Remember how things kind of sucked for me for a while? They got better. Or rather, I stopped letting them get to me. I did, however, jokingly tell =Tar-Vanimelde that if my dog dies, I fully expect her to visit me in the asylum.

Well, let me start off this way: my dog didn't die.

Rather, my parents were at my recently-deceased grandmother's apartment, and they had the dogs with them. The canines are staying with my parents while I go away for three weeks, and I left them when I visited last weekend so they can get acclimated and not deal with 900 miles of driving in ten days. Well, apparently my parents brought the dogs with them when they drove two hours to clean out my grandmother's stuff.

They were loading things into their car and not watching the dogs very closely. Tipper, my 16-year-old fox terrier, who is mostly blind at this point, apparently walked out onto the second-story balcony and right through the railing. She fell to the concrete below.

Amazingly, she seems more or less okay, assuming I've gotten the whole story. My parents took her to an emergency animal hospital immediately, where she is sedated and on pain meds. They've taken x-rays and nothing appears to be broken. She isn't putting any weight on one of her legs. Her hips and back look all right. They want to make sure she doesn't have a concussion and keep her overnight. She's on steroids to keep any swelling down.

I'm just so grateful that she was otherwise healthy. Her bone density must be good, and her limbs are strong. Her heart is in good shape. She's just blind - and 16. The supplement regiment and fancy food I have her on are incredible. Worth every penny, and then some.

On the way to the vet my mother was crying hysterically, and Tippy licked her hand all the way there. I just can't believe it. She was in so much pain and it still crossed her mind to make us feel better. She never whined. In fact, she was so calm my mother thought her spine was severed.

Now I'm going to drive down to see my little dogs. I waiting till I've calmed down to take off, hence this journal. I'm not crying, but I need to get my wits together before getting in a car; there are enough wretched drivers in Florida already. I'm too dazed to be mad at my parents for letting this happen. When the shit hits the fan there's no time for sadness or anger. So I'm just breathing.

My Westie is probably beside herself with worry. I've seen her when she thinks something's wrong with Tippy. She wails. It sounds human. I can't imagine how upset she is, and so scared. And I know Tippy will be happier if I'm with her. Besides, if the worst case scenario happens, I am going to be there. She's not leaving this planet with any doubts of how much she means to me.

To say I'm a dog person is an understatement. Tipper was the puppy my family got when I was 7. We were best friends within minutes. I remember how much she wriggled in the car on the way home, her little tail going a mile a minute as she frantically licked my face. She curled up with me on my bed the first night we had her.



My parents had said she was the family dog, but Tippy followed me everywhere and we did everything together. One day my mother ordered a dog tag off a box of Milkbone dog biscuits. She gave it to me when it arrived and said, "She's your dog." I looked at it. Tipper's name was on one side and mine was on the other. She was my dog. The 7-year-old me took that as the ultimate oath of responsibility.

Our area code changed, my address changed, but I still have that tag. She's my dog.

Yeah, so... I'm in shock right now, and I've never wished I could teleport so badly. Lari, I'm going to have to cancel Starbucks today. Nate, buying the my ticket has to be on hold for a couple more days. I'm sorry guys.

Edit: So a lot of stuff happened and I've been somewhat of a wreck for the last couple days. I saw the spot she fell from; it's absolutely incredible she survived, much less walked away from it. Most people would have broken several bones in a fall like that. The x-ray the emergency vet took showed a small fracture in her sternum and very severe spondylosis, meaning that the lower vertebrae in her back are fused from arthritis and inflammation. We had always assumed her hips hurt her from regular old arthritis, and no vet ever suggested spondylosis so we never checked for it.

There's good news though - Tippy was brought back to her longtime vet, who is a great doctor. He looked at the x-ray and said he doesn't know how she's even walking with spondylosis that severe, but he also doesn't know how she can fall off a second-story balcony and be fine either. He kept her overnight to watch her and called my mother this morning to say, "Well, you have a new dog. She's old, but she's new." She's up and moving around, groggy from the pain meds but definitely awake and functioning. It even sounds like she's a little stir-crazy from so much time in a cage at the vet. Now that we know she has spondylosis we can give her pain meds and an anti-inflammatory for it. The broken sternum is more minor than originally thought and should heal fine by itself. Everything else is intact. She's coming home today. I'm just in shock, but this time in a good way. And so happy. She's not out of the woods yet, but she's amazing. Amazing!