Jun 4
The last 48 hours have been an awful journey.
Early evening on Thursday Athena was attacked by another dog. The owner had just got through telling me he was a rescue, dangerous dog, but was now 99.9% ok, when blam. Went for Athena. And did some nasty damage.
A lot of blood came out of her ear, as ear wounds tend to do, but, I think pretty superficial. The problem was the bite on her side. Both times the dog latched on and tugged for all it was worth. Wouldn't let go. Dog was a hefty guy, similar size to Athena but much heavier and stockier.
Poor Athena was a super good girl, even after getting a lump taken out of her in the aftermath she was still sweet and went to see if the owner was ok.
Anywho. I understand the difficulties of that kind thing. Checked Athena over. Ehhhh. Not good. But. She seemed like she was coping with it alright. I kept my eye on her.
Got home. Cleaned her up with an anti bacterial, then put antisceptic on it.
As the evening wore she she seemed to feel it more, and I started to worry about it. I ended up not sleeping much as I started to really worry and my keeping an eye on her turned up a whole notch. And then turned frantic. And then turned dark.
No sleep. Crack of dawn she comes into the bedroom looking very very off. Tail between her legs. Wound has obviously been seeping. Oh no.
Vets. In my half zombie state the only question for me was go now to an emergency service, or wait a few hours til the normal vets opened. But. Given the whole Jubilee days, it'd probably be an emergency service anyway.
9am prompt phone the vets up, sure enough, emergency service, call em up, get her in. They ask if she's dripping blood right now - mmmm, hard to say, don't think so. Ok. We can wait a little while then. 11.20am.
Through all of this my stress and whatever has spiked all the way up to 11. Weight on my chest. On the verge of frantic. Sitting waiting for the 11.20am to roll around my head was filled with absolute horror. Losing your mind dude. Losing it. Keep it together. It half occurs to me if I am going to have a heart attack, it's going to be now.
We get ready, I am in such a muss I leave the house without my keys. Including my car keys. Locked out. Fucked.
Oh no.
I stand outside the just slammed door. What have I just done.
We go round the back, please tell me I didnt lock the back door.
Locked.
Oh boy.
I'm aware I'm on a bit of a timer here. No sleep. Super high stress. My usual fucked iffy physical health. I am burning the candle at all possible ends, thrown it on the fire in fact.
I remember a ladder in the shed, let's get that, climb up, get through a window. Ok. But nothing is that simple, the shed is a big mess of stored wood and tree offcuts. The ladder is too big for the shed, wedged in beneath a half tonne of stuff.
At this point I hulk out. Throwing shit around out of the shed. At some point I managed to pull the shed door off its hinges. Oh ok. That gets thrown to the side.
Ladder out, climb up. Of course the ladder fucks around as I get to the top wobbling underneath me. No time. Fuck off. I'm not sure how I'm doing this. I know I am wayyyy over my usual shitty physical limits. But. Haven't dropped dead yet. My heart is hammering like a fucker.
Through the window, keys got, lets try that again.
My mouth is that horrible bone dry by this point. I did have a thought somewhere in there, oh I need to take my water bottle. Dehydration. Shock. In the chaos, that didn't happen.
Well done Johnny.
The GPS flakes out.
Wonders. It's never done this. Today of all days, it cuts out. No signal. Fuck you.
In that brief bonkers moment my mind floats back to Jason and the Argonauts and the gods playing around with the mortals as chess pieces, boosting them or damning them as they push them around.
It's good. Nice. Fuckers. Anything else ?
I get the inkling it's going to be one of those days. Where the unluck piles up. I coach myself to be doubly careful. Don't crash the car. Be super wary of everyone else.
Off we go, out on a 20 minute journey to a vets I've never been to before.
No more major bullshit.
Vet checks Athena over, quite a nasty wound. Infected. Bruised. Painful. She checks to see if the wound has gone "inside". No. Despite being in a lot of pain Athena is a very good girl, always friendly. The vet notes how sweet a temperament she has. Sigh. Yeah. She gets painkillers twice a day for a week. Antibiotics for a week. Should be ok as it has been caught "nice and early". But. Any worries, any issues, bring her straight back. Watch for any liquid, if liquid appears she has to be brought back.
As is my both my mutts way, Athena then, despite her sorry state, charms all of the staff, and the only other client in the building. She's a sweetheart.
Athena is a little out of it as we exit the building. She drinks for a solid 5 minutes. Then stands looking at.. nothing. Poor lady. Help her back into the car. We take a slow drive home.
I feed her - she doesn't want it, we end up sitting looking at the bowl for 15 minutes. She doesn't feel well. She's not hungry. Eventually she eats - her meds in there too. I check shes ok.
And that's it.
I tap out.
I am done with this day.
She goes to bed. I go to bed.
I don't get up until 7pm.
Play some games in the evening, and I am a happier person all round. The stress has lifted. Most of the worry has lifted.
I put the - still there - ladder back in the shed. Fumbling around for some time putting the door back together. It's not quite as it was. But. It'll do.
There were several hours in there. Early hours of the morning. Waiting for the vet. Where thoughts of losing her marched through my head. Was always going to happen. You're going to lose her at some point. It's just that this day might have now arrived. She's an old lady. Past her official sell by date. It doesn't take much - nothing - to lose them at this point. Major trauma is a roll of the dice. She's too old for surgery, general anaesthetic et al.
That whole, powerless to do shit, can't help her pain, life is gonna be different, anxiety spike, stress spike. Dialled up to 11. The mental health bullshit that leaps out of the dark to tell you, ha ha, my dude, you are not stable. Lets plumb the depths of all the shit you try to keep control of now that everything is off the hook.
Tricky.
A good deal of auto pilotry and doing the right thing for Athena just puts me on the right path. It's not me per se. Just. Auto pilot.
Somehow I dealt with it all. As low a bar as that is. Losing Ares still haunts me. And that whole build up and last day malarkey is still... a brutally fresh experience. Some of the details have blurred. But the whole. Paradigm. Of that day. Days. It's like a training course that is fresh in my mind. Oh yeah that's how that works. Remember how absolutely terrible that was. Yeah. Cool.
Athena was better in the evening, allowing me to get to that less stressed state. This morning she seems a good deal better, albeit her wound has bled again overnight. I checked on her several times, sleeping. At one point she was sleeping on her bad side, so, I dunno. Must be somewhat better ? You couldn't even get near it the day before.
In hindsight I Am annoyed at the other owner. I wasn't really at the time. I made sure *he* was alright. I do have sympathy for difficult dogs. But. He took the piss. Came over to us. I was sitting on a bench. Athena was with me. Hung around us for 5 minutes. Pushing his luck. You always assume people know their dogs. He pushed his luck. Athena paid for it. On reflection, Ares was never as bad as this dog. Ever. And I wouldn't have pushed my luck like he did, even with Ares. I reflected that the dude fucked up badly. He was probably happy his dog was being normal. And got carried away. Ho hum.
Life goes on. Shit happens.
But that dude got to walk away. And Athena - and by turn me - then paid a heavy price for it. Not fair. But then, eh, life isn't.
I had a very dark glimpse into something during the worst of it. Athena is gone. Ares is gone. The world is full of pain. I don't want to be here. Just go. Go. Go. Go. It makes sense. Just. Go. You'd stop being a burden to people. This whole round and round farce would stop. Peace. Just. Go. And end to a fucked up situation. A fucked up person. Everything and everyone would be better for it.
I don't know.
Perhaps that monster awaits me yet.
Perhaps not.
But it was most definitely there yesterday. Very strong. Very committed. Plans assembled.
Sigh.
Traumatised little bunny.
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