Today is my 15th birthday! I wanted to share it with all of you because I was sure there would be balloons and presents tied up in pretty ribbon and visitors singing to me, and of course, cake!
I got to go on a birthday walk over the weekend! Don’t tell anyone but it’s not really a wilderness.
I mean, 15 is a milestone age, right?
There were a few times this year my folks didn’t think I’d get to see this day. With the surgery back in April to save my life when my gall bladder filled up with sludge and then the harsh antibiotics I had to take because they found infection in me and then the kidney disease…well…things haven’t always look so good this year.
The late afternoon light was amazing.
Mama says it’s been a roller coaster. I don’t know what that means cause I never get to do anything fun, but I can tell mama and daddy have been stressed.
All the more reason to spend today celebrating me and eating cake! I’m sure you agree.
Years ago there were farm fields here, this is part of a rock fence line.
But mama says I need to be more realistic, and that cake isn’t good for me, and balloons would just scare me and that I can’t expect people to just show up and start singing to me. Besides I’m deaf, so singing might not be the best way to celebrate.
Plus she said I’d just bark at people and balloons anyway.
So you know what we’re doing instead? We’re going to the vet, that’s what we’re doing!
We didn’t walk real far, but I was so glad to be in the woods!
Yes, you read that right. Mama made a vet appointment for me on my birthday. I swear the woman has no sense of appropriatness at all.
I’m just a little girl in the big woods.
To be honest, she didn’t make the appointment until yesterday. And she only made it because I’ve been throwing up after I eat. Three times this past week. She and daddy are worried and the vet said to get me in there, so she scheduled it even though it was my birthday.
This was a giant fungus. Mama made me pose next to it a few years ago too.
And then she said seeing the vet and making sure we do everything we can to make me more comfortable is the best present they could give me.
I guess. But cake would have been good too. Just saying.
This was a nice spot to stop and rest. Or get a treat.
I did get a real present from my daddy this past weekend. It came in a box from the nice guy who drives the big noisy brown truck. I got to sniff it and everything. I was excited because everything that comes into this house should be for me.
What’s in there daddy?
I’m sure you agree.
Daddy ordered it for me after mama told him I was having trouble eating out of my bowl on the floor. My bad right foot kept slipping out to the side as I tried to get my head way down there.
Those of you that are older like me know how hard it is to get up off the floor the older you get. Well, I was having trouble getting my nose way down there into the bowl, but I love eating so I wasn’t complaining.
Hey daddy! This is perfect!
The day mama noticed my problem she ended up holding the bowl up higher for me, and letting me brace my sliding foot against her. Eating is much easier with a little help.
I just love the dinner and water dish thingy daddy got me! It’s the perfect height for a girl of my stature. And it has the perfect angle too, though it’s designed to have the bowls propped up at an angle or flat. I like them propped up.
You really get me, don’t you daddy!
So I can’t say I didn’t get anything for my birthday. I just didn’t get cake. Mama is such a strict dietitian. If any of you want to sneak me a treat I won’t tell.
And if you want to sing to me while you’re slipping me that biscuit, I’ll smile and pretend I can hear you.
A birthday walk AND a new dinner dish. Guess my birthday wasn’t a complete washup after all.
Talk later,
Your 15 year old Katie-girl.
Birthday nap. Daddy got me the pink princess rug too.
Katie and I spent Halloween day wandering together under beautiful blue skies. The leaves here are finally turning, and in the early morning light they were spectacular. Walking under them, with my girl, watching the light shift and glow was special.
On the way to our early morning adventure.
When Katie got sick last spring we hoped we could get her to fall, when the temperatures drop and she has, in the most recent years, transformed from a middle aged, lethargic dog of summer into a youngster who throughly enjoys her walks.
I love this rug, mama, it compliments my beauty!
Somehow, in the fall, she turns back time and prances during her walks in the woods and around the neighborhood. But this year, the year we needed those cooler temperatures to hurry up so she could enjoy them, October held on to summer with an iron grip.
