Finding a little piece of peace in the company of dogs.

This past week has been a nightmare. My husband, my rock, my everything... has been in and out of the hospital and various doctor's offices with diagnosed blood clots, some superficial, one deep. Each day we think we are getting past it and the next day a new clot appears. It's disheartening, it's maddening, it's all consuming. Blood clots are horrible little creatures, they are often hard to find and once you know they are there they are impossible to forget. The treatment is an ever increasing dose of self-injectible blood thinners and in the words of the doctor "Going on with life as you know it." You just hope the body dissolves them and they never return, but alas this is easier said than done. My mind goes to the worse case scenario and I quickly shake it away, but much like the clots themselves the thought is there and impossible to forget...I just wait for time to make my mind slowly dissolve it.

So this week I find myself seeking small pieces of peace in a warm and comfortable place. In the company of the dogs. They sense something is off and do what they do best, love us and make us laugh. After a 7 hour ER visit there is no medicine like watching your puppy navigate the front of his body into a garbage pail then once accomplished look up at you and whine because he is now stuck in said garbage pail and needs help out of it. The dogs stick to Alex like velcro, they sense something is hurting him. If sheer love of setters could cure any ill he would have been healthy days ago. The 5 of them encase Alex wherever he rests, one on his head, one on either side and two grumbling over who lays on his feet. It's a race to see what dogs can get closest to him with Caelan hoping to crawl inside his skin if she was able. It's moments like this I always think of the vet I worked for who said dogs are not capable of emotion. I could prove this theory wrong in moments as I see them congregate around my husband this week, they know, there is little doubt in my mind.

Watching the dogs off leash has long been my anti-depressant. Years ago when we lived in Washington State near a bay I would take our first setter Seamus and our lab Fergus to the water at the end of particularly bad days. Seeing them so happy, paddling around in the setting sun soothed me. I find here in the Midwest the expansive dog park has the same effect. Alex and I walked hand in hand the other day along the prairie grass and late season flowers, the autumn sunlight painting the landscape. The dogs were beyond ecstatic. Leaping over tall brush like bunnies and pointing snouts in the air in a most regal fashion, tapping instincts that have been waiting to explode. It's impossible to feel worry when you are witnessing such pure happiness. It's contagious, it's obvious, it's exactly what we needed.

So things will get better, I am confident. If I took a poll every person out there has a worry, a crisis, a reason to feel hopeless. Until these things leave my world I will just keep turning to the dogs. Unlike most humans I know they will not fail in giving us uninhibited love, devotion and much needed laughter.