Our Furry Dream Team to the Rescue

Dr. Buck

I am always struck by how intuitive our family pets are when someone in the family is feeling under the weather.

Whenever the kids are sick, both our dog Buck and two cats, Alle and Sparky, are somewhere in or around the bed, generally pinning Jordan and Jamie onto the bed by lying on top of the blankets that cover them.

When Jim recovered from knee surgery, Buck planted himself directly against Jim’s injured leg, while Sparky took great pleasure in riding the contraption that bent and straightened Jim's leg as Alle looked on disapprovingly.

Intern Sparky

Over the past few days, I was kindly treated by the fuzzy side of the Dralle medical team, each day noting the animals became slightly more stressed that I was not moving from my side of the bed.

Buck Buck the wonder dog found and brought to me every tennis ball he could find in the house and set them on the floor on my side of the bed, then promptly curled up at the foot of the bed.

R.N. Alle caring for Jordan ...

Alle, the eldest of our pets and self-proclaimed matriarch of the family, first walked the perimeter of the bed and meowed questioningly and tentatively, unsure if I would be spending another day in the sick bay. Once I didn’t move to pick her up, she immediately jumped onto the bed and curled up on my chest, rubbing her fluffy cheeks against mine while I stroked her back. After a few minutes, she climbed down and nestled in beside me under one of three comforters.

Last in line, Sparky the kitten was most confused, meowing plaintively from the floor, as if trying to explain the sun was far too high in the sky for me to still be under the covers, let alone with his brother and sister.

Once up on the bed, he immediately noted Alle and Buck had taken up their posts for the day. Without missing a beat, Sparky assumed his position on the top of my pillow, gently kneading it this way and that until the contours matched our shared needs. He then set his mind to rearranging my hair on the pillow before finally settling in, his head resting on top of mine, his long, sleek body drooped across my shoulder.

Pinned in place, I was too tired to read and not really interested in watching any sort of television that required mental processing as I knew I would be drifting in and out of sleep. The remote barely in reach, I watched an almost entire episode of “Clean House” before sliding into that weird daytime sleep, where you are not quite asleep enough to tune out what is going on around you, yet you are clueless as to the passage of time.

And as Jim and the kids continued to check in on me throughout the afternoon and evening, the furry nurses dutifully manned their posts, leaving briefly to do their business, grab a bite to eat and return to their patient.

And once again, I hope today is the last day I write from my king-size desk, under multiple comforters and flanked by a furry nursing staff. Enough is enough already…