I’ll sit here for you mama, but you better have treats!
I enjoyed those warm days with temperatures in the 70s, but worried that Katie and I wouldn’t get our cool walks in the woods. So on the last day of October, with early morning temperatures dropping and as the sun began to creep up into the sky, Katie and I headed out in search of adventure.
Don’t you just love this weather, mama?
We stopped first in Milford, a town that always dresses the storefronts for fall, complete with a giant pumpkin in front of a fancy restaurant. For the past few years I’ve taken Katie there for a photo shoot.
Hey mama! THIS is the giant pumpkin you talked about??
This year we were disappointed, as the entire town is dug up with some sort of construction project, and the giant pumpkin was less than giant. Still, we walked around town for a little bit. Like the princess she is, she insisted on doing some window shopping, checking out every single shop doorway. That made me smile.
Anything good in here, mama?
So I took a window shot of the two of us.
Me and my girl.
But we didnt stay in town long, we headed out to my favorite park, and to her favorite walk in that park. The color as the sun rose was spectacular.
I was giggling like a schoolgirl it was so pretty.
And walking there, on a service road through the trees with my girl, I contemplated the shortness of life. Though her numbers were better at the last vet visit, Katie is still near the end of her life.
Isn’t this amazing, mama?
She’s a happy girl, and good at hiding her discomfort. She still likes to go on adventures, she still loves her suppers. She still loves us. But sometime, maybe sooner then later, we’re going to have to make that hard decision.
Light and color ease the angst.
And it’s not just her. I’ve been dog sitting for a neighbor whose husband had a combination of cancer and heart disease. He’s been in the hospital for the last few weeks, and this week, when she thought he was coming home, he died.
I always feel better when I’m near water.
He was a very nice man, loved his garden, his wife, his dogs. I’d talk to him when I was out walking Katie. He’d always tell me what he was planning for next year’s garden, “if I’m still here,” he’d say. Now his flowers are still blooming in our long, extended fall, but he isn’t here.
A bit of fall trapped in last summer’s volleyball net.
I dog sat for his two pups while his wife and family attended his funeral. I would have gone myself, but my time was better spent taking care of the two little dogs who have lost their man.
Be like me, mama, live in the moment.
And another friend just had surgery, leaving her two cats at home for the duration. She had someone to come in and take care of them, but I stopped by to play with them too. They always came running for a tummy rub, or a romp through a tunnel. I enjoyed spending time with them, but they’re so much happier now that their person is back home.
I love it out here mama.
And there’s my own family member who has spent the last two weeks in the hospital and had major surgery too. She has a long road ahead of her, and though she has no pets for me to take care of, she’ll still need some visits and perhaps help with some household chores.
Nature’s art installation.
It has seemed like trouble and tragedy is everywhere. But it’s easier to bear while walking through a beautiful woods with my girl. And someday, hopefully far in the future, when I don’t have my girl walking next to me, well, I’ll have the memories, and the pictures. And that will have to do.
Mama? Do you feel better now?
I’m grateful that I have had so many years with her. I’m grateful I knew my neighbor and his gardens. I’m grateful to the friend with the cats, and the long life of my relative now recuperating at home.
Life is a road, mama.
But sometimes…sometimes it feels like time has flown, and life is short, and there’s just no way to slow it all down.
Don’t try to figure it out, mama. It’s all going to be OK.
This morning when Katie-girl woke me at 4 a.m. to go outside I turned on the news to get the latest on hurricane Ida. I have a few friends in the path of the storm.
I watched a few minutes of roofs being torn off buildings and downed trees, utility poles snapped in half, blinding rain. My heart broke. Then the anchor turned to Afghanistan and the thirteen soldiers whose families are beginning their new normal and my heart broke again. And after that were images of the fires in the west. And then Corona virus hospitalization numbers.
After our storm last night.
I turned the television off.
