"The Lord, in His wisdom,
gave us three things to make life bearable;
humor, hope and dogs.
But the greatest was dogs."
-Robyn Davidson
we almost lost our sweet lucy in the fall of 2021. as i reread this post i realized that this miracle was too good to NOT share so i'm posting it years later.
it happened as most emergencies do... at the worst possible time for an emergency to happen and as an accident. but we also found that God works miracles, not just for us, but those furry companions He's gifted us with.
one monday night in september of 2021 we had rolled into the 7:00 PM witching hour... in our household it means we've embarked on the final push with our kids for the night. they are usually on each others last nerve or done listening to us. our patience is on its last leg. we work really hard to get through from 7:00-7:45... reminding henley a million times to put her pajamas on and brush her teeth, keeping ophelia moving along and from distracting henley, and keeping leif from making the girls mad so that it all doesn't come crumbling apart. all of this while doing dinner dishes, cleaning the kitchen up and packing lunches for the next day. i always feel the deep partnership with kjaer during this hour. we are tired, we are weary... and yet he links arms with me and we encourage each other on to show up and remain calm for the last chaotic hour of the night.
so it was during this nightly routine we were standing in the kitchen working, calling to the girls to get out of the bathtub and chatting with leif that we saw lucy run by the window with something weird sticking out of her mouth. i figured she must've caught a squirrel or had a toy... i'm thankful kjaer was more attentive. i heard him say, "what is in lucy's mouth?" and he went outside.
i knew something was dreadfully wrong when leif's face went pale and he said, "i was trying to catch a raccoon but i think i just caught a lucy."
have you met my little leif? he is a budding outdoorsman. he loves fishing and setting traps for crayfish. a couple of afternoons a week that fall we would walk by the fields at school (henley would rollerskate and i would walk some laps to get some steps in) so that leif could dive through the tall grass and catch garter snakes. he is always concocting clever traps to catch animals. usually i know he's in a trap-making mood when i find my recycling bin tipped over and him sifting through containers and bottles to find the exact thing he needs.
... or just the can tipped over, recycling scattered about and no sign of children anywhere.
the problem with this amazing, unbridled curiosity and passion is he doesn't often think of repercussions. for example, this particular day he had snuck into his tackle box (which we've already talked to him many times about) and had found a small barbed fish hook. he then shoved it into the center of a chomps beef stick he had leftover from his hike the day before. this was attached to fishing line with a red bobber on the end and meticulously buried in sand so that only the beef stick was showing. leif was thinking of his fish hook like he knows it works with fishing. it snags the fish in the cheek... he catches it... unhooks it... and sets it free. he wasn't thinking about how a mammal's body is designed differently than a fish, or what would happen if he actually caught a mean old rotten raccoon or the ramifications if our sweet dog swallowed the hook.
kjaer came walking in with fishing line and a red bobber... i was still registering what was happening but kjaer knew. he has spent countless times unhooking fishing hooks from tree limbs and putting tackle boxes in timeout because they were meant for only fishing trips.
he knew what had happened before i did.
initially there was that anger that parents have... the "HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE TALKED ABOUT THIS?!?" anger. it stems from fear... right? like this time, someone might actually be hurt because of being disobedient. it's not just about another broken fishing pole or snapped line. lucy's life was at risk.
we started looking for the hook outside... telling leif we needed to know every single detail. that his honesty was important. leif felt terrible... he knew this was due to his choices and you could tell he wished so badly he could take them back. we slowly trudged through the backyard with flashlights in hand... and we couldn't find any trace of the bait... which meant we couldn't locate the hook.
meanwhile, lucy, in her ever persistent drive to catch a beam of light, chased our flashlight rays as we scoured the backyard for that hook.
that freaking, barbed hook.
she was acting totally normal. i wanted to believe she had miraculously missed it. but deep down i knew better... leif is REALLY good at baiting hooks.
we finished putting the kids to bed while lucy did her normal lucy things... laying by our feet during our chapter book, hopping up on henleys bed while we said goodnight to the girls, trotting down to leif's room and sprawling herself across his floor while we said goodnight to him.
usually when i walk out of leif's room, i always rub her belly... even though she's going to immediately follow me upstairs to continue her nighttime routine next to my feet. this night was no different. i stopped down to give her one of her many nightly belly rubs and heard leif say sheepishly, "i hope lucy doesn't die because of me."
all i could respond with was, "me too, buddy. me too."
we had prayed together in leif's room... that lucy would be ok. but i felt an impending dread. our night was just getting started.
kjaer and i did a second flashlight round in the backyard, lucy quick at our heals to catch the beams of light. not a single trace.
