Keith Olbermann (47:43)
All the table games you love, with hundreds of slot games and real cash Prizes. That's at spinquest.com S P I N Q U-S-T.com Spin Quest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. When my friend sue from Maltese Rescue called again In August of 2021, she said, I have a really, really tough case this time and I do not think there is a chance that there could be an unexpectedly positive outcome like the one you've had with Ted, she said, this is a puppy. He's barely three months old. The family loves him, they adore him. But they're two young kids and frankly, the mother believes, accurately, that they are just too young to watch this little dog die. His name was Michu. They were a Polish family. Polish for little bear is Michu, and the disease he had was Tetralogy of Fallot. If that sounds at all familiar to you, in a human child it can be repaired. Now, it used to kill children by the time they were 10. But in a human child, they can now do surgery, but the surgery lasts about 12 hours. Jimmy Kimmel's son had it. He talked about it a lot when he was talking about the healthcare system in this country in dogs. There have been some early experiments in surgery almost exclusively for bigger dogs. As of Michaud's time, they really had not succeeded on any dog less than, say, 20 or 25 pounds. If you've ever seen the drawings of M.C. escher, the famous illustrator, where the same staircase goes up and down at the same time. That's what a heart afflicted with Tetralogy of Fallot looks like. There are arteries going over the heart and under it, and others that take the oxygenated blood in the wrong direction. The sufferer of Tetralogy of Fallot never gets enough oxygen. In August 2021, Michoud arrived. It's easy to romanticize things like this, especially in retrospect. There was something magical about him, though. He was very, very sick. His tongue and gums were purple from the lack of oxygen. He was tiny, dwarfed by my other three dogs. And because he was three months old, and yet he would start trouble with them silently charging Ted, or going up and yapping at Stevie and soon getting all three of them playing and fighting with each other and. And that's all the strength. He had a minute of this tops, and he had to sit down and simply watch the chaos he had created and clearly loved to create. He also clearly loved them. If two of the dogs were lying near each other, but not together, he would lie in the empty space between them, deliberately so that his head rested on one and his palace paws on or against the other. And soon they would respond to his presence by arranging themselves and cuddling together with a space for him. They had not done that before. Michu came. Once I was stretched out, legs up on my couch, and the four of them climbed in, two by my feet, two by my knees. I called Michu's name and he turned and he looked at me. And then the four of them almost simultaneously fell asleep. It was such a simple thing, yet easily it remains one of the most extraordinary and wonderful moments of my life. And I prayed that night, and not for the last time, that if there was no miracle meant for Michoud, that at least when he left us, he would be in my arms when he went. Michu was an athlete. He just was an athlete who had no stamina in the pen. I'd keep him in for his own safety. When I had to go out, he would get up on his hind legs and stand. I would come back and see him standing in his pen or try to get out of his pen. Once he did get out of his pen, I came home and he was marching around the house, and he did that confidently around the place. And he loved to move and to run and to play. And then he would have to stop. Michu also enjoyed food as much as any dog. I have ever known. More even than Minet. He gained almost a pound a month while he was with me. If you approached him with a treat, he would literally punch the air with one of his front legs like an athlete celebrating a success, often with one and then the other, a little one, two punch, like a boxer. And the sheer joy of that never failed to make me smile and laugh. And I often go back to look at the video when I need to smile or laugh. Put him on his back next to you, jab a finger at his paws, and you'd be in a boxing match with a four pound puppy who exulted in duking it out with you. And you always knew when the fight was over. Mish would stop throwing hands or throwing paws and he would simply take his front paws and grab onto your finger and hold. He once did this for a solid minute. I have never felt more as if I were truly communicating with a dog than when Michu would hold my finger. Knowing his attitude, I really am surprised he didn't pull my finger. He was an extraordinary, happy puppy. Even when he felt bad physically, those were harrowing times. Michu would be sitting on my lap or walking on the floor or just chilling with the other pups when he would suddenly tense up, up, sometimes letting out a cry twice. That cry was exactly like that of a young human boy. It was such a startling sound, so clear, so unmistakable, so unbelievable that the other dogs would stop and stare with what could genuinely be described as a look of alarm. Most times the tensing was my