Katie and I went back to bed. She fell asleep instantly, not burdened by worry. I lay there for awhile trying not to get sucked into despair.
But this morning, as I was fixing Katie’s breakfast (boiled chicken, white rice, Royal Canin kibble, green beans and pumpkin) I noted that the air felt fresher, the temperatures cooler than we’ve had in a very long time.
As she ate I went out to fill the birdfeeders.
Early morning of a fresh new day.
A little chickadee flitted around my head, waiting for his favorite feeder to be rehung. A hummingbird checked us both out, reminding me I needed to put fresh sugar water out too.
There was cool morning dew on the roses.
Ripe tomatoes were ready to be picked in the garden.
The sun was coming up and a kingfisher clattered through a beam of light, headed for the pond.
Yes, there are terrible, terrible things going on here at home and across the world. Yes today is a sad day, yesterday was a sad day, all of last week was terrible for so many people. Tomorrow might not be better.
But I am so lucky that when I take the time to look there is usually something good to find, even in the midst of just too much.
As you can see I am feeling a lot better. Whatcha doing? Oh…excuse me, sometimes I get distracted. I don’t suppose you happen to have a treat for me? No? Did you check your back pocket? Oh. Well anyway.
Ahem….
So mama and daddy are trying to get me to eat this KD food stuff. I’m back to eating regular dog food, kibble and wet food, and I’m pretty excited about it. Food used to be one of my mostest wonderful, bestest favorite stuff in the whole world.
And then I got sick and food wasn’t so good anymore and everybody got worried. But this past month I’ve eaten more and now, just in the past week I’m back to asking for more food, more treats, more everything!
On my way home from the vet.
But just to keep things interesting sometimes I don’t eat all my supper. I was never like that, I never left even one smidgen of food in my bowl in case someone else came along and stole it, you know.
Now when they give me wet food I might eat some of it, generally with not much gusto, but mama and daddy have figured something out. If they put a fresh pea, pressed into the food, I gobble it up!
Gormet
Seriously, a pea.
Sometimes they add several peas to my meal, sometimes it’s just one pea. Either way, it always works and I clean my bowl right up. And then I lick the bowl to make sure it’s super clean.
Nom nom nom…
If that’s not proof I’m a Princess I don’t know what is.
See you later, your Princess and her pea, Katie-girl.
Katie here. I know some of you have been worried about me, and I blame mama for that. After all, who is she to call me an old dog!? Do I look like an old dog to you?
This was taken today while mama and I sat in the nice cool grass.
No I do not. The fact that I’m 14.5 years old is irrelevent, it’s just a number, you know?
But it has been a rough few weeks, ever since I got that pesky gallbladder out at the beginning of April. The vets put me on some strong antibiotics for six whole weeks, and they sure played havoc with everything! Especially my tummy.
So, since I wasn’t feeling too good I decided I didn’t want to eat the stinky food they were feeding me. And then I didn’t want my old food either. And sometimes I didn’t even want the food mama cooked especially for me.
The primroses in my garden are blooming right now!
Everybody got worried.
But as soon as I got off those awful medicines I started to feel a little better. I ate some, but every day I’d decide what I liked or didn’t like. And it was always different.
Lounging around, as is due any princess.
I like to keep mama and daddy on their toes. They’d think they had figured out what would work and in a few days I’d decide I didn’t want to eat that anymore. Mama and daddy say their house looks like a pet food store now, they have a little bit (and sometimes a lot) of everything I might possibly want to eat.
Yesterday I decided I might not like the new wet food that I’ve been gulping down the past three days. Then daddy got up and offered the same food to me and I licked the bowl clean. Mama is starting to sigh a lot.
These are my wildflowers. They still have some growing to do.
This afternoon I was napping on the floor and mama got down there with me. I asked her to tickle my tummy which she did, but she seemed sort of sad. She said it was because in the old days when she got on the floor to cuddle with me I’d always get up and move somewhere else. I am not a cuddle dog. But today I felt like cuddling and she wonders if maybe it’s because I didn’t feel well.
