Luna

I really thought I'd learned my lesson. To just BREATHE. To sit in the discomfort and take a beat. Old habits die hard, I guess. My control freak, fix it tendencies reared their ugly heads again. Grief is an unbearable place to sit. And watching Nash struggle adds to the difficulty. To help myself climb out of the pit of despair I was wallowing in, I started grabbing on to things I could do now that I couldn't before. It has been good for me to focus on other things.

As part of that process, I decided that Nash should get a pet. Ryan as usual put up with my bullshit because he loves me and he knows that I can be unrelenting when I decide that one of the kids needs something. And Nash needed a pet! "It will be therapy!" I told him.

"How about a guinea pig?" Nash suggested. I knew he really wanted a cat or a dog, but I already have a cat and my cat has had a traumatic experience with a dog already so he's pretty skittish around them. I also dont think he'd do well with another cat. Besides, puppies are SO MUCH WORK.

"We could look at that!" I said.

Guinea pigs are cute. And they can bond with their owners. But they're super social and don't do well alone, so we'd have to get two. And you can't potty train them, so you have to pee and poo proof the areas they're in, and constantly clean up after them. Plus they need an hour outside of their cage every day. More is even better. Yeesh, those sound like a lot of work too!

Ok.... how about a bunny? That'd be adorable! They will bond to their owner and even follow them around like a puppy! Hey, you can even litter train one! Perfect! Oh. Wait. My cat will literally EAT a bunny that is hopping around loose, following Nash. Ok, maybe not.

Alright maybe a bird? I had a cockatiel as a kid, and I adored my bird. They're social and friendly and bond fiercely. They do live forever though. Hmmmm. What about my cat? Well, if we didnt fully clip the bird's wings and he or she rode around on shoulders, we could keep the bird off the ground most of the time and definitely not leave it unsupervised with the cat. Maybe that could work! Wait. Birds poop.... constantly. Like every 20 minutes. And they do it wherever they are. Ugh maybe not.

So we landed on a dog. Not a puppy, but a dog. One that was already housebroken and with a good demeanor. One that could be a therapy dog if we put the extra training in. Nash can learn responsibility, and have a buddy that wont get eaten by my cat, wont eat my cat in return, and wont crap all over the house! Great plan.

Enter, Luna. Luna is a sweet girl. We have no idea what her breed is, though we should find out soon. We got her genetic testing done and are waiting on the results. She's mostly white, about 34 pounds. We got her from a rescue who estimated her age to be around 2 years old. Maybe older. She was a stray when they found her, and she had obviously recently had puppies. Poor thing was a mess. Starving, patchy hair, broken teeth, and giant nipples from the hormones from giving birth. She also obviously has some trauma in her past. She was a bit scared of men, and hats in particular set her off. She would cringe from sudden movements, obviously thinking she was going to be hit. But she's sweet and has been settling in well.

About 3 weeks after we got Luna, Nash took her outside to go potty when she saw a squirrel that she wanted to chase. She had already proven she could Houdini out of her harness, and I knew I needed to find one she couldn't escape from but hadn't gotten to it yet. And, well, she squirmed out again and took off into the wetlands on our property.

"Don't worry buddy, she'll come back" I told Nash. "She doesn't want to run away. That dog hit the jackpot when she got you as her new human. We don't use leashes to keep dogs from running away. We use them to keep them from getting lost or getting hurt. She'll be back."

She was gone for 10, maybe 15 minutes before we heard a bark at the back door.

"See, sweetie? She's back" I said.

Well. Mostly.

"Mom, Luna isn't opening her eye," Nash told me.

I went over to check her out. I opened her eyelid, didn't see anything stuck in her eye, and figured she'd scratched it while she was out running.

"I'm sure she'll be fine," I told him. "It's probably just a scratch, just like you occasionally get poked in the eye. She probably poked herself with something while she was gallivanting in the woods. I'm sure it hurts. We'll let her sleep it off tonight, and if she isn't opening her eye tomorrow, I'll take her in to see the vet."

The next morning wasn't any better. I called hoping the vet would say to wait it out, but they told me that she should probably come in.

"It's scratched all right," said the doctor. "Look."

