Buddy’s surgery was scheduled for Monday September 14th. I don’t think I slept the entire weekend. All kinds of thoughts were going on in my head. What if this is the wrong thing to do? He’s walking just fine right now. His pain is under control because they wrapped his wound after his xrays. He was taking Tramadol 3 times a day. Maybe we should wait? His back right leg was kicking out as he walked 2 weeks before surgery. It did not happen very often and it wasn’t worsening. In fact it was kind of a fluke but…What if he has that debilitating disease that dogs get where he can’t use his back legs anymore? I was obsessed with that. I researched the heck out of it. Sometime’s the internet is NOT your friend my friends. It will make you insane. What if, what if, what if…. The day before surgery we took him for a nice long walk. He was happily trotting along with a bit of a limp but happy none the less until we came to “The Fence”. There’s an old, wheezing, dog down the street, behind a fence, that Buddy has arguments with. Fence dog started cursing Buddy out for being near his property (or at least thats how I play it out in my head). Buddy thinks its not Fence dogs property and lets him know it. As he starts to lean in to tell him what he thinks of him, he falls. His bad leg faltered and he was most definitely in pain. He was able to finish his walk but after that incident, I knew the surgery had to happen. He never falls. Steve and my kids reminded me that it wasn’t that we were taking his limb. It was, that we were saving his life. That morning I got on my knees and prayed. I asked God to bless the Dr and the staff. And pleaded to please take this all from me. My heart hurt so much. I asked for forgiveness because I hadn’t been leaning on Him more and asked Him to help me to trust Him. God is good and sometimes I forget that. We loaded Buddy in the car at 6:10 am. I felt sick. We walked him into the vet office and started to check him in. The lady at the desk didn’t see his folder any where and asked if we had made an appointment. (Insert 20 thousand really mad icons here.) ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!! We calmly showed her our paperwork with the estimate. She fumbled around a bit and found that the Dr had a few surgical appointments available that morning and would schedule him in. Lovely. Works for us. Surgical nurse comes out and notices Buddy’s uncontrollable shaking and makes a crack about sticking a quarter in him. She very kindly goes over paperwork and asks if we would like to escort him to the back where he will be waiting for surgery. Confused, we said sure. We walked him to the back, said our goodbyes and helped get him into the kennel to which he immediately started to paw at the door. If you are ever faced with this situation, don’t do it. It was gut wrenching to walk away from him like that. I cried all the way home. Steve and I both left for work after arriving at home. I got a text an hour later from our regular vet. (She was not doing surgeries that day so another vet would be doing Buddy’s surgery. We had known that though.) She was so very apologetic for Buddy not being on the docket. She assured us that surgery was moving forward and that she had talked to her fellow coworker in great length about Buddy in the days before leading up to his surgery. She was so comforting. I cried again and got back to work. I am an administrator for a preschool and let me tell you… preschoolers are the best distraction. I got a text from our vet at 11:30 that said Buddy was in surgery. He was doing great and the vet was half way done. My vet is awesome. How many vets are willing to text you stuff like this? She gave me more words of comfort and I cried again. An hour later Steve got the call that surgery was over and Buddy did great. He was resting comfortably and if all went well, we could pick him up Tuesday night. WOW. It’s done. That night Steve and I went for a walk, like we have done for 13 years, but with out our Bud Bud. We talked and cried a little and agreed that today, Buddy wins. No more cancer.
I promise. More later today.
