Poetry, Children's Stories, Playwriting and more...

"Any powerful idea is absolutely fascinating and absolutely useless until you decide to put it to work."

-from the Messiah's Handbook by Richard Bach.

I began blogging last March to build my creative writing platform and since then, I've veered off course quite a bit.  Today, I am roping myself in.  I want to stay on track and buckle down.  

In the Blogathon 2012 blog roll my name and blog appear high on the list, which is great for driving traffic to my blog, and the description that follows is: "Poetry, children's stories, playwriting, and more..."  I examined the description for a minute, thought about my actual blog, and came up with a simple conclusion.  I am here to tell stories.  Whether they come out as poems, plays, kid's books, or simple life accounts, that is what I do.  

Therefore, today I am going to tell a story.  I consider it a Part 2, to the story of her jumping out of my car six months ago. That moment literally changed my life course forever.

So, without further ado...

Lucy's Surgery

by Amanda Steinhaus

Meet Lucy.

Lucy is my four and a half year old pure bred, black lab.  

She was the runt of the litter, but still managed to grow up big and strong! 

She weighs almost 75 pounds and loves to eat!  There's nothing Lucy won't do for a treat! 

She can sit, lay down, roll over, shake, high five, and even says "I Love You!"  

Lucy loves hiking, chasing squirrels, going for rides in the car and she especially loves swimming!

Well,  one day  when we were driving to California from Missouri, a picnic basket fell in Lucy's seat in the car, and she got spooked!  She couldn't get out from under the picnic basket, so without thinking, she JUMPED OUT OF THE WINDOW AT 80  MILES PER HOUR!!!

You can read that story here.

This is the story of what happened next.

Lucy healed from all of her wounds from that tragic jump in about three weeks - all except one.  Lucy partially tore her anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, that day and anytime we would go to the park, or the beach, Lucy would limp around on that leg for the remainder of the evening.  The vet gave me some pain pills to give her when this happened, and that was the routine for about five months.

Well, one day when my nephew was visiting me for his Spring Break vacation, we took Lucy to the dog beach to play with us.  All was going well, until Lucy emerged from the ocean limping more than usual, and when I took a closer look, she was NOT using her back right leg AT ALL!!!

We went straight to the vet and did x-rays.  The vet also sedated Lucy and did a special "shelf" test, in which he moved her knee in ways it shouldn't normally move.  The news was bad.  Lucy tore her ACL. 

I searched all over town and found the best place to have surgery - VCA Animal Specialty Group.  They did surgeries like this all day, so I didn't feel so scared when I took Lucy in for her exam.  In fact, I was already prepared to leave her in case they had an opening to do the surgery that day!

The specialist looked at her x-rays, felt her knee and confirmed my family vet's diagnosis.  Lucy needed surgery.  I said a prayer and left her there.  It was hard, but I knew she was in the best care possible.

Here I am saying, "bye" to my baby girl.

When I picked Lucy up the next morning, she was wearing a seriously cool bandage, that looked more like a cast and had a sweet little butterfly sticker on it!  Lucy could care less, since she was on plenty of pain medicine and just wanted to go home and lay in her bed.  

Here she is when I got her home,

The recovery time for an ACL surgery is 8 weeks!  Lucy is not allowed to run free, walk without a leash, jump or play until she is fully healed.  After one week, we got her cast off.  After two weeks, we got her stitches out.  At four weeks, we got an x-ray of her healing and the vet specialist told me that I could start taking her on ten minute walks!!!  We have been doing that for almost a week now.  

Here's what Lucy's knee looks like in the x-ray - full of screws and hinges to help it move.  The vet calls it a "bionic knee."

Pretty cool, huh?  

Lucy is starting to use it when she goes on her walks, and I even saw her itch herself with it last night, which is good because she is using it!!!

She has begun to grow her hair back where they shaved it off for the surgery and her scar is starting to look less like Frankenstein everyday!  

We have about three more weeks before our final set of x-rays, so until then, Lucy must lay low, go on her short walks, stay on a leash and avoid stairs at all costs.

She is doing good, is still getting used to her new knee, but is on the road to recovery!

As hard as it is to see those sad brown eyes begging me to go play, I know that this period of recovery is very important for the quality of life she will have for the rest of her life.  

One thing is for sure...

Lucy is a survivor!