• My Words

    Who Needs Four Legs?

    It’s been a rough few weeks around our house. Our beautiful Muppet of a dog, Astrid, ran in front of a very slow moving truck and ended up losing her back left leg. Seeing the accident and the aftermath was the most traumatic event of the year for me, but I’d be lying if I said it seemed to be as traumatic for Astrid.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it wasn’t traumatic for her in the moment. And I’m not claiming she enjoyed the week in two separate animal emergency centers, or the actual surgery she went through. But I am saying that this little dog has bounced back from this way quicker than her human counterpart.

    Home from surgery

    When they let us know that the leg could not be saved like we initially thought, I did a deep dive into life with a Tripawd, and managed to find all the horror stories on my first try. After that, I shut down the internet for awhile, and for the past three weeks it has been 24-hour med schedules and taking turns sleeping in the living room with Astrid. At first we were sleeping with her on the floor, after awhile we moved to spending some time on the floor, some time on the couch, with Rich getting the real bed on weekdays since he’s the one with the real job. That part, I know, has been harder on us than on Astrid. She likes sleeping on the floor but I’m way too old for that shit.

    Last week the surgery staples came out, the stitches in the bottom of her good back paw came out, and the pain meds ran out. All of a sudden, our old Astrid was back. While she’s been moving around since the day she came home, now she’s back to wandering around the house, checking up on her humans, getting on and off the couch, and up and down the small set of steps on the back porch. As far as she seems concerned, she never needed four legs in the first place.

    ...