On Tuesday, August 14th, 2013, we had just gotten
back from Yosemite. Lucky had her routine annual scheduled check-up on the 17th,
just a few days before my Junior One semester of college was starting. So we
left and drove to Lucky’s veterinarian clinic. When we got there, Lucky was
hesitant about going in, as always. I do remember feeling a little uneasy
myself before going into the vet clinic. Call it just an analysis-after-the-fact
or an intuition, a thought of “this isn’t going to be just any other visit” ran
in and lingered in my head uneasily. Feeling something was just not right, I
went in, hoping these thoughts would be unfounded. When we got into the
check-up room, this feeling of “something is just not right” nagged at me more.
The room was small, cramped together, and may have contributed to my anxiety.
It was a warm day. The air in the room felt stagnant and stale. The
veterinarian came in and began his checkup. Everything seemed okay until Lucky
winced at something. Alarmed, I became more worried. The vet had not accidently
stepped on her or done anything in particular to warrant such a response. She
was running a fever and found out she was bleeding. I saw the wound and blood
parched skin near her private area and under belly area. Horrifying. Unlike a
nightmare in a dream I thought I was dreaming. I felt like I was in a twilight
state. I was zoning out and could not believe what I was seeing and hearing.
The vet was trying to palpate the wound only to see Lucky react in pain. It was
unbearable. I heard the doctor say that this will require surgery. I heard that
last word: surgery. Oh my god. I seriously thought this wasn’t happening. I
feared this because I knew my dad was not going to support surgery that cost
exorbitantly for my dog. A small surgery, the veterinarian said. He said it
would cost several hundred. Upon hearing these words, I blew a small mental
relief. I knew the money for this surgery would be provided by my dad. The
doctor said that she needed surgery to remove the necrotic tissue from the area
that was infected. The culprit of the crime? Foxtails. Once I saw these sharp
and entangled torpedoes in her fur near her belly, I realized where they had
come from. They were from our backyard that we had redone in April. We were
renovating the inside of the house and also had the backyard redone. This meant
removing several large trees that gave our backyard its wooded-like atmosphere.
And as a result from the sudden new exposure from the sun and heat, the
backyard turned into a yellow field of what I thought was just yellow grass
that you see in the hills of sun-exposed open mountain terrain. Needless to
say, I never once walked through the sprouting foxtails myself or else I would
have known how dangerous these foxtails were. So there I was, stunned at what
had transpired. We had to leave her there overnight to do the surgery. She was
terrified with what was going on. We could only tell her in English and say to
her, “don’t worry Lucky, we will be back!” hoping to get some feeling of
security through to her to console her anxiety. We had to drag her into another
part of the clinic which looked a lot like a kennel for her to stay until the
next day. We all told her that we would be back. But our words seemed like they
may have fallen on deaf ears as she did not seem to understand our words
unsurprisingly. On the drive home, my mom, brother, and I were all silent in
the car. I don’t know what they were thinking, but I was fuming away in my
mind. Fuming that these weeds had injured and caused such pain to Lucky. As
soon as I got back home, I stormed out into the backyard and said to myself
that I was going to annihilate all these weeds so they could never harm her
again. My mom said that she would be hiring some yard workers to get rid of
them and to save my energy. It was hard to know which emotion to focus on.
Whether to focus on the anger I felt towards these weeds or focus on the
anxiety I felt of how Lucky was doing and her upcoming operation. Was she calm
yet? Was she still terrified? What kind of surgery were they going to do? How
invasive was it going to be? Would she get complications from the surgery? I
then realized that this injury to her was not completely unforeseen. The week
before the trip to Yosemite National Park, my brother and sister had noticed
and pointed out to the family that there were a few dried blood drops on the
floor of our new kitchen tiles. Being a nursing student, I immediately thought
that perhaps my dad, who has type 2 diabetes, may have stepped on something
sharp and his foot was bleeding a bit without him knowing, which can be a
result of peripheral neuropathy that can happen to patients whose diabetes is
not under control. So I went to check his feet and found no signs of bleeding.
My sister actually said that it was from Lucky so I went to check her paws, to
not find anything either. So I dismissed the notion that there was something
wrong and reveled in the idea of going to Yosemite for the first time in years.
So consumed with these thoughts, I decided I needed to take my mind off the anxiety.
I played NBA 2K12, but to little avail. It would be fair to say that much of
the time that I was playing, I was simply going through the motions of playing.
I didn’t know what else to do to release the stress. So I sat there, going
through the motions, and waited.
As one can expect, I was beyond eager the next day to get
Lucky out of that dreaded veterinarian clinic. Back then, my regular waking
hour was around 12, but I woke up early to get her out of there. We were there
by 10, when they opened I believe. When we had signed in at the front desk, and
the doctor released her into our care, she was bolting and ready to head out
the door. And that’s what we did. My brother and I waited outside with Lucky while
my mom finished up any paperwork. She was panting and I could tell she was
still anxious after all that time there. I sat in the back of our sedan with
her, petted her head, and told her everything was going to be alright. We were
bringing her home and hoped this was the end of it.
She went back in for a follow-up appointment two weeks later
on Friday, August 31st, 2013 with everything apparently okay.
Oddly, No more than a few days later after the follow-up
appointment, she began limping on her right hind leg. I thought it was perhaps
from a reopening (dehiscence) of the wound healing from the surgery. We
examined her surgical site several times to find no obvious signs of incomplete
closure. We decided to wait to see if would get any better on its own. One
Friday afternoon, I asked my mom on the way back if Lucky’s leg was getting any
better. She told me that she felt it wasn’t and in fact was getting worse. I
didn’t want to admit it, but my brother and mom felt we needed to take her to
the vet again.
The vet clinic, I can understand why people loathe
hospitals. Places of disease and death. Places where good news and good
feelings are just not abundant. Friday, September 14th, 2012. Of
course Lucky was petrified of being there again; no judgment when I say that
whatsoever as I can understand why she felt that way. The same veterinarian
examined her wounds as we tried to soothe Lucky who we had to try and pin to
the floor in as nice a manner as we could. He couldn’t find anything. He
checked the Range Of Motion of that leg and compared it with the other leg. He
couldn’t truly make a good call from his assessment. He recommended we take an
x-ray to see what was going on. We reluctantly agreed, knowing that it had to
be done to get to the bottom of what was going on. The entire procedure would
take about 15 minutes. My brother and I waited outside the clinic, discussing
what we thought it could be. Osteoarthritis? Rheumatoid Arthritis? Didn’t seem
exactly right though based off the symptoms. I didn’t know what else this would
be besides the conclusion that was lurking in the back of my mind, not wanting
to confront or acknowledge the possibility. It was a long 15 minutes. When the
results were in, I saw the x-ray.
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