In Sickness and in Health

Life took on a surreal feel for me this week.  I was sick for most of it.  Just a cold, but a notably severe one, so I was out of the running for dog walks, let alone my own workouts.  Because we have to worry about my mother-in-law coming in contact with anyone contagious with anything, I spent a lot of time isolated upstairs.  The week has a hazy sort of lost feel to it, like I was disjointed and removed from things.  Including the dogs.

The dogs weren't neglected by any means.  The spouse probably was.  He had the burden of everything: their daily walks, their feeding, his mom's care.  And the cats.  Who are still trying to vie for position.  Tum Tum actually may have given it up - at least for now.  She's spent the day laying in her current favorite perch on top of a wardrobe along the basement stairs so she can harass the dogs when they go up and down.  As far as I know she's not once tried to enter Molly's domain to harass her, eat her food, use her litter box or just stare menacingly at her.  Maybe Tum Tum's caught my cold...  But before today, she was fully on it, so you'd hear the MIL calling for her son to come kick Tum Tum out of the room, and then replenish the food she'd stolen or clean up the kitty litter they'd stirred up.   He hasn't had much downtime.  Which is why he just snuck off to bed before 10 with both playoff baseball and Sunday Football on.

There's hardly anything to write about as a result.  No adventures, but no real misadventures.  But I do realize how many living beings in this house are relying on two non-spring chickens to take care of them.  We're one flu outbreak away from total disaster.

But, with not much energy to do much else, I was trying to decide whether or not the dogs knew I was sick or just absent.  A nearly life-long migraine sufferer, I've had dogs surround me a lot during more down hours than I'd like to have spent.  I've always relied on dogs loving on me and cuddling with me when I was sick - and even with a pack of eight, they always seemed to be pretty aware when I was down and out.  Not always, but on balance...  Yet, I think science would tell us that dogs don't have the mental capacity to know sick from anything else.  Maybe there's a smell, depending upon what it is.  But I don't know that I agree with science.  I think there is symbiosis that develops between dogs and their humans with enough time spent together that they do know something is wrong - even if they don't entirely understand it.  And that the pets are sympathetic to it and worry about us.  Sirius is a good case study.  He's been pretty sure to stay close, even making sure he followed me into the bathroom to watch me brush my teeth and then coming back into the bedroom.  He did demand more attention than usual whenever I did show any signs of life this week - demanding I play tug of war or wanting a belly rub, but when I was at my worst, he just lay quietly on the dog bed, a loyal and quiet watcher.  Maybe they don't truly know how to define "sad" or "sick", but they know when things are right and/or wrong with their humans.  I think they are very in tune to that.  I remain convinced that no one loves you like your dog, but I'm not really so sure that anyone understands you better than they do either.  Whatever the case, I've got Geddy warming my feet, Tum Tum cuddling on my lap, and Sirius at my side.  Who could ask for anything more?

I've had lots of company as I tried to recoup