Austin, TEXAS, December 20, 2005 — I was a little fuzzy this morning. I stayed up too late. I figured I had lots of time to get organized though. I had no appointments.

FFP went to the club and when he came back he talked to the vet and they said come get Chalow. She had surgery yesterday. She was under an hour while he removed a large rough tumor from her belly and another tumor from near her anus muscle. He left one on top of her tail (which he isn't too worried about) and one in her neck which he didn't have time for because he wanted to wake her up. Her tumors are off to Texas A&M, but we won't

know anything until next week I don't think.

The vet had installed a drain in her gut wound (which was huge). He had wrapped her temporarily so we could get her home. Said to put her somewhere where we could just let it drain. Said she didn't seem to be bothering it for them. We chose the front bathroom. I cut the wrap off and we decided to put a little T-Shirt on her from when she was attacked by a dog and had a drain on her shoulder. Here is a picture from the dog attack time, 2000, I think.

So I didn't go to the club. In fact, I didn't go anywhere. I did laundry. I made the bed. I ate, cleaned the kitchen. The maid came. I completely (well, almost) controlled the newspaper pile. All the while, I played dog nurse.

I would take her out front (only one step up and down) on a leash. I'd clean up the bloody drainage on the bathroom floor, I would comfort her. Although, against all reason, she seems fine. She just wanted out of the bathroom to follow the maid around and beg for treats. The vet fed her. She had an appetite. I gave her some treats. In the evening I gave her some of the laxative the vet wanted her to have. (It is a paste that is tuna-flavored and has molasses in it. What's not to like? She loved it.)

Around ten o'clock in the evening, just before FFP got home from yet another performance of The Nutcracker, I took her out and I was checking on the drain. It seemed OK but it was folded up against her and I wondered if the little T-Shirt was binding on it. The vet had said to leave it open. He only bandaged her to get her home. I started to worry. I shouldn't have. The T-Shirt had a lot of drainage on it, obviously it was letting the thing drain. The vet said she didn't seem interested in it and he thought she wouldn't be able to, bother to, get to it. So I took off the T-Shirt and put it in the laundry. I had two clean ones. My bookkeeper and friend altered three kid T-Shirts for her back in 2000 to catch the drainage from her shoulder. We inserted sanitary pads in the shirts. I shouldn't have worried about a little binding on the drain. I should have worried about her getting at it. But no, I left it open. The vet said it would be all right.

Of course, when I came back to take her out again and check on her...she was licking her belly. And...no tube to be seen. Anywhere. She ate the tube? It was made of some fabric-like stuff. And maybe she didn't eat it. Maybe it dislodged outside. But I don't think so. And I couldn't find it in the bathroom.

Of course, Chalow is the immortal, indestructible fourteen-year-old dog. She seemed unfazed. FFP comforted me on my dog nurse failures. He said we would take her back to the vet in the morning. I put a clean T-Shirt on her. To keep her from pulling stitches or because I'm a barn door after horse (dog?) escapes kind of person. Although maybe the T-Shirt wouldn't keep her off the wound.

We went to sleep. I dreamed of holding Chalow close. And of having her in a little room in some store or office. A room that kept morphing. One time it was sort of like our front bathroom. Another time it had a dirt floor. Then I found her being held by a man who had a bloody, stitched wound on his knee. Then I saw a pile of Sherlock Holmes books with puddles of blood on them. Much too much to have come out of my dog. And not bloody drainage. It looked like whole blood. Still, I felt guilty. In the dream. And in reality, too. I'm a failure as a dog nurse.

Update: On Wednesday morning, she is as lively as ever, her shaved tail with the little tumor wagging hopefully. But there is a couple of ounces of fluid under the (closed, of course) wound where the drain was so she is back at the vet's office. A new drain and a collar to keep her off of it will be the result (at least). I took her in wearing the little T-Shirt. Because she looked so cute. The vet wasn't in yet but the girls who work for him appreciated her look. I told them she had a drain in her shoulder in 2000. That they didn't treat her when the dog attacked her because Tim (the father of the vet who runs the place now) had died just before and they were closed. I don't think the girls knew Tim except by reputation, but they appreciated the story. Obviously they know a Mighty Dog when they see one.