Daisy, the Havachon Nurse

S-l-o-w-l-y but steadily, I can see small improvements in my back and the quality of my days. Little things like being able to move each leg an inch more forward when walking, taking more of a step rather than a shuffle, and slowly (and weirdly) getting myself down onto and up off the floor rather than DH having to lower and lift me up are all good signs of improvement. Where I saw a dark permanent dead end three weeks ago, I’m now seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. 🙂

Daisy is the one member of our little family who is happy that my recovery will take so long. For one thing, she has company all day, every day.

Even better, she has a floor buddy several times a day. Lots of cuddling and snuggling as well as a 109-pound cushion to lie on.

Yep, that roll underneath the blanket is me!

As soon as I get into floor position, she hops on top of me to make sure I’m okay. And this is what I see….

Helloooo, Mommy! Just checking to make sure you’re okay!

Here, she demonstrates how to keep a floor bed warm for her mommy.

Can we keep this here even after you’re all healed?

And here’s where she discovered that the doubled-over “pillow” area of the sleeping bag is even cushier than the rest of it. The softer the better for our little girl!

Ooooo, cushy-soft! You don’t need this right now, do you?

Thank you all for your good wishes! Your positive thoughts have helped and your messages have kept me company as I live these weeks “off the grid”, so to speak!

A Snowy Easter Surprise

Tuesday morning, just a few days before Easter, we woke up to another snowfall!

During one of my slow strolls outdoors over the previous weekend, this was what our daffodil patch looked like:

Happy spring daffodils in our front yard.

And here it is Tuesday morning:

Unhappy frozen daffodils.

Kind of hard to believe those pics are only a few days apart!

It seems so incongruous to see spring buds on a frozen tree:

Now, I know most people here in the northeast are talking about how tired they are of all the snow we’ve had this winter, but I’m not one of them. As all my blog buddies know, I LOVE snow and would live in a year-round autumn-winter climate if there was one – with, of course, an annual 3-month break for spring to plant my gardens and give the trees enough leaves so they could change color and fall again! I could do without summer altogether. (Don’t throw rotten tomatoes at me!)

I discovered that I can’t take walks around my yard anymore because the other day, my heel hit a slight depression in the grass, which normally I wouldn’t even have noticed. But with my back still so sensitive, it felt like a bolt of lightning went through my lower spine. That set me back a bit pain-wise; then that evening I sneezed twice, which caused the pain to skyrocket. Apparently more muscles in the body contract during a sneeze than I realized!

So I’m back indoors now (which is fine, Friday was a whole 39 degrees!) and will attempt another venture outdoors this week – but this time, I’ll only walk on even sidewalk surfaces! And of course, my little sweetie will come with me…if I can pry her off my floor bed!

Daisy, cozy in my floor blankets, with the Guilty Gate behind her.

Down But Not Out….Completely….

First of all, thank you to everyone who has expressed concern over our absence in the blogosphere. We missed everyone and it’s so nice to know that our wonderful little community here cares so much.

Originally I knew I wouldn’t be able to blog for a couple of weeks due to another sudden influx of work – that’s one thing about freelancing, you never know when every client you have is going to dump projects on you simultaneously.

Well, that went fine, I just worked around the clock to get everything done on time. But The Big One was yet to come.

Ever since Daisy tore her ACL and meniscus, we’ve tried to prevent her from jumping on sofas and chairs, and especially off them because of the impact to her body. The surgeon and vet both told us that any dog who has this sort of injury is very likely to have it happen again. In fact, the vet who was on call the night after Daisy came home told us that her small dog did have this injury twice and that we should expect it if she continues to do the same thing that caused the injury.

