And Your Little Dog, Too

In addition to the recent miscarriage, I've developed a creeping crud on my head and neck. It's lovely, I can assure you. It started with an itchy, dry, largely flaking scalp about 2 months into the pregnancy, moved on to a big red itchy patch on my neck and now I have three dime size incursions from my scalp onto my face. Again, beautiful. And I'm calling my dermatologist right now.

Then, last week, I noticed a slight limp from Patches when he got up from watching me meditate. (It's a spectator sport for the animals around here) Then, over the weekend, when playing with Dave, Patches couldn't even put his weight on one leg. We felt his legs and paws and found a golf ball size swelling on what we thought was his knee (it turned out to be his ankle; dogs legs are not as straightforward as ours).

We raised our fists to the sky and said, Duncan? The Baby? And now the DOG!? This is CRUEL! You are not playing very nicely right now and we're going to start complaining. To a higher authority. The INTERNET will NOT BE AMUSED if our dog has cancer. You'll be in big trouble then!!

So on Tuesday, right after we took Conor to the pediatrician for meds for his second bout of croup this year, we took Patches to the vet. And thank God, it's simply a doggie version of a strained Achilles tendon. No running for Patches for a whole week. Yes! Stop a collie from running just like you stop the tide from coming in.

He's doing better now, and I think the swelling has gone down a little bit.

Truly, that would have been the last straw.