09 22 06 329 W, 1 I - + 179 - 164
ZOWIE IS RUNNING WITH THE BIG DOGS AGAIN
Zowie is finally starting to feel well and run well again.
Early this year, Zowie was unable to pee.
His problems started when he was three and developed a mast cell tumor on his prepus. To prevent the potential spread of cancer, we excised one inch of his prepus. However, this exposed his penis to infection and over the years, Zowie developed kidney stones, which lodged in his urethra and prevented him from peeing. When the stones were removed, he developed scar tissue, which prevented him from peeing. That scar tissue actually got the point where several times a year, a balloon was inserted in Zowie’s urethra, then expanded to blow out the scar tissue.
These stop gap measures failed this year, and the doctors tried using a laser to burn out the scar tissue. This also failed and the blockage caused Zowie’s bladder to fill with so much urine that the bladder lost its tone. For two months, I had to evacuate Zowie’s bladder by syringe so that his bladder could return to normal.
Then the doctors took cells from Zowie’s cheek and grafted them onto his urethra to expand the passage where the scar tissue had developed. That surgery seems to have taken and Zowie is peeing semi-normally.
But the long and short of it was that because of these health issues, Zowie did not train at all from February through May 2006. I didn’t think there was enough time to get him ready so we did not run the 2006 National Am, even though we were qualified to do so.
At any rate, Zowie has been running well since the National Am. At the Colorado Women’s Trial, he got a second in the Amateur. And at Rocky Mountain, he got a fourth in the Amateur. That puts Zowie’s tab at 47.5 All Age points, all earned by me.