Saturday, January 14, 2006

A family tragedy

We had a family tragedy this week. Wednesday afternoon, at approximately 3:00 p.m. my wife was out in the yard with our dog when he had some kind of fit and attacked her.

There's nothing like sitting in a newspaper office and hearing the police scanner call out your home address.

The dog mangled her right hand so severely she lost her index finger. There was too much vascular damage. They couldn't save it. Thursday night the surgeon amputated the finger, including the knuckle. He said in a case like that, it's better to remove the knuckle; otherwise it will just get in the way of the dexterity of the other fingers.

The surgeon said it was the worst mangled finger he's ever seen apart from getting caught in machinery.

Solace (our dog) must have had some kind of stroke or seizure. He was a good dog. I'm sorry he had to leave this way - but he still had a good life. Just a few weeks ago he actually caught and killed one of those pesky squirrels that tormented him in the back yard. I wonder whether he developed some kind of blood lust.

Under Texas law, he will be in quarantine for ten days before being euthanized to see whether he develops rabies. He had his shots, so that's probably not going to be a problem. As to what caused the problem - God only knows. It doesn't matter after all this.

Patricia was able to come home Friday morning, and she is home recuperating. She is not in much physical pain, but there's a lot of healing to be done.

1 comment:

  1. Yikes! Sympathy all around, Lou. It's hard to fathom such a distressing situation.

    ReplyDelete

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