Touching Grass

 Lucy is doing really well. She's still mostly hopping around on three legs, and it's a little demoralizing to see her poor naked leg just hanging there. I keep looking at the posts on the Facebook group I joined to be reassured that sometimes it can take weeks for them to trust the leg again. We've started doing a daily walk around the block which she loves, and our new strange bargain seems to be that if I let her eat grass by the mailbox she will put the foot down and take a few steps. Sometimes she stops because she wants to go towards our longer route, which I understand but it's too soon. The good part about the standoff is that the longer she stands there the more likely she is to get tired of balancing on three legs, and she puts down the fourth. After I massage it and lift her up and set her on her feet she will put it down, but then hops away again. It's probably going to be a bit of a long haul, but we're moving in the right direction. Apparently the bargain we have struck is that if I let her stand by the mailbox and eat a bunch of grass, she will put the foot down and take a couple of steps. Which, okay, I guess?

Eve wrote her last exam on Tuesday, which is a full two weeks earlier than she usually finishes. This was a mixed blessing since it also meant that she did the musical, then had a day and a half before three exams in four days, one of which was organic chemistry (if you know, you know). Because Matt's been on his extended work trip and then in Thunder Bay for his step-dad's retirement party and I'm saddled with our gimpy little mutt, we're not able to pick her up until next week. At first she thought that was annoying because if she was there for that extra time she could have been studying. But then she realized that she usually writes her last exam and then has to pack semi-frantically before heading home, whereas now she's hanging out and living her best life making cups of tea for housemates that are still in exams and doing fun stuff.

There was one day where the weather was bad and she couldn't decide what to do. I asked what the movie was at the little theatre right in the cute village down the street from her, and she looked it up and frowned and said "some kind of ... maybe drag show and then Shrek 2? I don't get it, why not Shrek 1, and ...why Shrek at all?" Fairly soon after she FaceTimed and said she mentioned it to her housemate Lauren who said "omg -- is it the Drag Queen Shrek Show?" and now they were going. Afterwards she said it was great and the main takeaway was that I had to re-watch Shrek 2 because it was way better than she remembered it (I had already remembered the Fairy Godmother doing Holding Out for a Hero, so not much of an argument from me). 

She also went to the Arts and Science Drop-In, which is basically a backyard party with a bunch of pizza during exams that she had never been to before because of all the, well, exams. She said it was funny because at a lot of parties non-Arts and Science people accuse the Artsci students of just talking philosophy for a few hours and then the older students escorting the first years back to residence so they don't get lost. This one, unusually I guess, had a fire and beer and people doing keg stands at two in the afternoon. Also she's going to Ripley's Aquarium in Toronto (an hour or so away) with friends on Monday because she remembers loving it but hasn't been there since she was about twelve.

Today she FaceTimed me from a tree. Like, climbed up into the tree and talked to me from there. 

Both my girls are acting a little nutty while outside. Spring fever, maybe? 

Someone in This House is Getting the Good Drugs, But It's Not Me

 Lucy's surgery was on Wednesday, which was (counts on fingers) six days ago (probably seven by the time I get this posted). It was a TPLO (Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy) - when dogs rupture their ACL they don't repair the ligament, they shave a piece of bone from the tibia and flip it over to reconfigure the knee joint and put in an implant to stabilize everything. I think. Don't quote me. 

We had debated whether we should wait for the surgery until Matt was back from Asia, but once we knew we were doing it I really just wanted to get it over with and start moving towards things getting better. I knew it was going to be grueling and I knew I wouldn't really have a right to complain since it was my decision. And I really love complaining, you guys. 

In a lot of ways it's been better than I expected. My house is destroyed and my back and neck and hands are toast, and in some ways it's been like bringing home a newborn. But babies only have two legs that they can't even USE, and Lucy has four and is booting around handily on three, so there's less carrying than their might be. Also, I can hoist her up in a football carry under one arm rather than using both, which is good because at this point in my physical life I would be pretty worried about going headlong down the stairs. Also, never mind the people that have to do this kind of caregiving with actual people, there are people whose dogs blow out their knees when they are only puppies, and people doing this with some big-ass dogs, and that must be much more difficult.

The first two or three days were pretty rough. She was still coming off the anesthesia, I couldn't leave the house, there were crates and towels and pee pads everywhere as I tried to figure out which configuration was going to work, as well as stuff piled all over the furniture so she wouldn't be tempted to try jumping up on it. I had a list of things I was supposed to do to help her recovery, including icing the leg and doing massage and passive range of motion exercises. And I am nothing if not a diligent student. You know what she didn't find awesome? Having me coming at her poor beleaguered leg with an ice pack and my pokey fingers. She didn't bite me, but she was definitely displeased. The secondary instructions were "if your dog hates all of this, just don't bother." Eek, okay, I was a little bummed, but let's be honest, we are aiming for the ability to walk comfortably, not a return to an Olympic career, so following her lead is probably fine. 

