In like a lion?

I have to say, March has not been my month. More to the point, this week in March has not been my week.

For starters, the weather has been so bleak and dreary that it's difficult to keep my spirits up - nothing but gloom and gray comes through the windows. Then there's Hero and hot on his stubby little tail the never-ending roller coaster of questions: do we keep him? Can we rehabilitate him? Is he too much stress for one already strained household to manage? Case in point: Hero got into a dumpster at the park and ate a huge chunk of steel wool (probably left over from scrubbing the open-to-the-public grills and thus positively seeping with old food nastiness), which resulted in much dog vomit and a $300 trip to the vet to insure that his insides were not ripped to shreds. Add to that the fact that both Hubs and I sustained some skin-breaking bites and all in all I'd say Hero added far more despair than joy to our lives this week.

We've abandoned the Dog Whisperer (and the vet's) recommended regimen in dealing with a dog with dominance aggression. We've decided to stop challenging him. We'll still enforce our alpha-ness in more run-of-the-mill daily routines, but when it comes to trying to take back stolen objects, we're no longer willing to send in the troops and sacrifice our men. Even though everyone tells us that comforting Hero and soothing him is the worst thing to do in that case, it's also the only thing that seems to work. For whatever reason, Hero can't handle it when the pressure mounts. That could be his dominance aggression and his refusal to be challenged or it could be that he starts the situation and sees no other way to finish it. Regardless, when we're calm, he's calm, and although technically that means he 'wins', right now we're just aiming for a harmonious living situation. At the end of the day we're around him 24/7 and we've studied him inside and out (not because we want to, but because we're forced to). So maybe we actually do know something the 'experts' don't about how best to handle him.

Aside from the Hero drama, I'm not sure what else to report. He's pretty all-consuming, which my friend C swears is my coping mechanism for dealing with the IF. She could be right. Most days I'd just as soon get rid of Hero and wallow in my own issues for a while, but maybe C sees something I don't in my own behavior. Maybe I use Hero to escape. He makes for a pretty crappy diversion, but I'm not above admitting that coping mechanisms - even my own - often make no good sense.

Speaking of IF, my lab results came back and all the hormone tests were 'normal'. I didn't see any actual #s, so I don't know which tests were run and what constitutes 'normal' according to my PCP. The labs will be sent over to the OB, so I'll probably get more answers from her.

So that's where I'm at right now. This weekend I'm going away on a spiritual retreat, which at the moment is the last thing I feel like doing but hopefully it'll be good for me. Either way, April will be a fresh start and hopefully a long-awaited turning point. Please please please let March go out like a lamb. Lambs are happy. And they don't bite. (As far as I know, which isn't actually all that far come to think...)