It turns out that I'm really bad at giving assistance to a senior in need of help. This might be a problem since we have two senior dogs and two senior moms we are supposed to be watching over. Many of you out there are saying, "no kidding, we knew you sucked at this about 30 years ago."
As you can kind of see from the picture above, our youngest senior has a cyst that burst open last week and the earliest we could schedule surgery for her is next Monday. Apparently the vet feels that we are better at controlling the situation than I turned out to be. Linda, of course is wonderful at this. Her semi Dr. Doolittle inner self allows her to know exactly what they need at all times.
In the hours before Linda gets up Mabel is my responsibility and I'm not going to lie, it is an anxiety filled several hours for me until she does. I am dripping in flop sweat as I write this trying to stem the flow of puss and blood that I opened up trying to get her to take a pill this morning. It has slowed to a slight drip so I can hold a Kleenex to it for a few seconds to stop it but I have to chase Mabel around the house to do it because she wants none of that from me.
Dogs know when you have no idea what you are doing and Mabel can read me like a book. As soon as I approach her today she is up and fast walking away. The look I get from her is similar to the look I get from Linda when I ask her what to set the dryer to when I do some laundry. It is somewhere between "you're an idiot and if I could slap you I would."
I am disappointed that my bedside manner is lacking in finesse and that I am deeply in over my head as a caregiver. On the plus side it is reinforcing our decision to not have children because could you just imagine me with a child to care for? There is no doubt I would have realized a dream by being on CNN but for all the wrong reasons.
Not being able to take care of the dog has me a bit worried about the moms' future care. They might want to have a "plan B" handy if for some reason Linda goes before me and I'm left in charge. I'm just saying.
My plan was to go away this weekend to celebrate a friends 70th birthday but I need to check with Linda to see if she can handle this alone while I'm gone. The problem of course is it isn't just the dogs, we have her mom to take care of also. Add in things that need to be done as normal, Walgreens visits, grocery store runs, bathroom breaks, etc., and you can see how one person doing all this can be overwhelming at times.
While I've been trying to write this I've had to stop several times to sop up the flow of puss and blood. I get it to stop, mostly, and then when I pull the Kleenex away it rips the scab off and it starts all over again. I haven't sweated this much since I replaced all the bushes in the backyard 35 years ago.
Maybe if I make enough noise Linda will wake up and the brief anger she will have towards me for that will be replaced by her taking over the caregiving. Tough call.