So we put up a baby gate between the kitchen and family room to stop her from jumping on the sofas. When we’re going to be in there, we pick her up for cuddles and lift her off again when we leave. She’s managed to slip through our vigilant precautions a couple of times, but with the gate up, her evil little plans are thwarted. 😉 We keep all kitchen and dining room chairs tucked under the table or tilted against the table to make them inaccessible, and we have all kinds of stuff blocking the living room sofa and chairs. We’ve even blocked off the space under our beds to stop her from army-crawling underneath in case she hurts herself under there – how could we ever reach her?

Anyway, several days ago Daisy was extremely naughty. After taking her for her morning walk/run, she was eating her breakfast in the kitchen and I was in the family room with the gate up between us. I looked up and suddenly saw her in Poop Position! I screamed, “NO DAISY!” and ran to get her. In my wild Olympic-style hurdle of the gate, my back foot caught on the top of the gate and the gate, which wasn’t firmly in place, came along with me. I couldn’t catch my balance because the gate was stuck on my foot; I knew I was going down.

But on my wild flight, my back must have arched suddenly and I heard a loud CRACK and felt a tremendous pain in my lower back. I hit the floor and a searing pain shot across my lower back relentlessly. I was just like that annoying commercial – I’d fallen and I couldn’t get up.

Naturally, I was alone in the house. It was early in the morning but DH was already out and DD was away for the weekend. Of course!

Fortunately, I’d landed next to the kitchen chair where my purse was and I was able to tilt the purse so my cell phone fell out. I called DH, who was only 10 minutes away, and he came charging home like a knight in shining armor. He’s a strong guy, very muscular, and was able to slo-o-owly lift my 110 lb. body off the floor. It was extremely painful. Since I couldn’t walk, sit, or lie in a way that lessened the pain, he insisted we call the paramedics to take me to the hospital, which scared me to death. I hate hospitals and I hate needles even more, and I was so sure I’d need back surgery.

But he was right, he had to call the paramedics. Out came the police, followed about 10 minutes later by the paramedics. Now, you have to understand that I’m more of a private person and don’t like to be the center of attention, so this was NOT a good situation for me. But the paramedics and police were SO incredibly nice, it really helped me deal with the situation.

So there I was, on our first gorgeous spring day, strapped to a board, choked by a neck brace, and tied to the stretcher like a mummy.

AND I HADN’T HAD MY MORNING SHOWER YET. I looked like a wreck! I think my embarrassment level equaled my pain level!

Anyway, during my 4-hour ER stay, they did x-rays and other tests and determined that, thank God, my spine and spinal cord weren’t affected and the cracking sound was most likely two or three vertebrae crunching together from the abnormal backward arching, but fortunately they didn’t get damaged. The upshot was that it’s a back sprain and will take 2-3 months to heal completely. Yes, MONTHS. Ack!! They also said if I didn’t have any improvement in 2-3 days, I needed to see an orthopedic doctor for an MRI. Fortunately we happen to have a good one who operated on DH’s shoulder last year.

But I am seeing improvements. I’m still extremely limited and can’t go out. I just stopped taking the pain killers and anti-inflammatories today, so maybe I’ll come out of this legal-drug-induced stupor. These meds have me sleeping most of the day and dopey the rest. Ugh.

Daisy keeps gazing at me from afar with big soulful eyes. It’s not her fault that her mommy was stupid enough to vault the gate (though I’ve been doing it ever since her surgery without incident, but I guess it was just a matter of time before one of us took a header).

So DD and DH are taking turns working from home to babysit me. DH has to lower me to the floor for my naps and lift me back up again. Believe me, I appreciate to no end how much my little family is pitching in to help me, but I’m an independent sort, so I’m anxious to do things on my own again. And that’s what they’re most worried about – that I might try to do too much too soon.

Then I got to thinking that we’ve had quite a run within a year’s time: first DH had his shoulder surgery, then Daisy had her ACL/meniscus surgery, and now I had this accident – poor DD is worried that she’s next!

And that, my dear blog friends, is my sad tale of woe. I’m now off for my first 3-hour nap of the day – I can’t wait for these meds to wear off!

Hope you’re all having a better spring than I am! 🙂