dogs and cats and snakes, oh my!

dogs:  one of my irrational fears for weeks now has been that all my teeth are going to fall out.  one night the thought just popped into my head, "what would i do if all my teeth fell out?"  i've been worried about it off and on since then so imagine my shock and dismay when i found a tooth on the floor on sunday morning.  amazingly i never thought about it being mine, i knew it belonged to winston or maeve.  i found that it was winston's and that he has another couple of loose ones so we are off to the vet in the morning.  the thought has crossed my mind that my tooth fixation in some way caused this to happen but i'm not totally sold on that idea. he chews on everything and jumps off the bed and couch into and onto everything with pug abandon (never looking to see if he will land on the cat, the coffee table, my feet or the ever-present stacks of books piled all around this place.)  who knows what caused it but i'm trying very hard to accept that my mind didn't cause it.

cats:  i thought the tooth was maeve's at first because i found a growth, a knot, a "something" on her neck last week.  i almost hoped for a minute that she'd had an infected tooth and that it had fallen out and would now heal.  alas, the tooth is not hers and the knot is still there so i'm watching it to see if it changes and will face the vet with her next if need be.  it's probably a spider bite.  i have 2 new ones this week and stay covered in them this time of year (yet another hazard of living on a river!)

snakes:  noises are really bothering me these days, part of the hypervigilance that come with PTSD.  yesterday while i was reading on the couch with winston i heard an unidentifiable noise, a rattle, in the kitchen.  immediately i feared the worst.  A RATTLESNAKE.  in my kitchen!  i just knew it.  my heart nearly jumped out of my chest and i thought, "i'm glad maeve's outside, but how are winston and i going to escape?!"  i refused to look into the kitchen.  i was shivering and terrified.  i heard it again!  a minute later it clicked...ice melting in the sick.  i had poured out my ice water several minutes before and the ice was melting and moving around in the empty sink.  i couldn't make myself get up and go look but i calmed down a bit and convinced myself that we were okay.

still no luck sleeping and still waiting for my next doctors appointment on monday.  the "frequent cancellations" they guaranteed did not come to fruition so it looks like i'm not going to be able to move up my appointment.  typical!

grace and peace (and hopefully sleep)