Waiting Impatiently

I took Argo to the vet on Friday to have a few bumps checked out. He has pretty bad allergies, and gets skin irritations as a result. One bump was a little too close to his incision site for comfort (he had cancer in February). Apparently, the bump I worried about was just a doggie zit, but the bump I wasn’t worried about looked “a little suspicious” to our vet and “given his history” warranted a biopsy. The biopsies take about a week to come back, and the waiting is killing me.

I did just fine over the weekend, telling myself it was all going to be okay, keeping busy cleaning the basement and the garage, listening to my iPod compulsively, coming up with an amazing idea for my folk singer project. I did everything in my power to put it out of my head. But today, I’m having a hard time keeping my mind on other things. Argo keeps doing impossibly cute things, like begging for blueberries (which are probably his favorite food ever) or cuddling up with J while he’s working, or watching me bake zucchini muffins like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen, and all I can think is do not take this dog from me. I need him.

Argo is such a damn good friend. When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to have a dog, so I had an imaginary one. Her name was Star and she was big, black and furry and actually looked a lot like Argo, except she had a white star-shaped spot on her forehead (hence the name). Star was pretty incredible. Since she was imaginary, she never used the cat’s litter box as a snack bar, puked on the living room rug, or chewed any one’s wedding shoes right before their wedding . But as great as Star was, Argo is a million times better. And he’s real, which is totally an added bonus. Star never licked tears off my chin, scared away the people who go door to door peddling politics I don’t subscribe to, or slept next to me to keep me warm when I was sick.

I need this phone call to come soon, and I need it to be good news. Thankfully, our vet is incredible and promised she’d be watching the fax machine religiously and call me the second there’s news. In the meantime, I’m going to pull out the iPod again and do my damnedest to stop thinking. But if you’re not trying to turn off your brain, think some good thoughts for us, okay?