Somebody had their magic birthday yesterday! She turned 4 on the 4th!!
One day when Roxy was young I was admiring her beautiful, sweet, angel baby face (Don’t judge) and I noticed hair was starting to get thinner on her paws and legs in places. Like she had tiny scars that hair was not growing out of anymore. Rob said it was no big deal, she was just shedding her hair and growing out of her baby fur. I decided to call the vet when the hair started falling out around her eyes. HER EYES!!
I made the appointment and the dutiful receptionist on the other end of the line asked me the reason for my appointment. “Umm, she’s losing her hair, like everywhere” I said. People that answer the phone in these establishments are the most stoic folks I’ve ever come across. You could literally say “My head is on fire” and they would respond with “Ok, let’s see when our next available opening is, honey.”
“Listen Linda, my dog may very well need a seeing eye dog in the near future…”
“MmmHmm, we have a 3:00 open tomorrow, does that sound ok?” What, are these people trained not to hear a damn word I just said? I said a seeing eye…
”Yes, that will be perfect. Pencil us in.”
We arrive early to our appointment and I take a seat to fill out paperwork. A lot of you know Roxy and know how friendly she can be. All the people are hers. She has a job to do and that is to tend to her people, regardless of what I am doing. I scribbled a few lines down between leaps and wags and hoped for the best when they reviewed her chart.
We get called back into the exam room and after a quick weigh in and a once over by the tech, the vet comes in.
“What brings Roxy in today?” Says the vet as she’s sitting patiently like a good little girl waiting on more treats.
I look at him and look at her. I force my hands to my sides to keep from talking with them. Because what I really want to do is circle my face and mouth the words “Can’t you see this.” While pointing at her with the other hand, so she can’t hear me talking about her.
Instead I explain to him my concerns about all the missing hair on her paws, her legs, her face. He bends down, lifts her paws, examines them along with her legs. Moves up to her belly and then looks into her sweet, angel baby, precious face. (Don’t judge) As he’s still knelt down petting her, she’s stretched out on her side begging him to take the hint, he starts to speak. I’m obviously not hearing a word he’s saying. “Blah blah, parasite. Blah blah, infestation. Blah blah, sample.” I nod my head in agreement and the next thing I know she’s whisked off to the back room for testing.
I thought I heard…No. No way. No way I just heard the word mange come out of that man’s mouth. Mange is what homeless dogs get, dogs in those sad ass Sarah McLachlan commercials. I love my dog, she’s not sad, or hungry, or mistreated, like dogs with mange are.
I calmed my racing heart for when the vet came back into to the room with Roxy, steadying myself to ask all the appropriate questions and gather all the necessary information. She bursts through the door, eager to see me after the entire 3 minutes she was gone. The vet follows after a quick look under the microscope.
“Well,” he begins, “after examining the scrapings I collected I have determined she does in fact have mange.”
Now my brain stopped right there. I am absolutely no good in high stress situations. That’s why I have a Rob. He deals with this shit. I am just not equipped to hear my dog has been eating out of the gutter her entire life.
After he finished whatever the hell he was telling me, most likely statistics or some other foreign language, I finally mustered up a response to all the madness that was currently happening in my life. My reply: “Oh my god, is this what it’s like when they tell you your kid has lice?”
