For several months this year, I found myself having to go through another sick season–this time with my daughter’s rescue dog.\u00a0 I’ve had dogs my whole life but, until now, had never had one with any type of \u00a0orthopedic injury, much less a severe one.\u00a0 For no apparent reason at all, it seems our dog’s kneecap and cruciate (which literally means “cross-shaped”) ligament fell apart.\u00a0 And we suddenly found ourselves with a three-legged dog, who seemed to get around quite well on three legs actually (an argument that my husband persisted on making once he learned the cost of fixing her hindquarter).\u00a0 But, since she’s a young dog and my daughter’s very first dog of her own, we never truly viewed surgically putting her back together as optional.<\/p>\n
So, we spent most of our spring with a dog on bed-rest either awaiting surgery or recovering from it.\u00a0 When she returned home post-surgery, she was in quite a state–her hair had been shaved off and she was drugged and scarred, with incisions so in need of healing it was hard to look at them.\u00a0 Then, she had to endure many weeks of physical therapy I trained myself to do with her so she would heal properly; and her “owner,” my little girl, would ice her down with a bag of frozen peas after each therapy\/exercise session.\u00a0 It seemed like a long season and one that brought to my mind many hard memories as I flashed back to my own rebirth and recovery.\u00a0 And I was reminded all over again that none of us creatures down here are immune to suffering and that we all bear some sort of scars, internal and\/or external, on the other side of it.\u00a0 Our dog, once she was fully “well,” actually taught me this in a most unexpected way.<\/p>\n
Late June\/early July, the day finally arrived when we felt comfortable letting our pooch off leash and loose once again in the fenced-in backyard that she has loved for several years now.\u00a0 My daughter even got her IPad all ready so she could record her dog’s excitement upon being set free after several long months of confinement.\u00a0 And then, the moment came, the one that we’d all been waiting for–she was free!\u00a0 And what did she do?\u00a0 She stood right there in the yard looking straight ahead of her and then over at us as if to say, “So, what next?”\u00a0 She did not look excited, and she did not take off running.\u00a0 But, she did turn around and slowly walk up the deck stairs and sit at the back door, asking to go back inside.\u00a0 It was almost as if she had forgotten how to be free, to be a “normal,” to be the dog she was before.<\/p>\n
Yes, she had become accustomed to a new norm.\u00a0 I remember that when she was first injured we had a hard time getting her to go to the bathroom on leash.\u00a0 Then, when she was given her freedom back, she couldn’t go without the leash.\u00a0 She would sit in the yard and look at us, until I put the leash on her collar; then she’d immediately squat and pee in the grass (and go right back inside again).\u00a0 I still haven’t really seen her frolic in the grass, though it’s been several weeks now since she was set free.\u00a0 After finding our way through traumatic life events, I think it’s often hard to realize fully that they are actually over; it’s hard to accept our freedom, especially when we have undeniable scars right in front of us (like the ones I see our sweet dog lick daily).<\/p>\n
It can be hard to fully embrace life again because it doesn’t always feel safe to do so.\u00a0 What if we find ourselves knocked off of our feet again?\u00a0 What if we fully re-engage, even go all out with our new-found lease on life?\u00a0 What if that makes it even harder on us if\/when things do fall apart again?\u00a0 I’ve realized that we can spend our lives drowning ourselves in “what if” scenarios, if we choose to.\u00a0 I know I certainly do at times.\u00a0 I don’t even like to see our dog run much anymore because “what if” she blows her rebuilt leg out again or even blows out the other one (as I’ve been told that both happen rather often).\u00a0 What if she did that?\u00a0 Well, if she did, we would just have to do what we did this time…..choose to deal with it.<\/p>\n
That’s a big part of life down here–dealing with those scenarios that we just simply wish did not have to be part of life down here and then moving past our safety\/survival zones once such things have passed (aka: letting go of our leash).\u00a0 Yes, we must indeed choose to get up and run again, even though there may well be another hard fall in front of us.\u00a0 I believe God made all of us, canine creatures included, with an amazing capacity to endure incredibly difficult things–things that I don’t believe anyone understands better than our great Creator himself, as he is the only God who has ever chosen to suffer both with and on behalf of his creation.\u00a0 And I don’t think anyone is ever happier to see us “off leash” again than he is!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For several months this year, I found myself having to go through another sick season–this time with my daughter’s rescue dog.\u00a0 I’ve had dogs my whole life but, until now, had never had one with any type of \u00a0orthopedic injury, much less a severe one.\u00a0 For no apparent reason at all, it seems our dog’s […] <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6VlK3-6F","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":414,"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions\/414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angeladentonfoss.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}