He had put stain in her eye to be able to see any scratches, and when he lifted her eyelid I could see clearly a scratch, no a gouge, in her eye as big as an eraser mark.

"Holy crap!" I said. "She didn't scratch it, she gouged the shit out of it!"

They sent us home with a ton of drops and strict instructions to keep a cone on her. And to come back if she got worse. She got worse.

The next day Luna woke up with her eye completely bloodshot. She was noticeably uncomfortable and trying to get at it even with her cone on. And there was swelling. Back we went to the vet.

"It's not just a scratch anymore," they told me. "The dye only works when there is still cornea to dye. It isn't staining anymore. The wound has now gone through the cornea completely. She must have either rubbed off the remaining layers, or the inside of the eye is swelling and basically dissolved that portion of the eye. She is probably going to lose it. We can try to save it with medications, we could try to graft healthy tissue over the wound and that might save her eye, but even with those things, she might lose it."

The vet explained to me that option 1A with medications could mean intensive round the clock, every hour drops. Option 1B would be eye drops 4 times a day. Slightly less likely to save the eye, but also way more manageable. Option 2 would be surgery to graft healthy tissue over the eye in an attempt to save it. Option 3 would be to just remove the eye. No matter what we did, unless we just removed the eye, it was now at a high risk for 'rupture' due to the swelling.

You've got to be freaking kidding me, I thought. This dog, that I got for my son to help him heal and process his grief, and RELIEVE STRESS, is doing everything but. And now we're going to have a special needs dog after losing our special needs child.

I know it isn't the dog's fault, but... still. WTF.

I chose option 1B, and option 3. I said "Let's schedule the surgery to remove the eye while we do drops and see if she improves. With any luck, we can cancel the surgery. But this way its scheduled."

The soonest they could get her in was a week out. Apparently only a handful of vets in the entire twin cities area can do that surgery. So we went home and crossed our fingers that she at least wouldn't get worse. She got worse. Again.

The next evening after reading to Nash, I headed into my room to start getting ready for bed. And while I was brushing my teeth, I heard Luna cry out. Oh, no.

I came out to the living room and looked at her. She had what looked like water splattered down her snout, and she was crying and shaking.

"Nash, did you just giver her water?" I asked, with a sinking feeling in my gut.

"No," he replied. "We were just about to go outside so she could pee. I hadn't even touched her, I just grabbed her leash."

Shit. I knew it my gut what had happened. The dog's eye POPPED. LIKE A ZIT.

My family is lucky. With good luck and back luck. We get it from both sides. And true to form, good luck saved us again. Just a few months back, a couple moved in across the street. The woman, also named Ashley, just happens to be a vet. She used to work at Banfield, which is where I take my pets, and knows our vet, who speaks very highly of her. Ashley left Banfield to open her own practice recently. I walked across the street to knock on her door.

"I'm so sorry to bother you at 9 o'clock at night, but...." and explained what was going on.

"Oh! I heard about this!" she said. Apparently, she had done a favor for Banfield and filled in at her old clinic just that day and had heard that they were connecting through the network to see if any of their vets who can do the surgery could get Luna in sooner.

Ashley came over to look at Luna. "Yep, she definitely ruptured it. I can do the surgery. Let me call my partner. I think he's still at the clinic. I'll have him stay and I'll take her in and do it now if you want."

Yep, one of the few vets that can do this eye removal surgery just happens to live across the street from me, owns her own practice, and so was able as well as willing to take Luna in right then and there and do the surgery. Within 40 minutes of Luna rupturing her eye, she was sedated and in surgery and out of pain.

I have never seen a living creature in as much pain as Luna was that night and hope I never will again. I had earlier said that I wasn't going to do emergency surgery for a dog. But there's no way I could have let her sit in that kind of pain. We would have ended up taking her into the emergency room that night. Ashley saved her tremendous amounts of pain, saved us major stress and worry, and saved us a lot of money since she generously only charged us regular rates instead of emergency rates.

Luna, aka Cyclops, is now missing an eye in addition to a bunch of teeth that the rescue had pulled before she came to us. But man she loves Nash and has been good for him. She's helping him learn to advocate for himself. She's teaching him responsibility. She's getting him out for more walks than he ever did before. She loves on him and covers his face with kisses every morning and every time he returns home. So, maybe she's worth it.