Opportunity

Well I certainly had a perfect opportunity to practice the power of detachment today ... twice!

It was a nice day at work and Adoring Husband picked me up at 2pm.

All of the psychotic dogs were happy to see me - nothing unusual - all wagging their tails and pushing each other out of the way to get a pat.

I opened the sliding door to give them the opportunity to go outside for toileting and then made my way to the kitchen to put away the meat that we’d just purchased at the butcher.

I turned around to discover a large bile coloured spew on the floor behind me. Then we heard a yelping dog outside but the yelping didn’t stop so we rushed outside to discover Colli lying on her side and not moving. The yelping had stopped but she was obviously in a bad way.

She didn’t move until Adoring Husband attempted to pick her up and she very gingerly lifted her body enough for AH to get his hands around her body to lift her into his arms.

I grabbed a towel from the laundry and we put her in the back seat of the car while AH called the vet to be sure we could get in straight away, which we could. So we drove directly to The Bay with her sitting on my lap looking quite agitated and panting heavily.

AH was stressing to the max, thinking the worst and asking a million questions, so I practiced my power to detach. I regulated my breathing, took a step back and observed our situation objectively. Instead of being dragged into AH’s drama, I remained calm, put my emotions aside, tossed the rope and waited until he was ready to help himself out of it. (Just quietly, I don’t think he’s taken the rope yet!)

The vet was very worried about Colli’s heart and thought that she may have had a seizure. She had noticed on our last visit that Colli’s heartbeat was a little erratic (due to age and deterioration) so she said that nature’s way of attempting to ‘reset’ was a seizure.

Dr Amanda asked us to leave Colli there so that she could administer a fluid drip, give her some medication and monitor her heart. She hoped that if Colli responded well enough she wouldn’t have to stay overnight.

Instead of returning home immediately, we tried killing some time with the hopes we would receive a phone call sooner rather than later. The vet called about an hour later to say that she was responding well and we could pick her up in 90 minutes.

We burnt a rather large hole in our pocket while killing 90 minutes!

When we returned to pick her up, there was a woman with two young men and a large dog wrapped in a blanket waiting in the reception area. She was patting the dog, crying and telling it that she loved it.

The vet saw them first and took them into the room.

It wasn’t long before there was loud, gut wrenching sobbing coming from the room.

AH had to step outside.

The power of detachment. The power of detachment. The power of detachment.

I too stepped outside.

Dr Amanda came to us after it was all over, obviously affected by the emotional trauma that that poor family just endured and she told us it was her third one that day and tomorrow looked like being just as bad.

She was happy that she could end the day with our ‘good news’ Colli.

It was 6.30 pm when we finally sat down and put our feet up.

I bought some Rogan josh lamb and chicken with rice for dinner from the little restaurant in Eli Waters. Delicious.

Time to sleep now.

Nite all.