Vet-Mommy Communication While Getting Staples Out

The surgeon doesn't care that we've figured out better diapers or that Bandit sometimes makes it through the night in one go.

She talks about muscles atrophying and the unlikelihood of his sciatic nerve returning on his left side and how he's losing range of motion on his right... Our little victories, and the essential forms of progress that even make it sustainable for me to be his single-mommy-caretaker are meaningless to her.

She tells me he's getting diaper rash and needs more fresh air, and I point out that it's been raining for 3 days and we're doing our best. She just stares at me as if I'm announcing my dog ate my homework.

I can hear the vet hospital staff when they're in the back, even when they don't realize it. "Oh my gosh! Bandit's back!! Hey little buddy. I've missed you!" The vet techs ask to hold him; they want all the updates. Each person who walks past seems to have some kind of personal interest in my little man. This is not motherly pride. It is just Bandit's way of being in the world. Of course he made friends in the ER. (This is not a trait we share in common). I sit on the other side of the door, on a wooden bench, waiting to get him back. I hear "well... he's doing okaaayy..." in a downward cadence, suggesting disappointment. Then the voices become more muffled.

We are two weeks out from his surgery. There has been no point in putting him in a kennel, because he can't move more than a couple feet anyway. And when he moves, it's a strange crab-like scuttle and dragging motion. And that rarely happens, because he has little interest in moving. Not for treats, not for toys, not to cuddle.

I get it. Other dogs are running around by now, and my dog can't even stand. I get it. Other dogs don't poo and pee themselves every 20 minutes, and mine does.

Maybe mine always will.

I understand the focus on his muscles and his nerves and his joints. These are animal physicians: that is their scope of practice. But also, I don't. I don't really think the most important thing about Bandit was that he pranced. I loved his prancing. I loved seeing his tail wag. But he is no less expressive without those things. I realize incontinence is inconvenient. But in some ways, diapers are actually a lot more convenient. Like, every time it rains.

The changes that I notice and think matter are that he burrows under blankets now, all the time, when before he would never allow such a thing. He doesn't want to play, or cuddle with his polar bear, and is hard to get riled up about anything. My dog has never eaten poo before in his life, but he has always been incredibly OCD about cleaning himself. Now, he will eat and lick anything to get his body clean. In fact, if I didn't put diapers on him, I am confident I would come home to a pristine dog. But since he's not allowed to lick his wounds... we are all spared Bandit immediately ingesting everything that comes out of his body. It is funny to me that his distaste for poop loses out to his distaste for being unclean. Because of course he's still funny to me. Have you met him? He's hilarious.

Yet. According to the doctors: He is an Unfortunate Case.

They inform me Bandit is looking more and more like the Worst-Case-Scenario than the Dog-We-Had-Hoped-For. And aside from the reality that it has been a mere two weeks and we have a two MONTH window before we really know what he's capable of, I keep feeling like they're missing the point.

Neither of us needs his sciatic nerve to work for our relationship to stay intact. Yes, it would be nice. It would be nice if a couple of things went back to the way they were before. It would be great if we didn't have an amputation ahead of us. But we're going to be just fine, either way. If he charmed the pants off the vet techs after just a few days, I think he has got most of what made him Bandit already back intact.

This has been a huge lesson for me in the strength of love in adversity. And it has also reassured me that I am going to be an incredible mom. There have been hard days and happy days and we have a long road ahead of us. But I don't think a moment has passed when Bandit or I have looked at each other and thought it would be better to opt out. (It helps that I project all of my feelings onto him, so I can pretend I know this). I have become his advocate as he's needed it, and he has remained my little rock of fur. The difficulties are still there, but they seem SO MUCH less important than the fact that we're still together.

We are still together.

And I don't know if you know this, but being Bandit's mom is an awesome privilege. I know plenty of people who would have adopted him in a heart-beat, but I'm the lucky one who gets to wake up next to him every day. 

Maybe we do have ten years of diaper jokes ahead of us. I don't know. But if that's the worst of what's ahead (or even if it's not), for however many days either of us has left... we will be just as together as we were before.

So, I talk to the surgeon and I know Bandit is an "Unfortunate Case." But by the ones that matter to me, he is everything I had hoped for and more. And I look forward to each of his little victories, even if they don't mean he is exactly the same as he was before.

Why does he need to be the same as before? Can't this way be good too?

What is the point in comparing him to everyone else if I already love him the way that he is?


This has been a hard year. And I have lost many things I cared deeply about. But I didn't lose Bandit. And I didn't lose myself. So if the universe needs his sciatic nerve, it can take it. I will keep the rest of him. And I will cherish it. And that is so much more than enough.

Namaste.