Last night I had a challenge, a situation where my "normal" reaction would be to eat, drink or both. When I got home from the gym, my doglet was still obviously in pain. He was shaking and crying, wouldn't jump up on the sofa with me and yelped when I picked him up. This didn't seem like something that would be due to the tooth pain to me. He also seemed to be favoring one side when walking.
I debated and debated whether to take him to the overnight vet (where my experience last time with another pet was less than good) or to wait until morning. With the help of DB's reminding me that I wouldn't sleep from worry if I waited, I took him in. When I got there I noticed that the place looked nicer than the last time I was there. Turns out the yucky doctor who used to own it is gone. Yay. I had to wait for almost an hour, but they let us have a room...I was mostly worried that Doglet was in pain, I figured if something went really wrong I could get help quickly.
Well, the doc came in and did a very thorough exam. Doglet is almost 10 and Vet said that he is in excellent condition for his age, but has a little arthritis in his left rear knee (much like me!). Vet also said that both tooth and orthopedic pain are "non-specific" in dogs, so if a tooth was hurting and he had a fever (which he did despite 2 1/2 days on antibiotic already), he might still yelp when picking him up. Vet gave me some anti-inflammatories to help the pain and told me to continue with the antibiotic. If Doglet is not 75% better in 2 days I'm to call back.
This is all, of course, great news. However, being more mindful these days, I realized that normally in this situation, I would have gone home, had a drink (or two) and a snack (or two) to "get over" the stress of the evening and to "celebrate" that Doglet is probably ok. Instead, I went home, called DB, took a shower, had zero drinks, had a 100 calorie popcorn bag and called it a night. :-)
I shall overcome my "bad" "destructive" urges...yes, I WILL. Reawakening awareness is the first step.
2 comments:
Glad dog is better. Knock on wood - I have not been to an emergency room for a long long time - probably people ER's aren't much different than pet's.
Poor puppy, poor mom. But what's cool is that you didn't eat over it and you took care of yourself and doglet. Yay!
I hope he feels better.
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