stress

Darcy is not well.

That's my life, right there, at the moment. We have moved all our sleeping arrangements downstairs because, post-paw-surgery, he's forbidden to use stairs for two weeks. (I refer to sleeping on the futon as "camping" because it is the closest I ever care to come to that activity.) He has to wear the cone (about which he's unhappy but resigned) and, when he goes outside, a plastic bag over the paw bandage (about which he's not happy AT ALL). Bingley is crated during the day to minimize roughhousing. For the first time since surgery, Darcy ate his breakfast this morning - we'd been having to coax with treats and eggs broken into his dish to get him to eat even a third of his meals. Everything dog-related takes longer and is more stressful now, and though the lab results aren't back yet, the vet really didn't like what she saw when they opened up the paw. How tough recovering from a minor exploratory surgery has been for him is profoundly driving home that he's an old dog, which is both heartbreaking and will be a major factor in decisions about future treatment options.

Being me, I have found sufficient headspace to be consumed with guilt and social awkwardness over the vet situation. You see, due to a combination of him being rushed in for an emergency consult on a day his normal vet wasn't there, and things snowballing rapidly from there, with the surgery being scheduled as soon as the covering vet looked at the x-rays, and me being too overwhelmed and stressed to do anything but go with events (did I mention I'm seven months pregnant and my job is completely insane right now?), the vet he's been seeing for the last two weeks is not his regular one. I then convinced myself that a) his regular vet would have been able to magically make it an abscess, not a tumor and b) she must be thinking that I switched Darcy's care out of a lack of confidence in her, and be feeling completely betrayed. So I sucked it up and called her today to explain and to confirm that going forward any care / planning will be with her. The part of the conversation where she said she saw him brought in for surgery and was like, "MY DARCY! WHAT'S GOING ON??" made me feel pretty cruddy, but other than that it was fine and I feel better. Of course, I now have to have the "thanks, but we're going with someone else from here," conversation with the covering vet, but I don't have a relationship with her, so that won't be as hard. 

Ah, the joys of being socially awkward: it's less pixie girl adorkability and more having to psych yourself up for literally three hours before calling the veterinarian whom you think you might have disappointed. I don't know why Hollywood always goes with the former; I bet I look pretty cute when I am sweating all over my phone.   

Yesterday I got to sit in a lab waiting room for four hours, having fasted since the night before, while every hour they drew my blood (and one of the ladies at the lab did NOT do a good job of it, so it hurt rather a lot). We'll see if the results come back You Gestational Diabetic Pig, You (note: I am not saying that any other woman diagnosed with gestational diabetes brought it on herself via piggish behavior; my problem is that I have body dysmorphic disorder, which means [among other things] that I have normal, rational body and health standards for everyone else but the only options for myself are either perfect in every way or a total failure). I spent the four hours reading James Fenimore Cooper, which is at least distracting, since it goes: scenery, scenery, scenery, racism, scenery, scenery, misogyny, scenery. Alternately soothing and eye-roll-inducing, and it made the time pass.

What else I have read lately?

The Undertow, by Jo Baker. Four generations of a British family experience love and war. Beautifully written and engrossing.

No Name, by Wilkie Collins. Not as much fun as Armadale, but a perfectly respectable potboiler (a disinherited young lady goes to any lengths to get her revenge). And what fun to read a trashy Victorian melodrama written by a guy who actually liked women. Just sayin', Dickens.

The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, by John Grisham. Grisham's follow-up to The Dreams of Ada, which inspired him to research and write a book about a trial that Ada mentions briefly. It's quite interesting, though the debt to The Executioner's Song is a little too apparent, I thought. (I've never read Grisham before, so I could be wrong and that could just be his writing style.) Also crazy depressing.

High Country Fall, by Margaret Marron. Very light mystery. Decently enjoyable but I don't know if I'll bother with any others in the series.