I even gave her a kiss, which never happens. I think her eyes got a little leaky then. Mine did too.
I guess cuddling isn’t so bad after all.
So anyway.
I want to reassure all my fans that I still have lots of pretty good days. I get to go on walks and mama carries me home. I got to go to my park last week, and if it ever stops raining I’m sure I’ll get to go again. Mama says we’ll go camping in the backyard if I want to, and mama and daddy are both trying to find me the best yummy food that I’ll love. Sometimes I even bark at mama for fun, just like in the olden days.
Happy in my front yard.
All in all, I’m doing OK. I will certainly keep you all posted if anything changes. Mama says everybody should hug their own pets or kids a whole bunch. She says the more you do that the less the chance your eyes will leak when you get surprise kisses.
Katie has been sick. The kind of life-threatening sick that makes a sheltie parents’ hearts quicken as they contemplate what life will be like someday when a fiesty little girl isn’t around to make things interesting.
She had emergency surgery to remove her gallbladder in early April, at the age of fourteen, and came through just fine. She’s a strong one. Twenty-one staples held her little shaved tummy together, and she never once tried to mess with them.
But they found some bacteria in the samples they took for biopsy, so she was prescribed two anti-biotics, strong ones, to be taken for six weeks. And they wanted her to change her diet over to a kidney supporting food. And thus the struggle began.
Lucky girl, they told us to feed her a bland diet of boiled chicken and white rice for the first two days. She was fine with that. But she wasn’t going to eat that KD dog food. Nope. Not interested. So we suplemented with more chicken, different types of rice, homemade broth made from chicken bones, fresh green beans steamed just so, oven roasted sweet potatoes.
Every day we’d try different flavors of the KD dog food. Sometimes she’d accept the kibble, hand fed as a treat, quite eagerly. The next day she wouldn’t have anything to do with it. The wet food made her turn her face away in disgust.
We’d order more flavors, try to entice her to eat. As the days went on and we kept filling her with antibiotics we learned that a side effect was lack of appetite. She stopped wanting to eat chicken, rice was off the table. Sweet potato sometimes worked. Sometimes not.
We were having more and more trouble getting the pills into her, as she became suspicious of all hand held food, worried about what was in it. Pill pockets didn’t work anymore. Peanut butter was hit and miss. Cheese was a no go.
Every morning I’d start the day trying to get her pain pill administered. “What do you like today, Miss Katie?” I’d ask her. Her face would light up at the memory of getting a wonderful treat, but she’d drop her smile in disappointment when she was offered a pill covered in some previously delectible spread.
By the sixth week I was disparing of ever getting her to eat again, watching her as she slept, missing my fiesty, noisy, curious, happy little girl.
And then, twenty-four hours after her last pill she begged us for something to eat. And we offered her the KD dog food and she gulped it down. “Got any more, mama?” The kibble, offered as a treat? “No problem daddy, I love my kibble treats!”
These days, when she’s being her noisy, curious, happy self, I sit and watch her, storing the memories. Though she’s acting like her old self, the truth is she’s still almost fourteen and a half. We got more time, but time isn’t infinite.
This early morning she wanted to go out and sit on the deck. She won’t do that without me being there too, and I had a long list of things I wanted to get done. But I smiled and took my laptop and we went out. She’s out here now, on high alert, breaking up twigs while watching the road for anyone who might pass by without her specialized sheltie permit. They must be barked at.
I’m sitting here watching the birds and squirrels as they venture out for their morning meal. The nuthatch is peeking at us from the backside of the birch tree which is glowing in the morning light. He’s not sure it’s safe to flit over to the birdfeeder for a tasty treat. Eventually, after scolding us for some time, he decides we are not a threat and he picks out the best seed and hurries away. The female oriole is on the grape jelly feeder, not caring about us at all. There’s our wren warbling further out in the yard, guarding the nestbox where little ones are growing. A male bluebird sits very high in the tree above us, the sun catching the rusty glow of his chest. A chipmunk scurries along the deck, checking us out, and a black squirrel has just climbed the railing, but finding us there, scurries back down again.
