Panics #1 and 2

Yesterday morning I was laying in bed, about ready to give into the dogs' whining and take them outside. With Jordan out of town, it's been nice having the whole bed to myself. Anyways, I was laying on my back, about to get up, when Sydney, our 68 lb yellow lab jumped onto the bed and playfully pounced on my stomach with her two front paws. I freaked out, instinctively guarding my abdomen, where our newest little family member is currently residing. I pushed her off of me, off of the bed, and preceded to yell at her. Throughout the whole walk, I was literally saying to her out loud things like, "You know what, Sydney? I have been doing a really good job about not getting stressed out lately; I have a test on Wednesday next week and I haven't even started thinking about that, much less getting freaked out. Now you have to go and jump on my stomach, completely freak me out, and drive me into a state of panic. THANKS A LOT!" I was convinced some fellow dog walker or jogger was going to stop me and ask if I needed a ride to a mental health facility.

For the next couple of hours, I couldn't get ahold of my husband, my mom, my sister or my BFF; I was just looking for reassurance from someone that it probably wasn't a big deal and that I should just take a Tylenol for the soreness and move on. So, instead, I spent the next two hours freaking out, reading up as to whether or not my wonderful dog could have squished our little baby to death. Finally I talked to my mom, who encouraged me to call my doctor if I was really that worried. Thankfully, it was my OB that was on call this weekend, so she called me back and reassured me that this early along the baby is very well protected behind my pelvis, some muscle and fat and that Sydney would have had to jump onto my stomach from 3 stories up or something to cause any serious damage. Nevertheless, I did spend the entire rest of the day checking for spotting, cramping, pain, any sign of distress. I was sore, but otherwise everything was fine.

Later that day, after having thought nasty thoughts at Sydney, I attempted to make it up to her and Austin (our 80 lb white lab) by taking them to the off-leash dog park. Our friend's sister just got a dog and wanted to have a little play-date to help socialize her rescued pup. I had thrown the tennis ball for Sydney and Austin about 10 times, when Austin left the game to head over to the water bucket. I noticed he was walking really funny; he was sort of high-stepping in front, and though his head was aiming to the right, he was drifting to the left; all of a sudden, he collapsed. I had been walking over to him, but ran at this point, and when I got to him, I tried to use what little skills I have in people-medicine to see if he was having a stroke or a seizure or something. Something similar had happened the previous summer, when it was like 90 degrees at the dog park, and our vet had diagnosed it as heat stroke. Well, yesterday it was only about 60 degrees, but even so, I took Austin to the water bucket and tried to get him to drink some water. He sat in front of the bucket and then dropped his head in; it just sort of flopped in; I thought he was drowning because he just kept his head under water. I really started to panic then. I climbed in the water bucket with him (clothes on and all), lifted his head up, and started bathing him in the cool water. I looked at his eyes, and he was tracking my finger; I felt for his heart beat, which was racing, and I tried to itch the spot right by his tail to see if I could get him to wag it. He started lapping up the water and splashing, and then some jack*** threw another tennis ball and Austin jumped out of the water bucket and went to chase after it. He was running just fine, and came back to me with the ball. I put him back in the water for another few minutes, and then I drove him straight home. We sat in an ice-cold bathtub at our house until he had cooled down. He seemed to be doing okay. Since then, he's not had any recurrence of what happened at the dog park, he's been eating ravenously, and chasing his sister, as always.

Last night, I had plans to go out with some friends for dinner, and since I hadn't seen one of them for a long time, I decided not to cancel; but, the entire time, I was worried about Austin. I know that I complain that they give me a lot of grief from time to time (chewing my shoes, my power cord for my laptop, my favorite childhood doll, etc.), but I realized how much I care about them and how sorry I felt for having yelled at Sydney that morning. Turns out I love those little monsters!