Green Day
For my dog P. and me, the last couple of weeks have been an odyssey of symptoms, vet appointments, emergency-room visits, and long-distance communication with her other dad, with whom I've shared custody of her for the last decade (we broke up exactly ten years ago this month) and who has been traveling in the Far East for the last 16 days.
Long story, but what initially looked like kidney failure has transmogrified into a likely slipped disk in P.'s neck that is probably treatable with rest and "heavy duty" pain medication. Her kidney values, the cause of so much initial alarm, have "resolved." She's spending her second night in the hospital tonight to get her fever under control, but I have high hopes she'll come home tomorrow.
Mysteries remain (why the apparent incontinence episodes? why the fever? how could we not have noticed a neck injury?), but the situation now seems manageable and not so dire.
As I send S. lengthy e-mails with the details of each communication with a doctor (several have been involved, as her regular vet practice is also a 24-hour hospital), I admit there's satisfaction, even enjoyment, in feeling so . . . competent.
Part of my sensation of being in control has to do with my ex being 10,000 miles away—a situation that I know is not fun for him, as he is deeply attached to P. There has been little disagreement, no phone calls with the two of us talking over each other or being self-consciously cordial. He has thanked me more than once for taking care of things, and I have acknowledged how hard it is for him to be so far away when P. is ill.
But I'm also aware, or became so this evening, that—at this particular time—it probably feels fulfilling for me on some level to be a caretaker again. What I mean is that I'm realizing what may be going on: that is, I've missed feeling that someone relies on me in such a vulnerable way.
I've always cared about—and for—P.; doing so now is nothing new. But she is "old-old" (15 or 16), and this stage of her life, particularly this recent crisis, has a familiarity to it—not only because of this week's anniversary but because of other animals in my life I've helped see through to the end.
My relation to P. has undeniably deepened in the last few weeks—I feel her preciousness more acutely. For now—rather, when she returns home—there is this: taking in the breezes, together, on a warm, green day.
Long story, but what initially looked like kidney failure has transmogrified into a likely slipped disk in P.'s neck that is probably treatable with rest and "heavy duty" pain medication. Her kidney values, the cause of so much initial alarm, have "resolved." She's spending her second night in the hospital tonight to get her fever under control, but I have high hopes she'll come home tomorrow.
Mysteries remain (why the apparent incontinence episodes? why the fever? how could we not have noticed a neck injury?), but the situation now seems manageable and not so dire.
As I send S. lengthy e-mails with the details of each communication with a doctor (several have been involved, as her regular vet practice is also a 24-hour hospital), I admit there's satisfaction, even enjoyment, in feeling so . . . competent.
Part of my sensation of being in control has to do with my ex being 10,000 miles away—a situation that I know is not fun for him, as he is deeply attached to P. There has been little disagreement, no phone calls with the two of us talking over each other or being self-consciously cordial. He has thanked me more than once for taking care of things, and I have acknowledged how hard it is for him to be so far away when P. is ill.
But I'm also aware, or became so this evening, that—at this particular time—it probably feels fulfilling for me on some level to be a caretaker again. What I mean is that I'm realizing what may be going on: that is, I've missed feeling that someone relies on me in such a vulnerable way.
I've always cared about—and for—P.; doing so now is nothing new. But she is "old-old" (15 or 16), and this stage of her life, particularly this recent crisis, has a familiarity to it—not only because of this week's anniversary but because of other animals in my life I've helped see through to the end.
My relation to P. has undeniably deepened in the last few weeks—I feel her preciousness more acutely. For now—rather, when she returns home—there is this: taking in the breezes, together, on a warm, green day.
posted by Billy at 10:56 PM
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