Katie is oblivious to all of it.
The black squirrel approaches from a different direction, and she sees him. Much barking and prancing ensues. My happy, silly, curious, noisy girl is back. And oh good, the garbage truck is coming down the road. Another danger to protect mama from. Good thing for all of us that she’s still in charge.
Mama said I could get on her blog to tell you about my buddy Ricky who crossed the Rainbow Bridge last week. He was one of the original dogs with blogs, and mama found his blog years and years ago when we were all youngsters. There were a bunch of shelties with blogs back then — Ricky and Misty and Miley and Reilly and Ludo and Morgan.
Mama thinks there were more, but she can’t think straight when her eyes are leaking.
Anyway, we noticed Ricky right away because he was such a dapper little man. So much sophistication in such a little package. Mama likes to call him Little Ricky, because he was tiny.
But he had a big personality.
Ricky had fun with agility, but he liked to do it his way. His mom worked and worked to speed him up, but Ricky was his own guy and took those obstacles at a speed he deemed appropriate. Especially, as we remember, the dogwalk where he liked to survey the entire facility as he moved arcross the top. Ricky, always so elegant, never felt there was a need to hurry.
Ricky was really good at learning tricks too, and for a time he learned a new trick every week. His mom posted videos of his latest accomplishments and we were always so impressed! He learned to hold things in his mouth, and spin to the left and the right, to play dead, and so much more. He was so smart, and he made mama and lots of other people smile every week.
In fact, Ricky was something of a celebrity, he had so many people that enjoyed watching him learn new things. I told mama that we should try to meet him, and she said she’d see if she could arrange it. And guess what? I got to visit Ricky two times! It isn’t often that a girl from a small town gets to meet one of her idols in real life, you know?
In fact, visiting Ricky was one of my very first big adventures, cause they lived hours away from me and in a different state and everything! It was on a trip to visit Ricky that I proved to mama that I was a good traveler!
Ricky was such a gracious host. He shared his house and his people and his beautiful yard with me without any protest. He was such a cool dude, we got along great because we ignored each other most of the time. He didn’t even get mad when I drank out of his waterbowl!
He was so polite and nice to me that when we stayed over night at his house I decided to invite him into our bedroom (OK, it was really his room, but he let us stay there) to do obedience with mama and me so that he could get some treats from her too. Ricky really loved treats.
And that first visit he took me in his car to one of his parks! I was so excited! Ricky, of course, was too cool to be excited about a car ride with a silly girl.
It was a very very beautiful park with a little stream at the bottom of a big gorge. We walked and walked, with lots of sniffing thrown in. Wherever Ricky sniffed, I sniffed; he was sharing all the best stuff with me!
And when we climbed back out of the ravine there were beautiful gardens and we sat close to each other on this little wall so the moms could take pictures. He was much more patient than I was with the whole picture taking thing. This was way before I contracted with mama about the one picture, one treat clause, so we ended up sitting for way too many pictures for way too few treats. But Ricky never got upset.
He was such a special boy.
I visited him a second time, and by then he had a little sister who was, of course, bigger than he was. We all went to a park together again and had a wonderful time. Ricky was so patient with all the girls, his mom, my mama, his sister and me.
I am so sad that Ricky had to go on ahead. But I can imagine him exploring the whole place, and finding the best sniffing spots, and where all the good treats are. And I bet he’s found Ludo and Reilly and Denny and Morgan and Misty too by now. Just picture it, all those shelties running and laughing and enjoying snacks. All those sheltie smiles as they play together while they wait for the rest of us to arrive.
It’s got to be one amazing place, over the Rainbow Bridge. I wish he could have stayed here with his mom and dad and sister, but I know he’s happy there too. He may have been a little guy, but he sure shouldered a whole lot of love from all of us who knew him.
