Author: Graeme McMillan

The dog is… fine, perhaps…? He’s old, and he’s got old dog things wrong with him, which is how it was more or less explained to me, but anything more serious has thankfully, inexplicably, been avoided despite the blood test that sent alarm bells ringing last week. There was another blood test done to check this, and he had his belly shaved and some radiography done as well just in case. It’s been “looked into,” and he’s… okay…?

I found out via phone call. I’d spent the days before his appointment with an increasing sense of doom and foreboding, as if I knew definitively that this was the beginning of the end (if not the end of the end), and I’d been told that I’d get a call with updates during the appointment when I’d dropped him off that morning. Before it came, I’d look at the phone, accusatorially, daring it to ring and give me the bad news: come on, just do it. Just tell me.

But instead, the call was a surprisingly happy doctor giving me the good news. I remember thinking at the time, she sounds happier and more relieved than I am with some sense of wonderment. I couldn’t tell if I was surprised by the seeming lack of professionalism or touched by how much she cared more; all things considered, it’s a nice thing to have to call a draw in.

Even more surprising was how it felt afterwards: an unexpected sense of anti-climax that all it took was one phone call and everything was done, bar a follow-up appointment. I’d spent days thinking the worst, feeling the worst, and it was suddenly just gone. I was happy, I was relieved, but also, there was this very clear feeling of, Is that it? Am I just supposed to move on now? I try, and instead, I write this to exorcise those feelings and share how it actually feels.

Last week was one that taught me the value of that whole, “don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched” nonsense. You’ll remember, dear reader, that I’d shared my experience about taking the dog to the vet after his dental surgery a couple weeks back…? On the Tuesday of last week, he had his follow-up appointment, which proved to be a scary, difficult proposition: his weight had fallen significantly because he still wasn’t eating enough, and he wasn’t shitting well, either, The vet and I talked options while the dog sat there and shook in quiet terror; a plan of action was devised, blood was taken for tests, and we parted with everyone having a sense of what to do (as well as, on my end, no small amount of medication to give the dog).

Turns out, the dog had a sense of what to do, himself. Immediately following the appointment, he started eating well again. Even before I’d started giving him the medicine, his appetite miraculously returned, and his shits returned to normal. Across the next two days, I watched as he inexplicably returned to normal in seemingly every way. Had the vet visit scared him straight…? I didn’t really care: he was eating again, he was shitting again. Everything was good. On Thursday night, I told Chloe that I felt that I could stop worrying about him for the first time since his surgery, two weeks earlier. I felt a physical sense of relief.

This, of course, was my mistake.

On Friday, I heard from the vet that the blood work was back and it was not good. It wasn’t necessarily bad, either; it was mostly inexplicable, with the potential for things to be very bad: his liver numbers had rocketed through the roof, and they had no explanation why: as I was told, it could be entirely benign and the result of his not eating and being irritated post-surgery, or it could be cancer that they’d never noticed before. Either was a possibility, equally likely, as were all manner of things in between: gallstones, post-surgery infection, a testing error…

New plans were drawn up, for a new appointment later this week. I was advised that it could get expensive (again!) and that there may need to be end of life conversations. I immediately felt guilt, as if my saying that I could let go of my worry was the cause of it all.

I’m getting around to this later than intended, for the simple reason that I forgot. In the immediate aftermath of San Diego Comic-Con, there was a lot to take care of, not least of which was a sense of exhaustion that meant that I was able to take care of the most immediate business on any given day for a week or so before settling down to simply feel tired and watch TV for the night. (On the plus side, I enjoyed both the Wham! documentary and the series about the background of American Gladiators, so it wasn’t a complete loss. At some point, I’m also going to sing the praises of the extraordinary second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, as well.)

Nevertheless, this year’s San Diego Comic-Con left me with the realization that I’m actually pretty good as a panel moderator, something that I’d never previously felt comfortable or confident enough to actually admit out loud. It was a strange and welcome realization, if one that I still feel uncomfortable sharing because of humility and being Scottish, and yet…

Don’t misunderstand; I’ve been moderating panels at conventions for years, and I knew I was that bad at it even before SDCC this year. The thing is, I’d convinced myself that I was good at doing a particular kind of panel — one that’s somewhat freewheeling and conversational — and that I’d suck doing anything more structured or official… and then I got asked to do two structured and official panels.

To my surprise, I didn’t suck at them. In fact, I actually… enjoyed doing both, even with the added complications of having official announcements to make at one (and giveaways to the audience that I had to declare, as well!) and slideshows and/or multimedia components at both. The two “other” panels, the ones that pushed me outside of my comfort zone, definitely required parts of my brain that I’m not so used to using when moderating — being more professional, less playful, sure, but also having to think about schedules and objectives in a way that was more akin to interviewing than moderating, for me — but I came away from both with that sense of, Did I do okay? I think that went well? Did that really go well? in somewhat mild disbelief.

I wasn’t entirely alone, at least in the sense of thinking things went well; both panels were complimented afterwards, with the publishers attached to each asking if I’d do it again at future conventions. It’s nice to know that you don’t screw up, for sure; it’s also nice to know that you can do more than you thought, and that you might actually be good at it, as well. If there was one good thing to take away from San Diego Comic-Con this year, I’m happy for it to be that.

If anyone asks how my weekend went, this is what I’d want to tell them:

I spent much of Saturday and pretty much all of Sunday worried that my dog was going to die, or that something was very wrong with him; he had dental surgery last week, something that I was deeply worried about ahead of time because that was exactly what killed his brother a little over a year ago and the fear that history could repeat itself was real. In the days immediately following the surgery, he seemed to be okay and I thought that, maybe, just maybe, things had all worked out.

And then it was three days after the surgery, and he hadn’t eaten. I mean, he’d had a couple of bites of food, but otherwise, nothing. I’d been told his appetite would be back to normal by the day after, the second day for sure. So, the worry returned.

Of course, by this point, it was a Saturday — a Saturday afternoon, in fact, and his regular vet was closed, so I spent an hour or so calling other local vets who told me variations on, Oh, that doesn’t sound good at all, but we’re full up so we can’t see him, but he should probably be seen in case it’s something very serious indeed. Let me tell you, that did wonders for my mood. Eventually, one place told me to call the next morning to set up an appointment for that day, and promised they’d have space; I’d just have to keep trying to feed him in the meantime. He continued to refuse food.

Sunday came, after a restless night in which I tossed, turned, and enjoyed dreams where he got sick and died like his brother. I called and made an appointment, and felt restless and unable to relax while I waited for it. I overanalyzed everything the poor dog was doing the entire time: was he more energetic than normal? Did it mean something that he was drinking more water?

Turns out, the answer to that last question was yes: after a marathon session and a bunch of tests, it turned out that Gus was so dehydrated as a result of the anesthesia during the surgery, and that dehydration was in turn hindering his recovery. All of this was because of his age (he’s 14) and the simple fact that old dogs and surgery really don’t mix. He was given IV fluids, a dose of pain meds, and the hope was that he’ll start eating again within 24 hours or so.

By the time I got him home, it was after 9pm.

I feel like I didn’t have a weekend; I feel exhausted and stressed, still, and I’m still worried about his little dog self and will be until he eats. I’m wishing I had a weekend to recover, it it’s Monday morning and everything starts again right now. I’m very much not ready for the week.

Instead, if someone asks how my weekend was, I’ll probably just say it was fine, and ask them how theirs was.