we sat on the couch as lucy plopped herself in her second to last spot before her bedtime. she sprawled out across our area rug in front of our large glass doors and snoozed while we conversed over tea. only this time it wasn't about the school day or our normal night time banter. this time it was about what the right thing to do was.
i texted my sister in law... a vet. i was trying to play it cool... but she knew right away this wasn't some hum drum thing. she called me immediately and gave me the wisest counsel i could have ever asked for.
it's a terrible thing to say money was one of the first things that popped into my mind. like... this is going to be an emergency visit to an emergency vet. those vets are not cheap. maybe we can try the ol' wait and see approach. she snapped me out of that place when she said the best thing to do was get an xray... that it would cost around $400 but then we would know either way. we'd either walk away knowing for sure she hadn't swallowed the hook (and not having to worry all week) or we'd learn how bad the damage was. the good thing was, she reminded me, that fishhooks are metal... so it would definitely show up on an xray.
then we had a stare down. kjaer and i. who was going? because, you know, it's never convenient on a work night to go to the emergency room.
kjaer went... bless his sweet soul. he takes such good care of us and i think he knew i was about to lose my ever loving mind. during that time i was in such a fragile place anyway. i was tackling working full time for the first time in eight years and a newly diagnosed autoimmune disease left me exhausted and he knew it. i love that man.
i also reminded him that i'm the spender in the relationship so i would probably spend our life savings to save our pooch. he'd be more diplomatic and not put us in the poor house.
he came home within a half an hour. they had a two hour wait just to get an xray so he had to leave her there and was able to come home. he stayed up and waited for the phone call while i slept. we had already decided he shouldn't work the next morning... so he busied himself writing sub plans. around midnight we got the call. the fishhook was lodged deep down in her esophagus. they'd have to do an endoscopy. kjaer gave them the go ahead and crawled into bed with me, whispering that she was going under anesthesia and hopefully they'd scope it out. there was also some sleepy conversation about what it was going to cost us... and it was NOT cheap. but it was still under our threshhold.
around 3 AM the phone rang.
the doctor doing the endoscopy called to say she had been trying for 3 hours and it hadn't budged. she began asking us if we would consider surgery... an endeavor that would cost over $10,000. i sat on the other side of the the conversation, trying to pick up scraps from kjaer's steady voice. my heart fell when he repeated that number back... "$10,000?" i knew... we were going to have to put her down because that number on top of what we were already paying was astronomical. had i been working full time for the past 8 years maybe we wouldn't have blinked... but i had just started the month prior, and we had just started to have some considerable breathing room financially. but not enough to make that an easy check to write. he hung up the phone and told me that the dr. was going to try for a couple more hours, but that we needed to start thinking of other options... like surgery or putting her down. i began to weep over our dog.
there comes a moment where you face how much you love something. no one is immune to this... at some point you will be forced to reckon with losing someone you love and you will find that your love runs for them deeper than you anticipated.
lucy had quietly wriggled her way into my heart. sadly, it took me a little longer to connect to lucy than the rest of the family members because she was the dog we got to replace trooper... my original amazing fur baby. but i sat there grieved. i realized that she has become my companion and friend... that she dances happily when she sees me, gets up early in the morning during my quiet time for her neck scratches, lays precisely under or next to wherever i'm seated so that the tops of my feet rest on her strong and sturdy back. she guards our house, loves our kids, heckles our chickens and has never done anything to warrant an early death over something so ridiculous.
and then the realization came crashing down on me. if this dr. couldn't get the hook out, we would have to put her down... and leif would forever carry the weight of lucy dying because of his poor choice. this thought was to great to bear. i sat in the dark and clasped hands with kjaer and we prayed outloud while i wept. i can't remember what exactly we said... but the gist was "we know you love animals too because you made them. please let her miraculously cough this hook like the big fish coughed up jonah. she doesn't deserve this, Lord. we need a miracle. please don't let leif have to carry this burden for the rest of his life." we pleaded. i knew the odds were against lucy and us.... but i know too that God has shown up for me in the darkest pits of my life. so if He could meet me there... He could meet us here too. even if she was just a dog.
i couldn't go back to sleep now. my heart was full of worry. this is how a mama gets when one of her tribe goes down. the worry is greater than the need to sleep. i immediately called in for work and began emailing my teachers i support. my world was stopping for the day as we held our breath.
by 6 am kjaer got the call that the doctor had still been unsuccessful. they were going to wake lucy up and have another dr. try again later in the day. she promised that they wouldn't charge us for two endoscopies but asked us again to consider the surgery.
it felt a little like living in a nightmare.