Naturally while I was preparing for her to come home I went to various pet stores and spent way too much money on various assorted beds, toys and treats with various spurious claims to magical healing properties. Most of these are piled on the table waiting to be returned. A few of them she spurned in the first few days and is more into now

Much like bringing a newborn home, or following a human's healing path, there has been a disproportionate level of rejoicing surrounding bodily functions and tiny milestones. She's tolerated the inflatable doughnut collar pretty well, but two friends came over and brought dinner Sunday night, and while we were eating and she was in her crate with my back to her, my friend Nat saw her wriggle out of the cone and try to lick the incision. So I promptly freaked out and worried I'd have to call in sick instead of going back to work on Monday because I would be a nervous wreck worrying she would hurt herself. I asked Sonia if she could come babysit, and she worked remotely in my kitchen while keeping an eye on Lucy. It was the first time I'd left the house, and it was really nice to get out and do a normal work day. 

Sort of counterintuitively, dogs are allowed - even encouraged - to put weight on the injured leg right away. The vet said many small dogs will hold off longer because it's easier for them to get around without it. After a couple of weeks there are exercises to try encouraging rebuilding muscle mass, but things will be on her timeline. As for her ridiculous naked shaved leg, when we looked up how long it should take the hair to grow back we found the terribly precise range of "one month to ONE YEAR". 

I told Eve about the surgery on Sunday before I came back to Ottawa so it wouldn't impact her performances. She was okay. Later we were texting about it and she asked if it was a back leg and said "back leg seems important" and I said yes it was, but maybe a little easier to get around without (meaning hopping on three legs). She said "hang on, is the surgery to REMOVE it?", which required a hasty clarification. 

Right now she's able to lie on the back small deck in the sun and is fine on the two steps down and to get over the sliding door lip into the house, so that's making her much happier and things feel a little more normal for me. I have refined my doggie massage technique (at one point I said "is 'my dog is having surgery' one of the the bougiest statements ever?' and then I remembered Jody sometimes has to tell people her horse is having a massage) and yesterday I texted the family chat "I have just made scrambled eggs and turned on classical music. For the dog".

Apologies for this being rambly and not terribly coherent. Things are okay. I have friends that have come over and brought food and held Lucy and kept me slightly saner and watched period dramas with me and that has really helped. I am still really glad that when Matt gets home things will seem that much easier when I'm not alone, and we'll be that much closer to complete recovery. 

Project Sassafras

 Okay, Crisis One addressed and diverted: Eve did vocal rest and gargled an ocean's worth of salt water and drank hot honey water ("honey is not good and I want to know who is generating this worldwide deception that it is", and also "I had a whole thermos of warm water and I drank it all during rehearsal. I was still thirsty") and absolutely killed it in the musical. I sort of knew she was a lead, and that she could sing, but she had a big solo right before intermission and had the last line in the play and came out for the curtain call in the middle of the three leads and it was kind of insane and magical. She has two high school friends who are really good actors/singers and they would likely have had leads in the musical in grade twelve, but Covid, so the fact that this happened was just... I don't even have the word.

The musical itself was bonkers and sometimes incomprehensible but a huge amount of fun. Every year, arts and science students write a musical that sort of addresses the fact that people outside the program don't really understand the program - it's interdisciplinary, inquiry-based, big on critical thinking and social justice. The songs are parody songs based on whatever the writers feel like - there was Summer Lovin, All That Jazz, Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, Thank You for the Music by Abba and some Portuguese one I didn't know but the version they did was killer. Eve's solo was based on a Dionne Warwick song I'd never heard. The musical supposedly took place in 1977 at McMaster and there was this group running around talking about "Sass", the 'research opportunity of a lifetime' (The Society of Arts and Science = SASS, and their emblem is a Sasquatch). 

Matt's brother came on Friday night - he and his wife were both in the program and are now doctors (it's a popular one for people who want to go into medicine). It was really funny that he commented beforehand that the McMaster campus seemed a lot like the University of Toronto, just on a smaller scale, because in the play Eve tells someone to come to the library with her and the person ("Just assume everyone is non-binary, we are a queer-ass program") says "which library?" and she says "THE library - what is this, U of T?" (there is more than one library now).

I went again on Saturday night after Matt had left for the airport to fly to Singapore. I was supposed to go with Jean, my professor who is now Eve's professor. In true Jean fashion, she was going to a McMaster choir performance first and then had to run home to have dinner and then meet me at the show. She asked if we should meet outside and I was like dude, I will go in and save you a seat - she's the former head of the program and an arts and science celebrity, I knew no one would quibble. I said I'd sit on an aisle, and she said "oh, sit wherever you want, I don't mind climbing over people", which made me cry laughing. I was also with Eve's friend Alison who came from Toronto an hour away, and her former suitemate from first year, and her housemates. Friday we sat further back so she wouldn't see us and be nervous (but it's a pretty small theatre). Saturday I said the hell with it and sat in the second row and clandestinely shot pictures and video from my lap with my phone's brightness turned all the way down so I couldn't even see what I was getting, but it worked pretty well. I dropped them at home and picked up Wendy's for the house and left them to go to their after-party. 

