Crazy lovable scary

Rocky hadn't been doing well these past few days. Loss of appetite, disorientation, refusal to put his head down to sleep... The thing about the chemo is that it was impossible for me to tell whether they were just side-effects, or if the symptoms were indicative of something more serious, like Canine Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome (CCDS -- the canine equivalent of Alzheimer's -- which apparently almost all dogs above the age of 16 years show signs of).

Over the weekend, I'd discovered a lump on the left side of his neck. It was huge. How did that spring up unnoticed?! I cuddle this dog every day! Was this a new tumour? More aggressive? Or did the cancer spread through the lymph system to another lymph node? Or maybe it was just the lymph node swelling as a side-effect of the chemo. I didn't know, and it drove me crazy.

This afternoon, he jumped down from my bed and fell to the floor awkwardly. His body was contorted, and he was screaming bloody murder. This is it, I thought, this is how I'm going to lose my dog. In this horrible horrible way... I grabbed his paws, and in one swift motion, snapped his body back into position, and out of the deadlock that he was stuck in. He breathed easy, and that was that.

We took him to the vet as soon as my parents got back with the car. As I related his predicament, the vet furrowed her eyebrows with worry.

"Okay, let's take a look at him," she said. We propped him up on to the table, and she felt around, making him cry out like he was being slaughtered. The dogs that'd been barking in the back room quietened. I imagine we scared them.

"It's not a lymph node," she concluded with a smile.

"What is it then?" I asked. "A-a-another lump?" Another surgery?

"Erm, no," she said, half laughing. "He just sprained his neck."

I let out a laugh too, of relief more than anything else. Okay, okay... everything is good. No surgery. No lump. That's all that matters.

"But how about his loss of appetite?" I reminded her. I just wanted to be sure. "Is that from the chemo, or..."

"Is his bowl on the floor?" she asked. "You might want to put it on a small stool. He's probably just having trouble reaching down."

And that explained it all. Why he'd been unable to stretch this morning, the way he usually does. Why he'd been unable to shake himself dry after his bath, the way he usually does. Why he'd basically made us think that he was going nuts, on top of everything else. You crazy dog, I stared at him, attempting to telepathically communicate my message. You scared me half to death. She gave him some anti-inflammatories, and we were on our way.

We came home, we piled his bowl on top of some papers, and he finished his food. Every. Last. Bit.

You crazy dog. You crazy lovable scary little dog.