This place again.
Thursday evening, Kit and Greg stopped by to pick up some stuff from the shed. I was in bed - Thursday is my day off, and I'd been luxuriating in a very early evening with a book. Kit came inside to find me - Nutmeg was in the car port, having a fit.
It was just like Digby - she was fitting, but fully conscious and reactive. I couldn't believe that six weeks later and I was going through it again. I felt paralysed, I just didn't want to think about where it was going. I doused her in water to keep her temperature down, and we took her straight to the emergency vet.
We got her there much faster, and her body temperature was only slightly elevated thanks to the water. It made no difference - they couldn't stop her fit, any more than they could with Digby.
I hate this. Same thing as before - she's an older dog (like Digby, pushing eleven) it could be a brain tumour, liver or kidney damage... or poison. There's a possibility they both died of strychnine poisoning. Either some king-bastard dropped baits over the fence, or more likely, someone local has been putting down rat poison and the dogs have picked up poisoned rodents. But I'll never know what it was - I couldn't afford an autopsy.
So I'll never know. I just have to live with the fear that Bellamy, bold rat hunter that he is, will go the same way.
The house is too quiet. There's no sound of claws tick-tick-ticking on the wooden floors, no gentle snoring, no haruffs and wrow-hrowrs, no hints that my bed is comfy and big enough to share, no eager informing that it's 6.30pm and time for dinner. The quiet bothers me - for 10 years, too quiet has meant "where are the dogs?"
The front door can be left open without consequences. The back door can be closed all day without the risk of indoor puddles. I can't bear to sweep the floors, because I don't want the 'fur drifts' to go, because Digby isn't here to shed more. Ditto Nutmeg's "dog bombs" on the concrete outside. I've spent more than a decade cleaning up after them, and now I can't bear to do it, because when it's done, I'll never do it again.
I'm tired of death. I'm tired of losing people I love. I'm tired of grief. And right now, I'm tired of being the kind of alone that means there isn't someone I want to be with when I'm crying. I miss having someone to hug when I cry, furred or otherwise.
It was just like Digby - she was fitting, but fully conscious and reactive. I couldn't believe that six weeks later and I was going through it again. I felt paralysed, I just didn't want to think about where it was going. I doused her in water to keep her temperature down, and we took her straight to the emergency vet.
We got her there much faster, and her body temperature was only slightly elevated thanks to the water. It made no difference - they couldn't stop her fit, any more than they could with Digby.
I hate this. Same thing as before - she's an older dog (like Digby, pushing eleven) it could be a brain tumour, liver or kidney damage... or poison. There's a possibility they both died of strychnine poisoning. Either some king-bastard dropped baits over the fence, or more likely, someone local has been putting down rat poison and the dogs have picked up poisoned rodents. But I'll never know what it was - I couldn't afford an autopsy.
So I'll never know. I just have to live with the fear that Bellamy, bold rat hunter that he is, will go the same way.
The house is too quiet. There's no sound of claws tick-tick-ticking on the wooden floors, no gentle snoring, no haruffs and wrow-hrowrs, no hints that my bed is comfy and big enough to share, no eager informing that it's 6.30pm and time for dinner. The quiet bothers me - for 10 years, too quiet has meant "where are the dogs?"
The front door can be left open without consequences. The back door can be closed all day without the risk of indoor puddles. I can't bear to sweep the floors, because I don't want the 'fur drifts' to go, because Digby isn't here to shed more. Ditto Nutmeg's "dog bombs" on the concrete outside. I've spent more than a decade cleaning up after them, and now I can't bear to do it, because when it's done, I'll never do it again.
I'm tired of death. I'm tired of losing people I love. I'm tired of grief. And right now, I'm tired of being the kind of alone that means there isn't someone I want to be with when I'm crying. I miss having someone to hug when I cry, furred or otherwise.