After months of worrying symptoms and doctor visits and medication, Ellie’s heart failure has stabilized enough so that we finally felt safe taking her to the groomer to deal with her very overgrown mop of hair. It was also Ellie’s first visit to the groomer alone since she’s been with us (four years!), because Cricket doesn’t need much grooming and I didn’t think she would be up to the stress of it anyway.
As we were leaving the apartment, I made sure to give Cricket a Greenie (a green dog treat, shaped like a toothbrush, with questionable teeth cleaning capabilities) to keep her occupied while Ellie had her leash put on, and immediately, Ellie snapped her teeth on the Greenie, already in Cricket’s mouth! They stood there fighting silently over that Greenie with all of their might, and somehow Cricket managed to hold on to it until I could convince Ellie to let go and follow me to the front door.
And I was sort of in shock.
Ellie, my calm, loving, usually submissive sweetie pie, had actually tried to steal food from her grumpy, stubborn, aged sister’s mouth?!
I was laughing out loud as I led Ellie outside, thrilled both that Ellie’s appetite was back in full force, and that Cricket still had the strength to fight for what was hers.
Once outside, Ellie ran gleefully to the car, seemingly forgetting that she’d missed out on a treat, possibly because she’d finally remembered that she’d had a full breakfast just moments earlier.
On the drive to the groomer, Mom sat in the backseat with Ellie to keep her company and defuse her car anxiety and the weirdness of not having Cricket there with her. When we dropped Ellie off at the groomer, I started to feel more anxious about leaving her there, out of my sight, for hours. She still coughs every once in a while, even though her medications seem to be managing most of her heart failure symptoms. But I tried to be positive and focused on driving Mom to her Neurologist’s office, where she would hopefully find some relief for the pain in her legs and feet, if not a cure for the numbness that has prevented her from driving lately. And then, while sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, I was preoccupied with worrying about Mom, and worrying about leaving Cricket alone at home for so long, and then worrying about fifteen or twenty other things swirling in my mind, and there wasn’t much room to worry about Ellie, who, at the very least, was not alone.
After the doctor’s appointment we had to stop off at CVS to pick up prescriptions, and to drop off one for Ellie (because one of her medications is only available at the human pharmacy), and then we went to the market that always has chicken livers, unlike our regular supermarket, because when Cricket is refusing to eat anything else she will still eat chicken livers. She’s often not hungry in the morning, but that’s when we need to give her the doggy Xanax to help her calm down enough to receive her subcutaneous fluids to manage her kidney disease. Chicken livers, and cinnamon buns, oddly, seem to be our most reliable treats when the wet dog food isn’t tempting enough.
And then we were back at the groomer to pick up Ellie, who was now less than half the dog she’d been a few hours earlier, and thrilled to be going home.
Cricket was standing at the door waiting for us when we returned home, and she thoroughly examined her shorn sister, to see what fresh hell she’d been through, but more importantly, to find out if she’d had any secret treats (she had, her groomer loves to give her treats!).
And then the dogs banded together to beg Grandma for even more treats, eventually running out of steam and deciding to start their favorite afternoon activity, sleep tourism, wherein they proceed to take naps in as many different places throughout the apartment as possible. And then I was able to relax too, knowing we’d all made it through another challenging day. Together.
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
rachelmankowitz 