Unwinding from the Weekend...

Well, if you had asked me 7 days ago what I thought this weekend would have been like, I certainly would have said something other than what it actually was....

For how the weekend started, it is actually ending OK. It started on Friday morning with Chelsie's injury diagnosis of a torn ACL and me realizing exactly what this means, what it will take to get her rehabbed and healthy, accepting she will have to go back in a crate for the time being....As I said, I have no problem with the crate, it is just not part of our daily routine any more. It is part of our agility routine, and that is about it. I now have a crate in the kitchen, a crate in the bedroom and a crate in the car. I bought a ramp to get her in and out of the car, and tonight, we practiced going up and down that ramp, which she did with no problem. I was initially overwhelmed at the prospect of all of this, but have slowly taken my own advice to "reach out, grab on and get a grip". I still wish this hadn't happened of course, but am dealing better with it tonight.

While I have been emotionally drained most of the weekend, I have had a little change of heart tonight. I was looking on Facebook at my friend Earl's Europe photos, realizing he had gone several of the places I had gone. We commented back and forth about different things, and I took a minute to reflect on how fortunate I have been to have seen that stuff with my own eyes and not through someone else's photos. I also realized this weekend what great agility friends I have - they were all very concerned, wanted to know when her surgery was, which doctor was going to do it, how she was doing, how I was doing...I realized just how much I love agility and the people I have met, and how much I miss it already. Chelsie seems to as well...tonight, while practicing getting out of her crate in the car, she stopped at the bottom of her new ramp in her "spot" position, the way she stops at all of the contact obstacles on a course.

I hope to be back in competitions in the late April time frame...funny, last weekend, that was about the time I had hoped we would reach MACH...but I guess that just means the victory lap will be that much sweeter. Hopefully, Scott will be able to see it as well...my chances of him seeing it are much better the latter half of next year due to all his judging assignments.

I also stopped tonight to realize that although this is a bummer, this is not the end of the world. It is definitely not what I wanted for us, and certainly adds another blow to the serious cash outlay trend I seem to have going on at this point, but on the whole, my life is pretty freakin good and I am blessed with good health, a roof over my head, and great family and friends in my life.

So we made great progress this weekend in starting to prepare the both of us for her surgery and recovery...I have already told my parents that when she is released to come home, they need to be there with me so they can hear the instructions and ask questions, because I expect that they will be spending a lot of time with her in the 8 week recovery time frame! They don't like the thought of her being alone and in a crate if they are home to watch her and she can be out of the crate.

The physical exhaustion of the weekend is now taking over...a few more things here and then we are going to bed...early. Hope everyone had a great weekend...