See you later, Little Ricky. I’m so glad I got to meet you, and I’ll never forget your friendship. You were and always will be one classy dude.
Yesterday I was wandering near one of the towns where I grew up. Since I was so close I visited a local cemetary more to see the lake I lived on than to visit anyone there. It was a cold, windy day, so the lake was choppy and uninviting. It seemed a little surreal to be parked on the shores of the lake, gazing out at the small islands where we used to take off and land on water skies more than 50 years ago. The lake seemed so big when we were growing up, but looked so small yesterday.
Though I didn’t drive by our old house, I did think a bit about the neighbors we had growing up. And somehow, no reason why that I could determine, I wondered whatever happened to a woman who lived next door with her husband and adult son. I knew the two men had died, I’d kept in contact with her for a long time but lost track of her years ago.
So when I got home I googled her and smiled when I read in her obituary that she had lived to be 101. As I read about her life, her family, her accomplishments, memories of her energy and smile felt like hugs. And then I noticed the day of her birth, way back in 1909.
She was born on April 19th, the very day that I’d, for no reason at all, been thinking about her enough to make me look her up.
Happy Birthday Mrs. Holsted. You were a wonderful neighbor to our house full of gregarious kids. I hope you had cake yesterday, with your husband and son. Thanks for popping up in my memories.
Katie here! Let me tell you, I’ve had an adventure! I’m not quite sure how I feel about it, but that’s because I’m under the influence of drugs. These drugs make me feel warm and fuzzy….wait, I’m always warm and fuzzy….well anyway, the drugs make me sleepy and mama just gave me another one so I have to type fast before I lose all motivation.
When I first got home.
This adventure all started back in December when I went in for my usual “you’re a very healthy dog Katie” inspection. Usually I’m in and out of there and good to go for another year. Which is good cause I don’t really like going to the vet. That guy pokes me in very private places, you know?
Anyway, this time when my folks got my bloodwork back my liver numbers were all crazy high. The vet said it was nothing he was worried about, cause “old dogs have leaky livers.” Huh. First off, who is he to call me old? And second off, mama knew better and asked for an ultra sound of my liver and gallblader. And you know what he said? He said mama shouldn’t worry about it because “what are you going to do if you find something, she’s 14 years old.”
Then he sent us home noting I was surprisingly healthy for an old dog.
WELL!
My first nap at home post surgery.
Mama and daddy weren’t happy about this at all, so when we got home mama and I took a walk up the street to visit a neighbor who had a vet quite a ways away that he liked a lot. Mama had never considered going to her because she was located so far away, but she thought maybe we needed a second opinion.
So in January mama, daddy and I went way over near Lansing and I got poked and prodded some more. The vet talked to my folks over the phone and mama asked for an ultrasound and the vet said “Absolutely!” and did one right then! She saw the beginning of problems with my gallbladder, and put me on a bunch of meds to treat that and my liver numbers.
Can I get something to eat, mama?
Mama and daddy had quite the process figured out for the next three months, getting all those pills into me at the right times but they had it down. And every month I went back over to Lansing and had another ultrasound and more blood work. The liver numbers were going down but the vet was worried about my gallbladder and told mama and daddy to watch me very carefully, and if I seemed like I was in pain they were to get me to an emergency vet in a big hurry. Cause that would mean my gallbladder was getting dangerous.
So guess what? Last Tuesday night I threw up my dinner without fanfare, right in back of mama who was washing dishes in the kitchen sink. She seemed a bit worried, but the vet had changed some of my meds and the folks thought maybe something didn’t agree with me.
Then the next morning I threw up my breakfast, and mama hadn’t put any of the offending medcine in it. She waited a bit and offered me another small breakfast which I gobbled down and promptly threw up. Then I took a long drink of water and threw that up too.
And then, just to make my point, I started quivering.
