I felt this too good to be true feeling meeting Gordon at age 37, with how it was just easy and felt right with us. The other shoe would certainly drop as soon as I admitted out loud how truly happy I was that I had found my person.
No other shoe dropped besides wedding shoes.
I started talking out loud about doing this trip down the Pan Am a year before we left. Always some fear behind my exterior wall, scared that it sounded too good to be true, to quit our jobs and take off south in a van for endless travel was certainly going to come crashing down at some point right?
It didn't.
A good friend of ours wanted to rent our house out while we were gone. Surely that was too good to be true and would fall through right?
It happened.
I had these same feelings about this dreamy Costa Rican house sit, that it seemed too good, too ideal. But I thought it would fall through, not that it would wind up blood soaked.
Better not get too happy or crash bam, some little green devil will come take it away. You didn't deserve to be so lucky silly girl! Well we've had our first real emergency on the road this weekend. And the I knew it was too good to be true feelings flooded in.
I'll start this story out with everyone is okay. It was a lovely Saturday morning at our too good to be true house sit in Costa Rica. We had a morning walk after a healthy breakfast after our 8 perfect hours of sleep waking up to birds singing and the sun evenly lighting the pretty white flowy curtains. Gordon and the dogs walked me the 20 minutes to my yoga class, then met me 2 hours later at the river by our house for our daily cold plunge. Ahhhhhh!
Us too gooders walked back smiling from the river (our favorite spot) and started up a shakshuka lunch I was drooling over as we haven't made it in so long. The dogs were happily playing on the porch and in the yard. We talked about cracking a beer for lunch (even though we rarely drink before late afternoon) as it was just a perfect Saturday. I decided to head outside to have the dogs work on their tricks with some extra cheese chopped up for lunch. We've done this exact practice of our tricks many many times, sit, down, shake, leave it were perfectly performed by the boys about 7 feet apart outside.
Afterwards, I turned to walk inside and check on lunch while Gordon was still outside and we heard a scuffle and yelled at the dogs. Gus had left a piece of cheese (maybe he didn't see it) and Smokey thought it was his and crossed probably 10 ft to get it and Gus was in the way. Chomp! I ordered Smokey off the porch and Gus came inside. I sat on the floor to give him a big hug and that's when I noticed his throat / neck was spurting blood. Bright red blood.
I yelped at Gordon that Gus was really hurt, come look. Gordon looked and calmly said, 'we need to go to a vet right away.' I said 'I think we need to apply pressure to the wound' and scrambled to find a smaller towel that could be blood soaked. Gordon held it while my shaky hand tried to dial the numbers of a vet we had listed by our home owners. I couldn't think clearly. I could only imagine we needed to get in the car right away as Gus was going to lose a lot of blood. I imagined him deflating.
It came to me then to reach out to Angus and Tania, some friends we had met that also rescued dogs and I knew were tough resourceful people. We called them and thank god they answered and said get in the car and start driving to town (a half hour away) and we'll find a vet.
The roads here are really steep and rocky and muddy. We heard from Tania that she was still working on finding a vet that would take us on a Saturday afternoon as most were closed of course. Two or three strikes, she finally messaged 'go to Pelican Vet, they are waiting for you.'
We found the vet and parked and crossed the street with no leash to open doors waiting and taking us straight into the exam room. We later learned that this angel of a vet held up a surgery to wait for us. Thank god, within minutes Gus was put under and onto the table to get stitched up. They saw me tearing up as I left the room and said 'he's gonna be okay.' Gordon and I hugged and shuddered.
One and half anxious hours later we saw our boy stumble drunkenly out of the urgent care room. He was okay! I still didn't believe it was really true. The vet then patiently answered all our questions even when his office was closed and I'm sure he wanted to get to his weekend. The bill for this care wasn't discussed once, and I was okay with that as no matter the cost I would pay it for our beloved dog. SO unlike the USA. Anesthesia, antibiotics, a drain was put in his neck, pain killers, after hours trauma care and guess what our bill came to? $142. This would have easily been $2k at home.
We are all okay. We have cordoned off the bedroom so Gus can recover in peace. We have a rotation of dog outside vs inside time. There are two of us, we can work thru this and take good care of both dogs. Gus needs 3 days with his drain in him and 8 days with stitches. The drain is washed out by us every couple of hours with a chamomile tea we make by instructions of the vet. Who knew chamomile was good at flushing wounds? Not I.
We have 3 more weeks left on this house sit, and aren't sure if it's fair to Gus to stay, we may need to let him recover here keeping the former friends apart until the stitches come out. We are going tomorrow to buy a muzzle at the suggestion of the homeowner that Smokey wear it at all times. I've asked myself if we should be having this adventure with Gus - is it fair to him? We can do a better job protecting him surely. It breaks my heart for sure.
While we sit around sad this happened, the thought 'of course it was too good to be true' has crossed my mind many times. That I should have known better that something bad would happen, as a day earlier I said I think this is the most relaxed I've ever been in my life.
But you know what. That line of thinking isn't serving me any more. I'm bigger than that and we are stronger than that. This house sit IS amazing and SHIT happened.
Gordon and I handled it, we tag teamed, he drove like a badass on thunder storming roads, I held Gus's neck and the communications to find an open vet, he stayed calm and was there when we needed him, I helped calm him later and we both just supported each other and Gus through it. It could have been so much worse.
Sadly, it probably won't be our last emergency on the road, and it really shows me we will handle what comes our way and stick together. I can't control a lot of things on this trip, but we can control how we are with each other in tough times, and knowing we can handle whatever comes our way means that things can be true AND good. And sometimes they turn to pouring chamomile down a tube in your dog's neck and terrified of the dog you are watching.
Dishtowel neck Gus decided I can allow myself to feel that things are truly good. For gratitude is the antithesis of feelings that it's too good to be true. And every moment I'm thankful for Gus and Gordon. And our lives on the road.
If you want to see what happened scroll wayyyyyy down. If you're squeamish like me, look at Gordon's happy Frog post right before this one.
