Good Things Happen To Bad People

I knew when I wrote that nasty Blog about Magnus Nicolin and Helena Wong of Essselte recently that some higher power would punish me. He/she did. It was awful. My 12-year-old Maltese, (her birthday is today—Sept 26th) went into congestive heart failure last week and nearly suffocated to death. On Monday morning the cardiologist at the Animal Medical Center called to say that Coco had an hour to live. Her lungs were filling with fluids and they were having a difficult time draining them. The meds weren’t working. Reluctantly, the doctors increased the diuretics and other drugs to dangerously high levels in order to see some positive reactions. They were very worried about the impact this was going to have on Coco’s other organs: help the heart, and possibly destroy her kidneys. She had been on oxygen for almost 24 hours. Eliot, my daughter Whitney and I held a vigil at the hospital till Coco showed signs of improvement.

Since Coco was in ICU we were only allowed to visit her every two hours. We waved, blew kisses and gave her the high sign to cheer her on. She was in a fog. The tear in her mitral valve that caused all this had turned this cute little fluff ball into an old lady over night. Coco looked exhausted and her breathing was very labored. She stared at us with those familiar round saucers that said, "Don’t count me out yet."

The three of us got the same vibes. Coco was sending a message that said, "Time out. Let me recoup. I still have a lot of living to do." I sobbed myself to sleep the first night she got sick. I was having a meltdown. Poor little helpless Coco. Poor little helpless me. There was nothing in the world that I could do for her. What a horrible feeling.

To complicate matters, Eliot and I were due in Miami 42 hours later for a business cocktail party we had organized to launch the audition casting calls for the new Dotster Dots, a search for company spokes models for our client, Dotster. Visit www.dotster.com to learn about their suite of services involving domain registrations, web hosting and creating web sites.

On the third day of this nightmare, we received good news. Coco was 70 percent better. By the fourth day, while we were still in Miami, Coco was taken off of oxygen. The doctors were even talking about her going home! Everyone was celebrating. Our daughter Whitney called to tell us to get on the next flight home. I think Eliot and I flew without ever entering an airplane. We were floating on cloud 9.

Whitney was a tremendous help. She visited Coco regularly while we were away and sent us digital photos of the two of them from her telephone. Once Coco came off of oxygen, Whitney was allowed to take her into one of the examination rooms for a half hour playtime. During those precious minutes, Whitney took pictures of Coco and herself and emailed them to us so we could see the great progress our dog was making. Although the bandages on her legs that kept the intravenous needles in place were still visible, as well as shaved bald spots where other meds were injected, we were overjoyed at just being able to see Coco doing so well.

This Rosh Hashanah is a very happy one for us. Coco is back with the family and has returned to work with me. She is still a little fragile and her appetite is not quite what is should be. We are hopeful that she will get better everyday.

So what is the lesson that we learned here? Life can be worse than dealing with Magnus and Helena.