Has it been a good day for Ricky? Or has it been awful? How moody will my mum be? What will she complain about today? Will Ricky be asleep? Or will he be howling and crying? Has he been eating well? Did he mess up the house again? Are his legs holding up? Did he drink water? Is he going to wake up every 2 hours tonight and cry without us understanding what we can do to help him?
Today, I shared with a colleague the whole experience and he commented that ours was the most traumatic and eventful elderly dog situation he had heard of. It's so emotional, I told him, that I doubt I will ever want to keep a dog or pet again. Sure, it was fun and enjoyable when Ricky was young. But I never used to spend so much time at home taking care of him as I do now. Hence, the most vivid memories are of the recent 2 years (and logically so) when his tumour developed and the quality of life started dipping for him; and trust me, it's not fun at all. Experiencing the full life cycle of your pet and growing with him is a huge privilege and joy (an analogy would be an accelerated growth of your baby less the angsty teenage years) but to witness a very long-drawn painful aging and eventual death is too much for my weak heart.
Anyway, I digressed. I meant to say, at the start of this post, that Ricky has been well for the past 3 days. He is healing well and is due to remove all his stitches in 2 weeks time. He still cries but lesser. He still wakes up often in the night but is better behaved. He eats quite a lot, walks quite a bit, is able to drink on his own but has an extremely weak bladder (like his owner, yours truly). I am seriously contemplating diapers. Not the Large baby diapers from Fair Price again. Real doggie diapers this time.
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