cue to grab him and hold him as tight as I could, because that inability to get oxygen to all the parts of his body, particularly the brain, of course, would cause his body to contract and writhe. And if he was on any surface other than the ground or the floor, it could literally throw him off a couch to the floor. It was rigid, and then he would snap and then he would fall. The first time he did that, my veterinarian was here and she said, you may now have to take him to the emergency room. She said, that's essentially what a dog does just before he faints. But then within seconds, it would stop. His body would relax, more or less by accident. I discovered that after one of these seizures, he seemed to be soothed if I would carry him and walk him around, gently rocking him in my arms and talking to him as I did so. Michu and I solved a lot of the world's problems in those little walks out in the fresh air, on the balcony or just around the house. He would often doze off, but just as often he would within minutes be ready to start playing again. And so I had in my little flock of four lovely dogs a sweet, wise, serene, playful puppy who liked to grasp my finger with his paws and loved everything about life, who was wise beyond his years. And he was dying. Well, I could not, not try to find out if there was something to be done to make his life longer or happier. Of course, I knew what sadness this was, this extraordinary soul trapped in a body that would betray him at any time. But certainly no matter when that happened, it would be before his time. So I had to at least try to see if something could keep him here longer, or at least make him feel better. While he was with us, we went to see the city's top cardiologist for dogs. And there was not, although he thought keeping those cans of a minute's worth of oxygen you sometimes see football players breathing from on the sidelines. He thought that might help a little, relieve the pain. Soon I had dozens of those cans of oxygen in a hall closet, and I was discussing building him an oxygen tent. But the problem wasn't his breathing. He got all the oxygen he would normally need. It was finding some way to get the oxygen pumped by his fatally flawed heart to carry the oxygen around his body. It's fine if you have all the cabs in the world and there are no roads. Well, there was no way to fix this. The median age of survival with dogs with tetralogy of Fallot was just about two years. His cardiologist brought up his case on a board of international experts in canine cardiac care, and they agreed there was no chance he would survive any operation, let alone the experimental surgery for this devastating malformation. Thus, the visits to the hospital turned out to be more about letting people meet him and hold him. There was. That was an extraordinary soothing quality. 2. Holding Michu. I heard it again and again from people at an animal hospital. What a special little soul. And he loved to be held. I took him everywhere they would let me take him. He was a regular at my weekly physical therapy for my arthritic joints. My therapist adored him. She'd just hold him and tell him stories. I took him to the Apple store once. I am happy to say he did not like that at all. He went with me and the other dogs for walks. He didn't walk. He was always in a bag draped over my shoulder. He did not have the stamina to walk for very long. I never saw him fall asleep on a walk, though the World fascinated him. The inevitable finally came at this time of year in 2021. Throughout the last week, the little pre faints increased. Michoud's happiness did not decrease. Two days before the end, I approached him with a treat. With my camera phone rolling, he punched with the left and then he punched with the right and he ate the treat. He licked his purple lips. And when I surprised him with the second treat, he did it all over again. On the afternoon of 12th November 2021, I was holding Michu in my lap as I sat and looked at the peak foliage in Central Park. Then, with no warning, he suddenly let out that near human cry. And I held him and I stood up and I walked him around the balcony again and then I had to sit him down in his pen for a second and I was just picking him back up when he tensed up just like all the other times and died. Died. As I picked him back up, the special little soul was gone. His body was getting cold with stunning rapidity and something inside me calmly said, hmm, not yet. I just don't think he's ready. And with no training and absolutely no clue what I was doing, I tried CPR on him. You have to try. You have to try. I had so little idea what on earth I was doing that after breathing air in and out of his lifeless body, I moved my face away as if I were going to spit out water before reminding myself, no, dummy, that would be for drowning. He didn't drown, he had a stroke or a heart attack. I must have done five or six breaths and was thinking, how long do I do this before I say goodbye? When I heard him exhale, I waited for it to stop or to be a false alarm or some, I don't know, some sort of physical oddity caused by all the air I had pushed into his lungs. But it wasn't any of that. Damned if this little dog had not somehow