Jane Doe

i'm not really sure how many people know what an animal lover i am. maybe i haven't finished the 'life' series of posts far enough to get into how my childhood was filled with helping animals give birth, everything from goats, to horses and dogs. we had quite the menegerie.

anyway. it pretty much grieves me to see animals in pain, or even ones who probably died a painful death.

so today i was driving from my house in one little town the 4 miles to the next little town. we've been having beautiful rain storms and i was looking for an excuse to get out and drive around hunting for rainbows with my kids. we come over one of the small hills directly upon a wounded doe splayed across the road.

initially i slow down knowing i'll have to just to get around her, as i get closer i can see how mangled her rear legs are, completely disjointed. i have seen scenes like this so many times having grown up in the country, never liking it, but i really have no idea why this time it's pulling my heart strings so hard. i pass her barely moving and as i see her eyes reflecting the now blue sky dotted with puffy clouds i just pull over and stop. my kids are in the back, totally aware of her and are asking me a million questions about her. 'is she ok... what happened... did she get shot... can we help her...?' all i can tell them is that i'm sure she was not shot.

i get out of the car, go check on her and sure enough, she's dead. i don't know why i expected any differently but i was still saddened. as i stand there in the middle of the road i know i can't just leave her. sure there isn't anything i can do to save her, but i can prevent anything worse from happening. at least anything that isn't part of the natural cycle of life. i did actually make a quick call to my dad to make sure it was ok to touch her (i've had experiences with wild life before to find out after the fact that there are some animals that 'they' say you're not allowed to touch, baby ducks for example.) when i get the go ahead i move her from the road, as far as i can take her to make sure she won't be the train wreck drivers stare at as nature takes her back.

her liquid ebony eyes stare at me and as i walk away i feel a little bad that i didn't close them, feeling her look at me, knowing she can't see. and i'm hoping others don't have to see her that way. i get into the car and after i assure my kids that i did all i could and 'of course she's in heaven' joe asks the question that to me reveals his kindred spirit of mine.

'momma, her eyes were open, couldn't you close them so she'd look like she was sleeping? so people won't see her that way? people get to close their eyes when they're dead.' we both know she's not a person, but we both know all things deserve dignity in death.

Mursula comes to visit

oh the joys of MRSA. few months ago we were in the hospital with Theia having emergency surgery to clean up her abscesses, spent a week stuck in quarantine and it was terrible. and that was actually her second occurrence.

i thought we were pretty much in the clear, it's been several months and she hasn't been having any issues.

few weeks ago claudia got a pretty gnarly spider bite on the back of her thigh. it turned into an abscess but we got it cleared out manually and it wasn't a huge issue. anyway, two days ago i see the beginning of a pimple on her buttocks and didn't think much of it till i check on it last night and see that it's bigger than a grape now (mind you most of it is below the surface, but i can tell by feeling it) and it's rock hard.

so i start to work on it knowing that it really must be drained regardless of it's origin. ended up gettting a huge amount of puss out but since we weren't sure how it got there, having had no contact with funky spiders in the past few days, we decided it must be looked at by a doctor just to rule out MRSA so we can confidently send her to school.

well of course seeing the doc on sunday night means a fun little trip to the ER, OH JOY!!! it actually wasn't that long of a wait, which was nice. the doc pretty much stated flatly that with MRSA now being our new super-cold, they treat all skin abscesses as though that's what they are. however, unlike theia, whose abscesses were very extreme and the infection much more advanced, in combination with her being much younger, claudia was allowed to leave the hosptial and he said she'd be fine to go to school as long as the sore area wasn't going to be too uncomfortable. well, it's on her butt cheek, so we decided to stay home.

i'm sure she'll be fine soon, back at school tomorrow, and back to work for me. it's just this annoying little part of our lives, this stupid infection that rears it's ugly head periodically. like Ursula the sea witch, so i've decided to call it Mursula. from now on if we have an occurence again, i'll just tell people "Mursula is visiting again..."

funny thing that we haven't even been here for 6 months and we've already had all our kids in the ER. nice...