Nothing about the weekend went quite as planned. Instead of church on Sunday morning, I ended up in the Veterinary Urgent Care with Magic, who was poorly all week long, despite a visit to our regular vet on Thursday. If you know me, you know my dogs are like my children (just more furry) and if they’re sick the rest of the world has to wait.
Magic is almost 10 years old, so when a dog reaches that stage of life, illnesses can be serious, even fatal. As I said tearfully to my mother yesterday morning when he seemed so ill, “I cannot lose one of my dogs right now. I simply cannot bear that."
I practically wore out a set of Dell laptop batteries searching through veterinary websites. I slept badly, knowing we would be going back to our regular vet today, knew we would be doing X-rays, perhaps other diagnostic tests. NOT knowing what we would find.
But preparing myself for the worst.
That is SO typical of me, expecting the worst in every outcome. When I woke up this morning, I practically had my little dog dead and buried.
I can write this now because it turns out there is nothing seriously wrong - a slight case of bronchitis, and a really bad case of “angry, inflamed gas” (in the words of my vet, the inimitable Dr. Kimberly Anderson). He now has medication for both and already seems much calmer and more comfortable.
Of course, somewhere in the back of my mind the qualifying words “this time” rise up to taunt me. He is almost 10 years old. We’ll be lucky to have him five more years.
And we all know how fast years fly.
But I’m desperately trying to pull myself back from that abyss tonight, and focus on the week ahead. We’re traveling on Wednesday to see The Magnificient Mister Connor, whom I hear has two teeth, loves to eat things that are yellow (as in bananas, butternut squash, and mangos), and pants like a dog when he gets excited.
Now I can hardly wait to see all that - and more.
Stay tuned, because next weekend will definitely be worth writing about.
How was your weekend? I hope it was a little bit less stressful than mine.