Tristen goes to the Hospital (again) – Part I

Greetings and welcome to Dinosaur Bear,

This time around we are going to be focusing on the most recent escapade of a one Tristen, Dinosaur. As I alluded to near the end of our last post, someone has embarked on a new adventure and that someone would be Tristen – as if there is any surprise there. Yes, the undisputed king of rowdiness and orneriness in the Taco household has yet again went and got himself all battle-scarred and in need of some medical treatment.

Manries.

As should be evident from the title of this post, this is not the first time Tristen has needed to be sent off to the hospital. Nope – he’s done this before. Plus, even before his last trip to the hospital SB had to patch him up several times. Yes, while none of the other Boys have required anything more than cleaning, Tristen has needed multiple medical procedures. It is, I suppose, all part of being “Manries” as I believe Tristen would say.

Anyways, where does one send a T-Rex for such a procedure? Well, last time we did an ample amount of research and ultimately decided on a facility on California. We had such good results with the hospital there that we decided to send him back this time and his doctor even remembered him! Whether that remembrance is a good or a bad thing is yet to be determined. 😛

While Tristen has a few areas that need some dinosaur-certified doctor TLC, the most prominent battle wound is on his neck.

This spot has been getting pretty thin for a good while now and over the past few months it really started to open up. Considering that Tristen has been all over the place and spends his time doing stuff like climbing Gibraltar, we’re lucky that this spot lasted as long as it did. Another spot that needs some medical attention is the very tip of his tail.

Considering how much he just loves hitting things (read: us) with his tail, this too is no real surprise.

So, we reached out to his doctor and got the logistics all set up and ready to go. However, since shipping Tristen is something that always makes us a bit nervous, he did exploit that nervousness to get a few things he wanted the night before his big adventure.

Included in that lineup are the (oh so healthy) offerings of macaroni and cheese, jalapeño poppers, and three (yes three) different kinds of chicken. A Tristen meal by all accounts.

Add in some iced tea for good measure and you have a very happy T-Rex.

During our Tristen-Approved™ meal we watched some Adventure Time and also had some peanut butter cup ice cream from Halo Top.

Spoiled? Nah.

After we’d watched a few episodes of Adventure Time Tristen wanted to play some video games, more specifically he wanted to play God of War which Tristen claims is one of the most manliest things he has ever seen outside of a mirror.

I quickly learned that by “play some video games” Tristen meant that he wanted to play some video games and he regulated me to “Player 2” status.

“Ultra manries.”

Considering that God of War is, well, literally about a god of war and is hyper violent and about fighting the gods and going on legendary adventures it’s no great surprise that Tristen is a bit obsessed with the game. So that’s how we spent most of the rest of the evening: playing out battles from Norse mythology. Once it got a bit later SB, Valentino, Pig, Pigsten, and Broli all went to bed. Now, normally SB makes Tristen go to bed at the same time – though he just switches over to playing on his phone in bed most nights. However this night he got to stay up with me and we ended up staying up really late reading manly things on the internet together.

If you’re wondering why in the world my screen looks like it’s straight out of a dark room, well that’s because it’s in a 1200k light mode which approximates the same lighting as an ember. I do this if I’m up late as a way of eliminating blue light from my screen. The feature is part of the incredibly useful program called f.lux – in case you are curious. After staying up way past our bedtimes (though Tristen maintains he has no bedtime) we finally got some sleep as Tristen had a big day ahead of him the next morning.

We’d completed most of his “chariot” (i.e. box) preparation the night before but we didn’t want to stick Tristen in the box needlessly far in advance, so after he had some coffee it was time to enter his manly stasis chamber.

The first time we sent Tristen to the hospital he had some complaints about the condition of his box – namely the lack of “necessities” such as a refrigerator, power outlets, etc. So this time around we brought Clifford into the mix to make sure the travel box was up to Tristen’s code. At a more mundane level we also included some plastic bags to ensure that Tristen stayed dry even if his box got wet.

These bags came from a deli, which made them marginally more acceptable for Tristen.

Not to say that he was pleased about them, regardless.

In addition to the plastic bags we added some (green) bubble wrap to his surroundings to keep him from bouncing all over the place during transit.

Once that was done we finished stocking him up with all (well, most) of the things he requested for the voyage and then got the box all sealed up.

Later that day SB took him to the UPS Store and he was on his way – kind of, but more on that in a second.

After Tristen was out in the world in his manly box it felt really weird not having him around.

Valentino was less than pleased about the situation.

And even Pig was a little more difficult to get out of bed than usual.

Upon reflection Tristen has lived with us for over 6 years and during that time he’s only been absent for about 1.25 months – and that was for his last hospital visit. So it’s no surprise that him not being here feels odd.

This feeling of unease was only compounded by the fact that UPS didn’t well.. do anything with Tristen the first day (aside from take our money). For the first 24 hours his tracking code just sat at this:

Shortly after the 24 hour mark – and when I was about to contact UPS – his information updated to this:

Which was kind of funny considering that at that point they’d physically had Tristen in their possession for about 26 hours. Fortunately soon after that he actually entered the transportation chain:

It just took about 27 hours for him to actually leave the UPS location we’d dropped him off at. The good news is that aside from those initial shipping delays Tristen was on schedule and six days after we dropped him off he safely arrived at his hospital in California.

Once there we were informed that he immediately made a break for the beach in his first escape attempt of the trip (and there will be many more, I am sure). Aside from that we have confirmation that he is now properly checked into the hospital and is on the list of patients.

So, that’s really all I can share at this point. We’ll be monitoring Tristen’s status as there is a chance he’ll need an additional procedure on his feet while he is there, but they need to do some diagnostic screening first. As you’ve likely noticed, I added a “Part 1” to this blog post, so when Tristen does return I’ll be sure to update with “Part 2” – not that Tristen would allow me to not talk about him anyway. 😛

We’re not exactly sure on the timeline of his return yet as it depends on what all sorts of treatment he needs (and how many unauthorized trips to the beach he ends up making) but based on last time I think we’re safely looking at the 1.5 to 2 month mark. In the meantime, have no fear, Dinosaur Bear will continue even without its eponymous Tyrannosaurus Rex in the immediate physical vacinity!

Oh, as a parting thought Tristen has informed me that I need to post an update about dino #1 and dino #2. So here’s the last picture I took of them before we took them out of the tub yesterday (where they had been for quite some time).

We determined that they had reached maturity and so they’re now living out of the tub in their new larger existence.

Dino #1 and Dino #2 in all their glory.

We don’t know if they’ll shrink or stay that size, but time will tell!

Until next time,
-Taco