chicklet and mah on the bumpy road to feeling well.

chicklet is doing ok, she is suffering a bit of emotional trauma and mah is low after a bit of a bad day. the vet came back out and gave her more antibiotics and pain meds plus a diuretic to help with the fluid building up in her abdomen and hind leg.
removing a sheep's udder is similar to a woman having a mastectomy..it is a major surgical assault on the body and disrupts the delicate lymphatic system and this can cause fluid retention problems. chicklet feels like any being would feel after almost losing her life and being so critically ill.

both of these sweet, innocent girls went thru major traumatic events, just because they are animals does not mean that they are immune to some of the same kind of effects as humans in having gone thru life altering events.

i have human patients that i go and see and they feel anxious, unsettled, not themselves after a serious illness, surgery, or injury. some say they cry for no reason, are afraid to go out or feel disconnected from their former selves. but they can articulate the dis-ease inside that they feel and they can hear explanations on why things were done to them..ultimately to make them well.
animals however are victims. they are the mute and deaf sufferers who have to endure medical procedures without knowing the why or the how.
so in addition to any pain or discomfort...they to a certain degree suffer a hopeless and helpless fear and powerlessness without the ability that we have to understand what really is happening.

it is sad. and it is a struggle for them. if humans can feel brought so low knowing the reasons behind the traumatic medically needed blows...how much harder for those who have not a clue why all of this hard and difficult things are being done to them?

mah and chicklet will be fine but they need us to understand that just like our own species...traumatic life altering events are not just physical..they are also emotional and spiritual. it is not just about healing physically, it is about healing the wounds on the psyche too.

any creature ill, injured and vulnerable struggles to feel safe. animals do not suffer and then in a blink of an eye, everything is suddenly all right again. they have to heal the inside and outside of the body, and deep inside the mind and soul. they have to learn to adjust in all their parts. that bio/psycho/spiritual/emotional complexity is what makes every living creature a unique and diversified being..not just a body, nor just a mind, not just a heart or a soul but a combination of all parts of them that makes up the whole.

they don't need our sympathy as they make this journey back to their "normal." they don't need us to coddle and cuddle them which just reinforces their feelings of being vulnerable. they need us to understand their struggles and respect their need to heal and ultimately find their inner equilibrium.... to give them the time and space to reconnect with their temporarily misplaced selves.

and eventually they will both get there..just not quite yet.