taught me how to resuscitate him. He was alive then, he was dead and getting cold. Now he was alive again with a regular breath and for him a regular heartbeat. It was rush hour on Friday afternoon and there was a bottleneck and a bridge approach between Mich and I and the hospital, and I had visions of being stuck in traffic for half an hour or an hour or Lord knows how long, and almost nothing they could do for him then if we somehow got there in time. But you have to try. If he didn't teach me that lesson, then mine told me that lesson. You have to try. I loaded a bag full of those cans of oxygen. And I got in the car and the driver realized my distress, and he asked what he could do to help. And I said, listen, don't run any lights, but if somebody wants to duck in in front of you in traffic, don't let them. Don't stop unless you have to. And when you do stop, help me unwrap the plastic from these oxygen cans. They are what are keeping him alive. And very calmly, he did that. And I kept blowing the oxygen into Michu's mouth and nose. And we made it there in 11 minutes, faster than the record time I'd ever made it to the hospital. The streets literally parted for Michaux at the hospital. Somehow I handed him off to the emergency room doctor, saying with an evenness I could not believe I could muster, my dog is dying. He has tetralogy of Fallot. And then they rushed him off. And then I briefed a second doctor on everything, including the human like cry from Michoud and his resuscitation. And I told her he had been seen by a cardiologist there was and told her which one. And she said, he's still here. I just saw him. I'll get him. So now Michu was being worked on by one of the leading experts in canine cardiology in the world. And yet still I knew there was, there was no hope. As they examined him, I managed to text sue from the Maltese Rescue, and she came to the hospital too. And three of the people from other departments in the hospital who had met Michau came down to the emergency room, not for my sake, but for his. It was heartbreaking and yet uplifting at the same time. One of the ER doctors said, I think we should let him go. And I said, not in anger, not in competition, and certainly not boasting. I said, look, I understand that. I'd just like to note, with no training, I just brought him back from the dead. I suspect you guys are way better at this than I am. And I brought him somehow back from. He was getting cold, just give him half an hour. And they all looked at me and said, yes. About half an hour later, his doctor, the cardiologist, came out to me and he said, he's alive, but if you took him out of this hospital, you'd get as far as the parking garage and then you'd have to bring him back. What you heard when he cried out, that was him having a stroke. The oxygen deprivation was finally too much, and the doctor began to prepare me for the question about letting him go. And I stopped him. And I said, I know we've all done everything we can, especially him, especially Misha. You. I'm ready when you are. And they brought him back to me. And there was a drip attached to his arm. And when that toggle on, the drip would be thrown, the medication in the container would end his life. He was as warm and as soft as ever in my arms, and yet I knew he was no longer in there. Sue held him for a while, and then she left me alone with him. I said, what you would expect somebody to say in such a circumstance about love and happiness. And then I heard myself saying things about gratitude, gratitude to him for teaching me that in the face of death, the point is to know when to try and when to say enough. And then he had taught me how to confront death and crisis and urgency, but with evenness and practicality and to be able to say, I know you had a happy life then. It seems like that, and not the fact that you had a happy life, but tragically, not a long one. It seems like the happy life was all that mattered to you. His cardiologist and the nurse came back into the room. And I said I was ready. And as the toggle was turned, I said I knew that if there was a place for him to go now, I was confident he would be the first one they let in. And I just hoped they'd let me visit him there someday and that I hoped he would remember us. I said, good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. And he was gone again. And as I had prayed when he died, he died in my arms. He died in my arms twice. There are some postscripts new since the first time I told you his story. His cardiologist very solemnly and respectfully said that of those other international experts who had reviewed Michoud's case, only two out of a couple of dozen of them had actually ever seen and been able to study. A small dog with tetralogy of Fallot and Michoud might have one final blessing yet to bestow upon the rest of us if they could keep and study his poor little heart. And without hesitation, I said yes. Because in that instant, I saw him positioning his head on Stevie's head and his back paws on Rose's back legs, so that the three of them were cuddling together whether they liked it or not. And I knew, as I had always known, that this truly was a dog who cared about and loved other dogs. The hospital