends that it wasn’t so bad, I stopped procrastinating and gathered the courage to schedule the procedure, then postponed when I found out that my co-pay would be $1,000.

Now don’t start lecturing me because I know it’s important. I don’t want to die from colon cancer, or any cancer for that matter, but a test that has waited for fifty years can wait one more.

A year flew by and last week I received an email from our insurance agent: “Good news, Alice! Your medical premium is increasing by only 4.65 percent. I think you should renew as is.”

The sad part is he’s right. Compared to the last several increases, 4.65 percent is actually reasonable. Our average increase over the past several years has been 14 percent.

I got home from work and stood in the kitchen whining and moaning , about the cost of healthcare in a post-healthcare reform world. I told her it was just plain wrong for someone to have to postpone a test like a colonoscopy for budgetary reasons. Sarah said, “Shouldn’t they have a Groupon for that or something?”

Leave it to the younger generation to save us all. This is brilliant! Medical Groupons! Depending on your age, you can get all your friends to sign up together for C-Sections, mammograms, colonoscopies or hip replacements.

Advantages: 1.We wouldn’t allow each other to back out; 2. Think of the savings; and 3. You can bet we would all have a much better time if we were in it together.

Given the right meds, it would be just like a cocktail party, right? With backless gowns for all, you wouldn’t have to worry about getting a new outfit, or having to wear uncomfortable pantyhose or high heels. Works for me!

But until someone grabs that Groupon idea and runs with it, I will renew the health insurance policy, schedule the procedure, and find a way to deal with the co-pay.

And if the Buddhists are right and I come back in the world again one day in dog form, I pray my human companion swallows hard and pays my vet bills, gently pulling me out of the utility closet and leading me out the right door and into the garden.