I’m actually not that unhappy in my cone. But I keep smashing it into the back of mama’s legs.
Mama and daddy looked at each other and started throwing on shoes and coats and grabbing my meds and stuff and the next thing I know we’re in the car and mama and daddy look stressed.
So I end up in the doggie hospital. They took me inside, away from my parents, and mama had tears in her eyes and kissed me on the nose while the nice lady held me,and then I didn’t see mama again for forever! And all the time that mama and daddy were lost they were poking and prodding me and doing more ultrasounds (which meant they shaved my tummy again!!) and I swear no one was feeding me!
They called mama and daddy that evening and told them I needed that bad gallbladder out of there right away, so on Thursday morning some people came and took me away and I got really sleepy and when I woke up my tummy was cold and I didn’t feel well at all!
Sometimes, though, I give mama the stink-eye. Just because I can.
I stayed there for two whole days. Let me tell you, there’s no rest in the hospital! They’re always checking something, and I was hooked up to all sorts of stuff, I even had a tube down my nose. I guess they did that while I was sleeping cause no way would I have let them even try. A tube down my nose is not a look for a princess!
I was sad and scared and I didn’t feel very well, and my tummy hurt and stuff. I thought mama and daddy were lost forever and I was going to have to stay in this place with all these very nice, but nosey people. But one day a lady came along and put a leash on me and we went for a walk and all of the sudden I was outside. That scared me too, cause I didn’t know where we were going, and so far this adventure hadn’t been very fun.
Mama saw me coming out the door, lagging behind the nice lady, and she jumped out of the car and ran up to the front of the building and let me see her. At first I wasn’t sure if it was really her. After all she had been lost for a hundred days! And she was wearing a mask. But then I realized she was there and I started trotting, although wobbly, toward her. The nice lady smiled and said I was a good girl but I didn’t listen to her, I just wanted to get to mama!
This stupid cone doesn’t slow me down getting to my food, no siree!
Then daddy was there too and everyone seemed very happy and very emotional all at the same time and I told mama to hurry up and get me in my chariot cause I needed to go home! So she did, and she sat with me in the back to hold me cause I wouldn’t lay down. I insisted on standing up the whole way, watching the traffic and smelling the air of freedom blowing in the open window.
It was glorious!
And at home I checked out my house and then asked daddy for something to eat and then I flopped down on my favorite pillow and zonked out for a bit and then I got up and asked for more to eat and then I followed my people around and tried to find a comfortable spot and then I got up and asked for more food…and so on and so on and so on.
Mama says it was a very long first night.
But today is day two at home after being sprung from that camp (which doggies, let me tell you, stay away from the doggie hospital camp, it’s definitely no fun!) and I’m feeling lots better. Mama and daddy are figuring out a new set of pills and I’ve been getting multiple small meals. Personally I think they could make those meals a lot bigger, but I’m still working out the new rules around here.
Mama and daddy say they are glad I got rid of that troublesome gallbladder, they sure didn’t want me to die with a burst gallbladder! What a horrible way to go! And now, after I rest for a couple weeks, we can plan a real adventure. One that doesn’t involve anyone prodding me or taking my temperature in unmentionable places, or giving me a bath or making me wear this stupid hat.
Sometimes if I’m really zoned out and if mama or daddy can sit right there and watch me I get to nap without the cone.
Mama says this is too long, so I need to quit. Plus I’m really tired. I think she slipped me another one of those pain pills that makes me feel good, but oh so sleepy. She says she needs a break. I don’t understand why, it’s not like she had her gallbladder out!
And mama says I need to remember to thank all of you for the kind thoughts and comments and prayers you sent. They made me and her and daddy less scared while we were separated. It’s good to know you’re not alone, you know?
So thank you all, very very much.
For now I’m signing out. Another nap looms on my horizon. Darn drugs anyway.
Love, your Katie-girl, still a very healthy senior princess.
This is not a fashion statement designed for a princess, mama!
Change Is Hard 