Five forty four

I can't sleep.

I'm not sure why, exactly, as I'm exhausted. More importantly, as of yesterday, all the incremental changes in my dog's health since she got to critical care have been positive ones. Tiny little inchworm nudges towards wellness. Hurry it up, nudges! Yooo can do it?

(I'm very tired).

I've spent enough time in the ICU to get to know some of the other dogs there, just from what I overhear while sitting with Happy.

Rosco, the little half-shaved dog with a broken pelvis, and Bethany, the bull terrier who ate a flashlight, went home today. I'm trying very hard not to resent them for that. Still around are the two Daisys and Monty.

Good Daisy is a puppyish black lab who always wears a cone. I'm not sure what's wrong with her.

Loud Daisy is a French bulldog with possible epilepsy who paces around her kennel and never, ever stops crying until someone takes her out and holds her. The funny thing is, she sounds like no dog I've ever heard. If I couldn't see her mouth opening and closing (puppet-like) I'd have sworn the sound was coming from a baby or a cat. It sounds, near as I can get, like this: AAAAAWOWOWOWOWAAAAAAAAAGHAAAWAN? WAAAAAN? OOOORAW? It sounds like a baby/cat attempting to pass as an adult human, through the intervention of the devil.

Monty is some sort of hunting spaniel with anorexia.

I go to the clinic twice a day, afternoon and evening, and spend about an hour with Happy. Tonight she played with her panda toy for a while, though very gently, and that thrilled me to no end. They've given her a stuffed panda to keep her company, and at first she totally ignored it. I was inclined to think that the panda meant the ICU staff loved my dog above all, until I realized today that Loud Daisy has her own little television on a wheeled cart. They roll it in front of her kennel and she actually watches it. Apparently it calms her demon soul.

Happy's eating Gastro again, and some of her medication is being taken orally. The technicians hand her "meatballs" of Gastro-concealed pills with their bare hands. I'm trying to take a lesson in strength from this, and not totally gag, but it's hard.

I can't even believe how much this is all going to cost. I'm ridiculously lucky that my parents are footing the bill (that they can foot the bill) with nary a whimper. Nary a whimper. When I checked Happy in, the vet told me initial costs would be around five thousand dollars. But she also said that Happy would be there for "at least a couple of days". On the second day another vet told me "five days at least". I haven't asked again since then.

Now that I'm less petrified by the constant fear that I'm going to lose my dog, I can't stop missing her. It's weird, and people who don't have a pet that they really love aren't going to get it, but not having her around is like a physical ache. It feels like phantom pain. Like when a soldier in the civil war (!) would get his leg cut off and still feel it hurting. Not that I know what that feels like, but I imagine in my self-absorbed way that it feels like this. Where is my fatty cattle dog in the middle of the night? Where is her Dog On Chair, Dogs In Space, and Waggle Bum?

Stop that now! She's in Burnaby. But you see what I mean about the missing.