Sunday I woke up feeling happy and relieved and ready to get home and meet the next challenge. I swung by Eve's house to hug her and drop Alison at the bus station. The drive home was an easy 4 and a half hours. I got home and immediately collapsed in a puddle of tears feeling like everything was terrible and broken and ending. Then I took a deep breath and chatted online with my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) who was calm and reassuring and sympathetic as usual. Then Eve texted that Jean had invited her out for ice cream with her daughter and grandkids (the little girl adores Eve) and her mother who was turning 97 the next day. We were driving Jean home the night before - she just lives up the street from the university - and she said "and I don't take the bus" and Eve was like "whoa whoa whoa, easy on the personal attacks" because apparently there had been a thing where a girl was late to their class and said the bus was late and Jean (five feet of uncontainable energy, walks everywhere, swims every day, barely sleeps) asked innocently why she didn't just walk, and Eve stood up for the bus girl. So Eve enjoyed telling Jean she had just had lunch before the five o'clock ice cream and seeing her be appalled "because she already judges me for taking the bus to school."

After this I pulled it together a little more. I did a bunch of laundry, washed all the fuzzy blankets so I can make Lucy a bunch of fuzzy nests for after her surgery on Wednesday. I'm still having trouble visualizing exactly what things are going to look like, and I really need it to just happen so it can suck and be on the road to getting better. I joined a couple of Facebook groups about the surgery (before the thing happened, instead of months after, which is usually when it occurs to me that there was probably a Facebook group about the thing I'm struggling with). I nearly noped right out of them after a series of "this is the hardest thing I've ever done" posts. Look, I love my dog, but I had a two-year-old with a broken femur when I was four months pregnant with Eve. I couldn't lift him easily. I couldn't put him in a crate and leave the house. I have to think this is not going to be as hard as that, although I guess I can't distract Lucy with Elmo video games. No judgment though, I appreciate when people accept my complaining without comparisons, and I'm sure this recovery with a big dog would be pretty rough. 

Much appreciation for the support and encouragement on the previous post. I drop Lucy off at stupid early o'clock tomorrow and then the fun begins. 

Link to Eve's solo (I think): https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZY_12-ooqZI&si=G0qg9na0M-0yan7C

Things Fall Apart

 There's a cluster of things that are making me feel a little doomy and unstable at the moment. Lucy hurt her leg and probably needs a super-expensive surgery. Or Lucy hurt her leg and we're being dumb doing the super-expensive surgery and should just try and wait-and-see approach. But then that might go not well and then we'll still need the super-expensive surgery and I will already have spent a few weeks lifting her up on the couch and having to restrict her movement. And if I DO the super-expensive surgery in the next few days, Matt will be away for the first two weeks of her recovery, which will likely be the worst.

Also, Eve's musical is on Friday and she woke up sick yesterday and is losing her voice.

Also, at my morning school today one kindergarten child screamed at the top of his lungs for a good five minutes. I felt worse for him than for me, but only just. At my afternoon school a class had to be evacuated and came to the library during two other classes' library period, and two classes in the library is A LOT. Also the wind is off-the-charts blustery and mean today, and it's raining, and we have a snowfall warning. For tomorrow. When we're supposed to drive to Hamilton for the musical Eve might not be able to sing in now.

It's all a little much for a peri-menopausal woman to handle with style and grace, is what I'm saying.

I am trying to maintain perspective. Lucy's hurt, but she's not dying. Eve is sick, but she's not dying, and given enough vocal rest and more tea with honey and salt-water gargling than anyone wants to contemplate may be perfectly able to sing in the musical. 

I have a cousin that just had a tumour removed from his neck. An aunt who just fell and broke her shoulder and pelvis. A friend who just lost her mother. All the bad stuff is NOT happening to me (although watch your back if you're related to me, right now, maybe?)

We'll get through the musical weekend one way or another, and then I will bring Lucy home from the extremely fancy animal hospital (the first time I called I sat through part of the menu: "press 3 for dermatology, 4 for opthamology, 5 for osteology, 6 for oncology, 7 for dentistry)" and hung up to recheck that I wasn't calling a people hospital), and we will sit on the couch and watch scary movies while she has her little doughnut collar on (perhaps I will get a matching one) and then I will massage her little leg and walk her for five minutes at a time and it will be FINE. 

You'd be surprised how much shit she can stir up at the vet's office even with only three working legs.