Even as we cross the threshold into year three of non-stop, multi-front, family medical dramas, we face the longest stretch of my real absence from Lilly’s daily life. That leaves me little blog content, except to whine. So, this week, I’ll share just a few reports of Lilly’s response to her life without me as #1 form of entertainment and comfort.
When I see great crowds of people camped out in hospital waiting rooms, the cynic in me recognizes newbies — people not accustomed to potentially life-and-death situations. They sit. They wait. They watch TV. They talk … loudly. They rustle around like cattle in a chute.
And, then there is me … often solo on arrival and exit, rolling a well-stocked backpack behind me … laptop and phone at the ready, food on hand, and a sweater. I witness, question, advocate and, as needed, open a can of whoop ass. I soldier on and try to get some semblance of work done in a noisy, hectic, tension-filled, stagnant space.
Other than perhaps prison, of imagination not experience, I cannot conceive of another environment that makes a girl feel more stuck. I usually explain my current state as “total suckage” or “beyond all suckage,” but perhaps the better made-up word is … STUCKAGE.
I come and go from the mountain with a blanket of stuckage upon me.
For Lilly, stuckage = rolling backpack.
So, while I do get to see snippets of a happy, wiggling girl, as soon as she sees the backpack, Lilly bolts.
Lilly has imprinted on the backpack, the thunk, thunk, thunk of its wheels across our tiled floors. That sound, along with the shower going on early or with me stumbling in desperate for clean clothes and food, mean something to her. Nothing good, I suspect, based on her discouraged face, round head, and what few glimpses I catch of her clenched tail as she opens the basement door and heads back to her crate.
“Mom is leaving,” her body says.
Lilly does wiggle and squeak when I return each evening, after her dinner, after she’s had her meds, just a bit before I crash, but then she runs away.
aahh God love lily. Its amazing how dogs can pick up and associate items with events. I read about a dog that got depressed when his family moved twice. Each time he got depressed when he saw the boxes. They thought that his last owners may have moved and left him behind so when he saw boxes he got scared.
I’m sorry. You and Lilly are both experiencing maximum stuckage. And, unfortunately, I know you can’t do anything but muddle through.
Just wishing you and your family some moments of grace.