Bailey Takes Over elogos

A Modest Proposal

A Modest Proposal by baileygrant

I am a 14-year-old, neutered female, red piebald, wirehaired miniature dachshund. That is according to my medical records. According to my human, I am at any given time: her baby, hey bails, oh bailey, thunderbutt, goofy dog, her warm puppy, Ms. B, a bundle of cuteness, and a stomach with a nose. I resemble all of those remarks. It is the last one however that got me into the ER last weekend with what was determined to be an intestinal bug. Appears I got into some other critter’s poo who had the indecency of dumping within sniffing distance of my above-mentioned nose. I am recovering nicely, thank you very much, but that isn’t what I want to talk about.

I want to propose privacy laws - HIPAA rules for pets. I shared the ER waiting room with two other dogs. Both way too happy to be sick dogs. I, at least, know when to look pitiful. One was a labrador with a tail ready to wag every ball off the clinic’s Christmas tree. The second was a Golden Retriever looking for friends. Anyone, anyone? And then, there I was listening to the exchange between my human and the intake clerk. When asked about my symptoms, my human showed some discretion in lowering her voice on my behalf when it came to the ichy parts. But what came next is why I am in support of HIPAA for the rest of us.

What came next is that the clerk pressed the intercom which blasted through the entire building including the waiting area: “We need triage at the front for a small dog with bloody diarrhea.” The other humans in the waiting area snapped their heads in my direction and tugged at their respective dogs away from me with disgust. You can imagine my shame. But their turn would come. Not long afterward the intercom crackled again with “We need triage for a Golden with a red anus.” We all looked. It was as red as a Christmas ball. And finally, it was the happy lab’s turn: “We need triage for a large lab who snorted lines of chocolate powder intended for cookies.” We all looked at the lab’s human and thought, how could you?

Though privacy laws can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, they have some merit. So there you go, my two cents. Get to work on it. I am not getting any younger. I aged about 4 months just telling you this story.

Merry Christmas,

Bailey Grant