Warning: This post contains graphic photos

This time of year is usually spent prepping things for the holidays. We’re usually planning to gather together at Jordan’s parents for Thanksgiving and excited to get together with our families for Christmas. Unfortunately, we have been unable to do that this year. For the first time ever, we cooked our own Thanksgiving dinner.

Here was our Thanksgiving menu for this year.

Our puppy, Lola, had a horrible accident on Thanksgiving. We had the Macy’s Parade on in the living room, our house smelled like turkey, and Jordan and I had been in the kitchen prepping dishes for dinner listening to our Christmas playlist. Ranger, our other puppy, and Lola were outside playing in our fenced in back yard. Suddenly Lola came running whining like I’ve never heard before. I had stepped into the living room to see the parade on tv and ran into the kitchen and saw Jordan standing with both of his hands on his head and he was pale. He kept saying, “I don’t know what happened!” over and over again. I looked down and saw Lola’s leg barely attached and remember seeing lots of blood. I grabbed both of Jordan’s shoulders and said, “She has to go to the hospital right now.” I called our vet but because it was a holiday, our call went straight to the hospital 20 miles away. When they answered I told them our puppy had gotten hurt and that we were on our way. Once Jordan and Kylan had left, I went outside to where our son, Koby, said she had gotten hurt. I found a bolt that had her hair on it and blood on the ground, just where he said it had happened.

Kylan wanted to go with Jordan so they rushed out the door. I’ll never forget Jordan calling me on their way there and saying, “I don’t know if she’s going to make it.” He said when someone came out to the car to get her, she looked at him and said, “Wow, you all really under sold it.” We had never seen anything like it.

They sent Jordan and Kylan back home while she went into emergency surgery. At that point we were just praying she could make it through surgery. When Jordan’s phone rang a couple hours later, my stomach dropped. I was so worried about what they were going to tell us, but thankfully they told us she made it out of surgery and that we could pick her up once the anesthesia started to wear off. She was home before dinner time that day. She was pitiful, but we were so happy to have her home. She had drain tubes and had stitches all the way around her leg.

For more than a week after her accident, I felt like we were so stressed. She ended up pulling out one of her drain tubes, even with a cone around her neck. Some stitches came apart and she had a gaping hole in her leg that the vet tried telling us was from where she had pulled her other drain out, although she never even had a drain tube in that spot. When I ended up rushing her back to the vet the next morning, they ended up doing another emergency surgery- just 5 days after her first surgery.

No more than 24 hours later, even after her second surgery, the hole reappeared. I took her to another vet to get a second opinion, and they agreed that it would just have to try to heal on its own since two surgeries were unable to hold it together. It’s in a really sensitive spot, so every time she squats to pee it stretches the hole. She is currently “crate resting” and has been since her last surgery. She’s doing great with it so far. She has a routine so she knows what to expect. She knows when I get downstairs for her medicine, she gets to come out. She will take a few steps to the door and look up at the door knob because she knows it’s time to potty after she takes her medicine. When we go back inside I sit in the floor with her and she will lay right next to me and will let me pet her for awhile. As soon as she gets some loving, eats some dog food, and gets a drink of water, she goes back into her crate. They put her on a stronger antibiotic and it has made all the difference.

As of today, it’s been thirteen days since her second surgery and she’s doing great! She has lots of energy and her leg is healing really well. She’s even been playing when she comes out of her crate. She has been going to the vet weekly and this week the veterinarian will determine whether or not he wants to remove her staples and stitches.

I wish I had gotten a photo of the moment when one of our dear friends showed up at our house and asked if she could pray over Lola with us. She knocked on our door with a box that contained a week’s worth of dinners because she knew how much money we had spent on vet bills and medicine for Lola. She went downstairs with us, loved on our girl, and cried as she prayed over her alongside us. I am so grateful for the friendships I have in my life.

One of my other best friends, who just so happens to be one of Koby’s teachers, graciously volunteered to keep Koby during the week our schools went virtual because it was so overwhelming for him to adjust to the change in his routine and also difficult for him to log on to each meeting with his teachers at his scheduled times. She took him out to breakfast every morning and helped him complete his schoolwork each day while I worked.

My co-worker sent us an egift card for pizza a few weeks ago just because she knew we were exhausted and losing sleep over Lola. I have some of the best friends in the entire world, along with other people who are true blessings.

Since my last post, Ranger played in snow for the first time! That same day was when Lola had her second surgery, so she didn’t get to experience it. I’m hoping we get more snow sometime this winter so we can see her reaction.

Work has been going great, considering all of the uncertainties we face each and every day with in-person learning. I have been able to participate in professional development opportunities and love the people I am blessed enough to work with during this unpredictable year. We were blessed by the school board with a “hazard pay” bonus and our superintendent has been incredible throughout this pandemic.

Through all of the troubling times we have experienced this year, as a nation and as a family, I still can’t help but to feel so grateful for all that we’ve been given. I hope that even if you were unable to be with the ones you love the most this Thanksgiving, that your heart was full of thankfulness. There’s so much to be thankful for and if you’re reading this, I am thankful for you.