Life in the fast lane

 

Christian giving skinny Sophie her insulin.
She's so good about it.

Many days I go from morning to night with only Sophie for company (I’m not complaining!), but it sure was a busy place around here today. I began the day with—gulp!—an 8:00 a.m. appointment with my favorite dermatologist, a man I’ve known for more years than either of us want to count. He presented me with a choice of treatments for a small lesion on my scalp and therefore gave me another dilemma. I told him I do not need another dilemma in my life right now.

Got home just in time to meet the dog groomer who came to give Sophie a much-needed haircut. She’d had a bath at the clinic, so I didn’t realize how badly she needed the trim until I saw my new, lean dog. With her coat trimmed back partly for summer and partly to smooth out the bare patches where the vet had shaved her, she suddenly looked half the size she had. Christian has been joking that she was getting broad in the beam, but tonight she has skinny hips and hind quarters. Today she is much more interested in food, and I am almost free feeding, giving her a bit whenever she wants. She is one of the dilemmas in my life: I want to feed her enough to restore her health, but I don’t want her to get used to eating six or seven times a day. And of course, her ongoing health is another dilemma: if she has another crisis I will be forced to make some hard decisions. Meantime, we’re taking it day by day, and today was a good day.

Yesterday was not such a good day. She refused her breakfast and was clearly confused. You know how you go into the kitchen for something and then have to stop and ask yourself, “Why did I come in here?” That’s the look she had. She’d walk a few steps and then stop and stand still, looking puzzled. And she stumbled occasionally. I called the vet, who said she needed to be in the clinic. He called back in an hour or so to say her blood sugar was extraordinarily high; they were giving her IV fluids and insulin, but he was quite adamant he did want to keep her overnight. She was, he said, clearly unhappy at being there again. We brought her home mid-afternoon, and she ate her dinner. So now I’m again figuring out medication schedules and cajoling her into letting me spray the bedsore on her leg, etc. She’s worth it, and as I said, today is a good day.

Back to the rest of the day: the young man (really, he is) who owns the lawn service we use came by so we could discuss bushes that need trimming, the dying grass in the front yard (he says it doesn’t get enough sun), and the bare spaces in my native plant bed which has, miraculously, survived the winter and a plumbing crisis (piles of rock among the plants). I have cut back on plans for taking out the vines on the back fence (really old honeysuckle which is not flourishing) and replacing it. We had great dreams of crossvine, but the fence does not get enough sun.

Then the new handyman we’ve discovered (he really is handy) called and said he could come replace the flexible screen door in the cottage. By that time, I was ready for a nap, and we agreed on tomorrow morning. But we need a new screen—after Sophie got her foot caught in a hole near the bottom of the current screen, Jordan took scissors to it and cut off about four inches. As a result, I have had a convention of mayflies in the cottage—a fatal convention apparently because I find their delicate dead bodies all over. The wonderful Zenaida will also be here tomorrow to clean the cottage—another busy day. And then we are expecting company for supper. I am reminded of the May Sarton poem:

“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.”
~ May Sarton, Journal of Solitude. Thanks to Marilea Rabasa for posting that this morning on our small writer’s group listserv.