i busied myself until it was time to wake the kids up. i broke the news to them. lucy wasn't here because we had decided to take her to the hospital to see if she had swallowed the hook. leif maintained his composure but his questions told me he was full of guilt and shame. he knew it was on him and it broke my ever loving heart every time he said it. i didn't want it to be because of him. i wanted desperately to rescue him from the pain, to make it not hurt, to erase the shame and the guilt. henley's eyes welled with tears as she sobbed i don't want another dog mom. apparently she takes after her mama and jumps to the worst case scenario. we told them the best thing to do that day was go to school... that if something terrible was going to happen we would come and get them. and we reminded them to pray and give their fear to God... He loves Lucy too. He handcrafted that beautiful, brindle coat, her cold black nose and her crookity ear everyone adores.
kjaer and i drove the kids to school and dodi (bless her) took ophelia to pre-k. we came back home and settled in for the phone call from the next doctor. we drank coffee, made banana pancakes and bacon and sat on our patio. we kept praying and noticing how much we missed our lucy-lou rolling around in the grass and basking in the sun. i kept thinking about how i just couldn't picture life without her... everything felt so bleak. my heart didn't know how it could suffer the loss of her and the grief of our children.
around 9 AM the second dr. called. again... i pieced things together while kjaer talked with her. she had previously practiced in galveston, tx... where she had removed tons of fish hooks. in fact, she had never NOT gotten a fish hook out of a dog.
(MIRACULOUS!!!)
my heart started jumping. it couldn't be!
she warned kjaer, this fish hook was different and more difficult than ones she had seen before. so she didn't want to get our hopes up. she asked again about surgery. kjaer told her we wouldn't be doing the surgery. she asked, "because of the money?" he answered back yes... and also that we were worried if the recovery would be brutal. i connected it to my dad's almost-surgery back while he was fighting for his life from cancer. doctors had often talked about doing an esophageal surgery with him, boasting promises of extended life/normal life. my mother, being a nurse with over 40 years of experience (at the time... she just retired 52 years to the day of her first day!), said this was often not the case. the quality of life would have been terrible if he had done it and most patients suffered for the rest of their lives. i equated lucy's surgery to this... would we be doing something that would possibly just make her life worse to be selfish and keep her with us? the doctor assured us that, no, she would have a 2 week recovery but they anticipated a full return to normal life. but we knew it would still be foolish to spend $10000 on a surgery.
she replied back, "we have a private donation that we think you qualify for that would cover all of the costs of surgery."
(SAY WHAT?!?)
she said they had a private donor who had given a lump sum of money under the strict guidelines that it must be for a family who couldn't spend the money on the surgery, with a healthy dog who had a good prognosis.
you guys... i know it isn't like lucy spit the hook up... but THAT was pretty miraculous. God had covered ALL of the bases. He had sent a doctor who has removed fish hooks regularly... she JUST HAPPENED to be the doctor on duty that day. and then a private donor who would pay for the surgery if she couldn't.
i wept again.
when prayers are answered so blatantly, you just can't help yourself.
she hung up after clarifying with kjaer that she would confirm with the donor we were the right fit and that lucy's 2nd endoscopy would begin at 2:00PM.
we were both so relieved we could hardly see straight. we went to bed exhausted but hopeful and slept the day away.
when we woke up, we went to pick the kids up from their various places. kjaer went to get leif and henley and i went to get ophelia. kjaer had called to tell me that they were putting lucy under while we were driving. the slow motion minutes ticked by as we tried to do our 'normal" routine. twenty minutes later kjaer called, with cheers and shouts of leif and henley in the background, because the doctor had successfully removed the hook with the endoscopy.
bringing lucy home was epically wonderful and miraculous... and we all knew it. we buried our faces in her fur, scratched her belly and gave her, what leif calls, too many extra kisses. she was home... she'd still be here with us.
you guys... i have experienced grace and peace on the deepest pits of my life because of God. time and time again i've cried out in fear, in pain, or just out of sheer exhaustion and He has showed up. sometimes like a lover's whisper in my ear, like the bible describes in the original Hebrew when elijah was in a cave (I Kings 19:9). sometimes louder than the roar of the fire i'm standing in (daniel 3:21-27). He is a God full of grace because He is the author of grace Himself.
as Anne LaMott once said, "God: what a nut!"
so the next time you find yourself desperate and weeping... whether over a family member with cancer, the loss of a job, a marriage that's falling apart, or even a pet who might not make it... whatever it might be. "Cast all of your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you." (I Peter 5:7). He may be a nut for giving us His recklessly beautiful grace... but only because He's a nut about you. He made you, you are His and what you think and feel matters to Him.
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| The verse that we have walked by daily for the last year on our way out the door. |
