Sick Dog

I don't know how long it's been since I posted anything, but It's been awhile.  All of my time has been taken up with Patrick, as well as all of my thoughts and energy.  Somehow he is still alive, but I have thought many times he was about to die.

There is no need to go through it all in any detail, but he has been to three different vets and none of them can find the problem..........not even Dr. Cloutier in Bangor.  I've borrowed money from everyone I thought would give it to me, shamelessly, but with ever-lasting gratitude.  Despite all of this, he is still sick.  One day he will seem to be on the edge of recovery, and the next he will decline again.

So my days have been spent watching him, offering him food, giving him medication.  I'm not able to focus on anything else.  The world revolves around the look on his face, the position he sleeps in, if and how much he eats, how well he walks.  I wake up many times during the night to put my hand on his side, feeling for evidence that he is still breathing. The time is measured by phone calls from the vet, a woman I had never met but heard about from Thom and David.  Each call sustains my hope and gives me a link to the outside, where I find an ally, someone sharing the enormity of the situation who is in a position to give knowledgeable help.

Other things have happened, probably significant, but I don't notice them.