I often wonder what my dog thinks of me. An intuitive streak within reminds me that I too may have once lapped water from a stream. Whimpered for orts. And claimed others as my own. Perhaps that is why we relate.
My dog, Reggie, operates in two very distinctive modes. Protect and Love. It's all he knows to do. Except play dead when you arrange your forefinger and thumb in the shape of a gun. Which should come in handy if we are ever held up and he wants to stir the mind of an unfriendly man.
I should learn to play dead. Oh wait. I have. Now I must learn to rise. To move forward. To lap water from a stream.
I think I'm ready. I keep looking at my dog, Reggie. Wondering if I am. I think he wonders too.
Today we ventured to the hair salon. Reggie sat at my feet in his K-9 harness, still to the tornadoes of hair dancing in the room. His nose trailing each strand of my hair as it fell to the floor. As though nothing else mattered in the world. But me.
But there's something he may never understand. That when we are together, I feel the same as him. I watch his eyes as they saunter to each sound. I adore the way his fur folds into his skin at the base of his neck. And the aged spot of white on the blackness of his nose. I smile at his tail as it tips to the ground and lightly sweeps the floor. He is a long haired dachshund, so the floor is most familiar to his ways.
I wonder what the world looks like to him. If it is now as daunting as it seems to me. Or if he only cares that I am in his way. So he might brush against my skin. With wheels that skirt my hem.
Like yesterday. The psychologist nodded as Reggie entered the room ahead of my chair. Accepting his role in my condition. Like a four-pawed caterpillar he made his way to the sofa where secrets are birthed. I had never been to a psychologist before. Reggie held my spirits to the floor, grounding my memory for her sift. Doctor appointments are usually spared his presence. More a consideration of other concerns than my own. But yesterday I needed him. More than ever. When my soul sat naked on the couch.
Reggie laid on my feet for an hour. For that hour, I forgot he was there. Because I remembered too much. Therapy will do that to a person, I guess. It forces you to say yes to things you stored in your chest for too long. But it also determines if you are fit to be repaired. To enter a program where doctors truly care. And they need to know if you care too.
I am now approved for the UCLA CRPS Program with intensive Ketamine infusions. I have less attachment to the outcome than I imagined. I know only what Reggie knows. That I am protected. And I am loved. No matter where I sit. In a sofa, or a chair. In a doctor's office, or a room with dancing hair.
We are now home. Reggie curled into my waist as I lay on my side. His breathing reassures that all is right in the world, no matter how daunting it may seem. How many whimpers there still may be. They are quelled by a dog who has saved this life with his selfless ownership of me.