wound up recalibrating some of the cameras they had in the hospital to photograph the smallest teeth in the smallest dogs so they could get every imaginable image of Michu's heart and maybe someday use them to fix this nightmare in some other dog. And since sometime, I think, in 2022, Michu has been in the veterinary textbooks. Moreover, in a casual conversation with someone from that cardiology department at the animal hospital over the summer, he mentioned Michoud. He recognized my name because of Michu. And we talked about this awful disease, tetralogy of Fallot. And he said they had just months earlier in that hospital, finally been able to successfully complete a surgery on a small dog who had that same fateful construction that took Michoud so young. If I remember what he told me correctly, they built this little dog a new aorta. Now, I'm not crazy or arrogant enough to draw a straight line from letting them keep Michu's heart to that successful surgery, but I have no doubt that his heart continued the advance of knowledge of what science can do for cardiac patients, and not just canine cardiac patients. When I first got Stevie, the fellow who literally handed her to me at the pet shop was named Jeffrey. About seven years later, I saw Jeffrey again, same shop. And he said he'd just gone back to work after months off, out sick after heart surgery. And he said they did some experimental stuff on me. And then he laughed. Stuff they had tried out first on dogs. Isn't that amazing? Well, that's always the case. You don't wait to see if the drugs work on dogs because their lives are so short anyway. And you don't wait to do the surgery because their lives are so short anyway. And so you find new ways for dogs and for humans. I like to think Michu will save other dogs, help save that one that the cardiologist mentioned, and save other kids, too. Secondly, Michu's parents had another litter late the same year he died. And their human was kind enough to offer me either of the brothers Michu would never know. Each was eerily reminiscent of him, but healthy. So healthy that they were little devils. There's no other way to describe them. Sweet, innocent little Michu was in some way sweet and innocent because he didn't have the strength to be a little devil like his brothers were. They were menaces to my other three dogs. I had each of them live a week with us, and I would have been fine with each. They were great just with me. But each of them bit Ted in the genitals and then Stevie in the genitals and Rose in the genitals and one of them bit me in the genitals. You gotta draw a line somewhere. They were crazy. And the second one, remember I mentioned how Michoud used to stand in his pen? The second one, Snowy, got into that same pen and managed to climb up the side of it and down the outside of it like an Olympic gymnast. They are now living happy lives as only dogs in other homes. So when sue from Maltese Rescue reached out again in June of 2022 and said, I've got another special case. 15 year old, perfect health, but he's got rotting teeth and dementia. His human got sick and she died. Who's going to adopt a 15 year old? I was able to raise my hand and that was when mine joined us. There's a third postscript. I got Michu's tattoo a month after he died. And his pensive, half smiling little face looks up at me from near the crook of my elbow where he used to sit when I would carry him around after one of those prefects. And it is a remarkable likeness. There's one guy in the village who can absolutely do a portrait of your dog on your arm. To me, the tattoo means exactly what you would think it would mean. It comforts me greatly. It means Michu is always with me and always will be. And now, with this being the week of this unwanted, but no, not tragic anniversary, Michoud, I hope, will also always be with you. I miss him to this day. And after Michu, there was mine. And I miss him to this day, the 17 year old. Now we have Kit the crazy puppy. It's quite a heritage. In any event, thank you for listening. Thank you for remembering him with me. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Chenale, the musical directors of Countdown. And it was produced by TKO Brothers. Mr. Ray was on guitars, bass and drums. Mr. Chenale handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Foust. The olderman Theme from ESPN2 written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc. Is the sports music. Other music arranged and performed by the group. No horns allowed, including the interpretation of Beethoven you are hearing here. My announcer today was my friend Kenny Main, who will remind you that it tastes like chicken. Everything else was, as always, my fault. That's countdown for today. Day 3301. I think that may be a typo. 301 of America held hostage. Some typos are really Freudian. And just one 170 million days. Another typo until the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck and lame brain term. Unless he is removed sooner by MAGA and Epstein, or that pavement on his hand, or stuck escalator or Tylenol or the mystery mri. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. Until then, I'm Keith Ulberman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
