2006-07-19
Valley Fever
I'm pretty sure my dog has Valley Fever.
This is not good news.
Actually, it's so bad that I've been ignoring it as a probability for the last couple of days.
Disinterested, fatigued, coughing for her; crying and feeling like a bad pet owner for me. I can't help but feel that I failed her as a pet owner.
Granted, this is not a fatal illness and it's totally manageable but it's hitting at the exact same time as another great disappointment, one of the misrepresentation variety, is hitting. It's a totally manageable dog situation, as long as I can talk the vet into a payment plan. Now that I think about it, in a way, I should HOPE it's Valley Fever.
Manageable or not, I love Rosie pretty much more than I love anything in the history of my time as I know it. She's my best friend, my tiny dancer, the only reason I hear my own voice on many days, and a truly great dog.
I can't listen to her cough without it breaking my heart and the shudder of the break filling up my eyes with tears.
Of course there might be nothing wrong with her but I have to be honest when I say that my gut feeling is that my doglet is pretty sick.
As a result, I'm utterly preoccupied and unable to focus.
This is not a reflection of me as a pet-owner, I know that.
Just like it's not a reflection on me that the person who was most recently gaining on me in a strange, slow affection revealed a major drug problem. These things did not originate with me but because they are around me, I naturaly feel responsible at least in part for them. I let the dog get sick.
People who think I am pretty and smart are stoned out of their minds.
I have this mandatory meeting tomorrow night and I can NOT miss it but I can't help to feel a real pull to curl back onto my couch like I was curled a year ago, pull my sick little dog into my arms and just make everything be okay for both of us just by wishing really hard for it all to be okay.
Which.... duh.
But come on.
After the year I had last year, I earned some fucking time off from Bad Things. My dog being seriously ill would count as a (very) Bad Thing and I think it would qualify me to completely lose my faith, along with any lingering sense of perseverance that I still insist I have.
If Rosie is really really sick, I'll be down at the hospital, checking myself in for White Girl Systems Failure: Total.
arizonasarah at 3:12 p.m.