Dancing In The Dark in The eye of every storm

Doctor John Watson.
Doctor John Watson is a dog,
With floppy ears
and he smells really bad.

He is a doooooggggg.
Doctor John Watson.
Doctor John Watson is a dog.

Thanks for reading that. Now reread it to Bruce Springstein’s “Dancing In The Dark.” It’s become a lullaby I’ve sung to my basset hound almost nightly for the last five years.

Yeah. I have a dog. My facebox life and my tweetbox life know all about it, but my prosebox life, I’ve been silent on Doctor John Watson.

We call him “Watson,” but he’s smart, and he answers to “Doctor,” “John,” and “Watson,” or all combined. He can sit, stay, shake, roll-over, leap (“puppy frog”) and much more. Sometimes, when he wants to show off, we’ll make him Sit, and Stay in the kitchen, then walk into any other room of the house and hide a Treat. Then we say, to Watson, we say, “Go get it.”

And the Nose Knows. Every time, all the time.

True Story:

The Saturday after the ENT cut my ear off and reattached it, we took Dr. John Watson to the North (State) Basset Hound Shuffle, an event that raises money for the non-profit Basset rescue. Watson competed in such noble events as the ten yard dash, the sock race, longest ears, and loudest howl (he lost terribly in the last one, he doesn’t bark, nearly ever). He did place second in longest, floppiest ears. He got first in the sock race. Here’s a picture of him with his Prize.

Ten days ago, Doctor John Watson, who is seven, was miserable. He was also very drugged up. They removed two masses from his backside, near his tail. One Vet told us it was just fat deposits, but we didn’t feel right about it, and they didn’t feel like that to us. We took him to a new Vet, based on recommendations from co-workers of mine, and they determined they were cyst, or cyst like, and the only way to be sure was to remove them.

So that’s what happened in the life of Doctor John Watson on December 5th.

A week later, as I’m walking into my job at Major Airline, I get a call from Doctor Connor, because that’s his name, and Dr. Connor, he says, “What we removed from Doctor John Watson were in fact Tumors.” He went on to explain that Watson has a hair follicle condition where he will continuously develop tumors (or maybe not?) for the rest of his life, and they will have to be removed before they become cancerous.

The two that were removed cost us $924.56.

.....

He COULD have two more. Next week. A month from now. Tomorrow. A year from now. Never.

You see the uncertainty.

Personally, I’ve had six surgeries this year. My fiancee’ has fibromyalgia. It hasn’t exactly been easy for us, the last eleven months.

Today, one of my co-workers sent Watson flowers, attached with a toy bear. After retrieving my mail, and placing them on the counter in the kitchen, I broke down and cried. After collecting myself, I placed them on the floor, because they were HIS and not mine. He seemed to know. It was strange. He smelled them, and his tail wagged, and he looked up at me, and I lost it again.

Then, tears all over the tile, my shirt, and snot running everywhere, I laid down next to him on the kitchen floor, cherished that moment and swore I would never forget this or take him for granted again.

Last updated December 16, 2016