Thursday, December 25, 2014

Christmas Challenges

I had wanted to write about the Winter Solstice, my friend's girls only Christmas party, and Festivus----for the rest of us. But I never got around to posting. It was a busy week; I felt as if I were just running from one appointment or chore to another. I took my mother to two doctors' appointments--found out that she has two vertebrae fractures, and needs to get a MRI next Monday. I picked up one of my mother's repaired hearing aids and dropped off a second broken one. I did her laundry as well as ours. I had four tutoring sessions. I finished my Christmas shopping, and did our food shopping.

On the 23rd, I had my last tutoring session, and planned to finish cleaning and wrapping all my presents. But then Spike had a bad evening--he was wheezing loudly and often.We actually got into the car to go to the emergency vet around 9 PM. But then Spike stopped wheezing. We headed back home, but were ready go to the vet's if Spike got worse.We barely slept that night. The next morning, we took him to his regular vet. He had to have the pericardial sac aspirated again. Spike feels better after the aspirations. As the doctor describes it, it's buying him more time and making him more comfortable.

I'm tired--exhausted--and scared. I didn't want to go ahead with our family Christmas Eve plans. But we were committed. I had promised to make a salad and twice baked potatoes. I had a mishap with the first batch of potatoes. Jeff shopped for more. While he was out, I finished the salad, packed and finished cleaning the kitchen. We managed to have a nice Christmas--marred by a few comments about Spike's health (some well-meaning, some insensitive--but not anything we wanted to hear at Christmas.)

As I write this, I hear Spike wheezing again. It's tough to hear him struggle.I want to comfort him, but it's frustrating that I can't do much to help him. I can love him, but that's not enough.

No comments:

Post a Comment