Sunday, April 3, 2011

During My Sabbatical

This is my Frida. My darling, wonderful Frida. She was named after Frida Kahlo. And now I can see that there are parallels to their lives.
We like to take walks together and view the neighborhood. She is very curious and adventurous. She will take me to areas that I have no desire to go and yet after the walk, I can see that it was worth it. We have long conversations and she does not hold back on her opinions but she is always kind about them.
Come tomorrow, it will be three weeks since the "Event" happened. We were almost home (two doors away) when she stumbled. After the stumble, she slowed down a lot. The next day she did not want to walk very far and the day after that the distance was shorter. The following day she would not get up. I am sure that the following will cause criticism but I really was doing all that could be done. Initially she was in the office (that is where the dogs sleep). But she decided that she had to go under the Bottle Brush bush. That is her favorite spot during warm months. She stopped eating. I could not persuade her come out and then the rains started. My son came over to help me move her and she tried to bite him. Frida would never bite anyone but she must have been in a lot of pain. So we put up a lot of tarps and tried to keep the rain off of her. On the worst day, I bailed buckets and buckets of water away from her. I put up rock dams to keep the water off her. Through all this travail I gave up hope. The light was fading from her eyes. I cried and pleaded and fed her by hand and squirted water into her mouth with a syringe. Finally I decided to sedate her (why I did'nt think of this before I do not know). My son came over and we got her back into the office. We arranged it like a hospital room. Three days later I walked into the office and she stood for me. I cried. She was very shaky but she stood. She made slow progress but it was progress. I celebrated till saturday last week. When I walked into the office I saw that she had two large holes in one leg. I couldn't think. I was so tired. It looked like it was very infected. I wasn't able to see it earlier because she wasn't moving easily. In the center of this huge crater was a white spot the size of a quarter. I called my son again and we finally were able to get her up to the vet. She is a big dog and weighs 86 pounds. It took a lot to just get her into the car.
The really, really good news is that it was a bed sore and he sewed her back together and she is making wonderful progress. We go for walks (slow walks) but she is up and happy again.
I feel like I have been in hell and am now forgiven!
My wonderful Frida!!

p.s. He still does not know what caused the whole thing in the first place.

2 comments:

patrice said...

What a great photo!
What a sweet girl.
So amazed she's pulled thru.
xo
P-

Phyllis said...

I feel so badly that I have been gone from my blog visits for so long. I missed this story and the chance to convey my concern and my empathy for what you and Frida and your family have gone through. These are the most difficult experiences to weather through, aren't they? I am so relieved and happy to hear that all turned out well in the end. Frida looks so happy in this photo. Take care of Frida and yourself and please know that my heart is with you both.