Handling Disappintment

Today was ever so strange. I was booked in for surgery, so I took the day off with work. We arrived well before the consultation that was to take place before the operation, so we went to play in a nearby park. The three of us then got to the Medical Centre on time, and I went in to the consultation while Jo an Button waited outside.

After some preliminary questions, and before the physical examination, I started to get the feeling I wouldn’t be operated on today, so I asked the surgeon who confirmed that I wouldn’t. This was in direct conflict with what he had told me on the phone last week.

So a mere 10 minutes later, I walked back to reception, Jo and Button joined me, we got the paper work and left. We drove off to get lunch somewhere, ending up at the Seaford Hotel. We ordered food. All this while I had had this strange sensation that I couldn’t put my finger on.

I had set myself up for a recovery period, had said no to going to a one-day un-conference tomorrow as I’d be house-bound, only to find out it wouldn’t happen today. In the meanwhile I’d taken a whole day off work to come for a simple consultation.

I felt a little irritated, confused and somewhat lost. Not that I had to work out what to do with my now free weekend, but I’d prepared myself to be out of action for a while and that wasn’t the case. Further, the operation has been postponed to I-don’t-know-when and there’s some uncertainty hanging over me in that.

I didn’t handle it well, to be honest. I mean, there wasn’t any unwarranted behaviour as such, I didn’t fly off the handle, but I was emotionally irritated and it was affecting the whole family. I tried, as hard as I could, to see beyond that. There was, after all, nothing I could do about this situation. I knew the cause of my emotions, and when I know the cause I usually find it relatively easy to acknowledge and dismiss those emotions if I choose to, but this one was trying to stick around.

Then Jo suggested we go to the Pearcedale RSCPA to look at dogs, so off we went and met Olcan the Irish Wolfhound, Bruiser the Rhodesian Ridgeback, Lola the Kelpie and others, including a beautiful Healer. We also visited the cats and kittens. Even before we arrived my mood had lifted, but if it hadn’t, this trip was sure to have completed the transformation. There’s something about the energy of a dog that calms me. Cats are gorgeous. They’re cute. But dogs look at you, they see you, they feel you, they connect with you at an energetic level that I don’t think a cat ever could.

We’re still thinking about getting dogs. We’re not sure about it; while we love the idea, it would also make travel quite awkward. Now that I’m contracting, if I get the opportunity to work in another state or country for a few months and we take it, then we’d have to arrange care, our dogs would be unsettled, and of course we’d miss them terribly. All still to be worked out.

But one thing I took from today is the connection I have with them. I’d always considered myself a dog person, not a cat person, and when MooMoo joined our family I wondered whether I might have been too presumptuous, but I don’t think I was. Rather I think that MooMoo is a little dog like. She talks, she snuggles, the follows, she interacts. More so than most cats I’ve met.

So next time I’m feeling unliftable, perhaps I’ll just take a trip to the local RSPCA and talk to the animals.

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