Ash's Diary Blog

Sometimes I just need to write about what makes me anxious.

[vanish]

[diaryofashlyn]

072916 - Ginger

8:53pm - Mood is Calmest I’ve been in the past week

July 18th, we arrived back home from our history trip. I was sad and happy at the same time, because there’s something about being away somewhere new or rarely visited that gives you a breath of fresh air. However, returning home is always comforting, as it’s the place you’ve grown to love and seek solace in.

Except this time, coming home was anything but comforting.

My brother had called earlier in the day and said our four year old dog, Ginger, wasn’t acting normal, she was extremely tired, didn’t want water despite the heat outside, and wouldn’t eat or respond to him. Of course we couldn’t do anything because we were three hours away from being home, so we were left worrying about what was happening and if she was okay. 

Hours later, we race out of the car, barely getting luggage out, to see her. It certainly wasn’t the reunion we had expected for a month. We thought we would come home and play ball, give her treats, hug and love on her. But no. We had to get her into the car ASAP and my mother and I immediately traveled twenty minutes into the city to take Ginger to the vet. 

All we knew from taking her in was that she was severely dehydrated. She had to stay over night to receive fluids. Somehow, I managed to hold the tears at bay on the car ride home. Then, when I was in the privacy of my own room, I cried. And cried. Honestly, I don’t know how I managed so many tears. I had to explain the situation so many times, and each time it got harder. No matter how many words of condolence and well wishing were sent to me, I could only think, “Oh, God, please don’t take her from me. Please, please, please. I don’t think I could handle her leaving me.”

Many may find this dramatic. “All this fuss over a dog??” They would wonder. 

Well. Yes.

Having Ginger in the hospital was like having a child in there. My child. My child that took in off the street four years prior, fed, provided a home when her first owner left her to fend for herself.

The next day we were called and told Ginger had contracted Pravo, somehow. It’s a relatively extinct disease, but can be carried between any animal related to canines. If she were a baby, it would’ve killed her. However, since she was older, she had a better chance of fighting it. Not to mention the possible kidney failure she could’ve gotten from the heat of the day. (Long story short: my brother left her outside (she’s an outside dog) in the heat of the day, with “a lot of water” as he reports, but when he came back, she was laying in the middle of the yard, away from shade, and her water bowl was torn to shreds.)

By Thursday, the vet bill became extremely high. We couldn’t keep paying $100+ a day and night to have her there. So we brought her home, forcing water and medicine down her every fifteen minutes, and hoped that she would fight. 

By Saturday, she was up and walking outside to use the bathroom, drinking a little water by herself, but barely eating. She had also not been sick, which was a major plus. 

This past week, she’s been extremely better. Up and moving, eating food by herself, drinking water, though I know she hates being inside when the outside world is her home. We aren’t completely sure if she’s cured. She has a bit of medicine she needs to go through before we take her back to the vet and get the verdict. 

[roselamc]

[diaryofashlyn]

071116 - Museum

6:19pm - Mood is anxious

Today is the last day of a month long trip my family and I took up the east coast of America, studying the Revolutionary War. The whole trip had been fine - a doctor’s appointment had been put off until I returned, I didn’t have to be in town for friend drama, I didn’t have to deal with my brother. And today had started out relatively fine as well, asides from my aching feet caused by walking all day. 

And then, we were at the Ben Franklin Museum, in Philly. I was reading the last of an update of a book by my friend, to which I rushed to rant to her about sort after, and all was well. Until I began to tell her about the rest of my plans for summer. 

I’d be home in a few days, with a list of things I have to do before going to college at the end of August, with an impending doctor’s appointment, a birthday, and no clue with what to make of the rest of my summer. 

Every day so far has been, get up early, get dressed and eat breakfast. Go into town to sight see and learn more about history. Complain that we’ve been walking far too long, standing in huge lines, and the general headaches of larger cities. 

What am I going to do when I go back home? Sit on my computer all day, like I did last summer? Hang out with friends and be social--something I’m not? Read day in and day out? 

But then what about college? How am I supposed to know what this next chapter of life is supposed to hold? Will I be able to hold down my classes, a job, and my writing?

All of this came flooding into my mind as we entered the museum, and I was trying to talk to a few friends and calm myself down. I even had to turn to my mother and confirm our plans for the rest of summer, making sure I left out nothing from the list I was typing into Notes, because I was sure that if I did, I would meltdown into tears. 

 I’m not a girl that plans much, but I can’t just walk into something blind, with no plans at all. Especially with something as big as college. 

I still don’t feel all that better--the unknown is scary, and...well, unknown.