Two weeks ago I got bit by a dog. It was painful and scary and maddening and ultimately such a spiritual experience that I have to write it down so I don’t forget what I learned.
It all started with a sunny, snow-free Wednesday morning. Because it was sunny and snow-free I decided to load the kids in the Burley and walk to Music Makers (we do this often, though never in February!). The church is about a mile and a half away from our house, but we left with plenty of time and actually arrived there before anyone else. It felt great!
After our class ended, and I finished chatting with my friend about kindergarten registration (she’s been through it before, so she had lots of answers for me), I loaded the kids up in the Burley for the walk back home. I crossed the street to the bike path and very shortly noticed a dog on the Spainhower’s lawn, just off the bike path. Now I’m normally wary about strange (or otherwise) dogs, but I can honestly say I did not feel threatened by this dog in any way. I noticed it and just kept walking, assuming it would just sit there and watch us walk by. (There was my first problem?) As I neared, it walked toward me, to my rear, and I assumed it would just circle around to assess the situation. (My second bad assumption?) The next thing I knew I felt pain in my left leg and I looked down to see the dog’s mouth gripping my lower leg/ankle. Shock, rage, horror, pain - they all hit me and my instinct was to kick it away, which I did just as a matter of reflex. The dogs teeth tore a couple of small holes in my jeans as it released its grip and moved away. I yelled and stood there for a minute in shock. Then, the dog was in front of me (the Burley with the kids was between us) and I saw it look straight at me, bark/growl (I can’t remember for sure, but it definitely vocalized this time) and start to come towards us again. I yelled again and waved my arms and it backed off and wandered away, back towards its own house (we would later find out).
I hobbled down the path in the opposite direction, crying and yelling and lifted up my pants to take a peek at my leg. The bite was a horrible hole and I started crying even more. By now, Cal was crying inside the Burley and I was trying to figure out how to work my phone to call Gregg. I was crying so much he couldn’t understand what I was saying on the phone, but got the gist that a dog had done something to me (he thought I had said it bit my eye!). I got back across the street to the church to wait for him. He was there in a matter of minutes and we parked the Burley inside the church and piled in the car. He called Animal Control right then, and as we drove back home, the dog came over to the car while we were stopped across the street from it, so we got some good pictures to send to them.
At this point, Gregg had only seen one of my more minor scratches, so he thought medical attention was not needed. When I got home I got a wash cloth on my main bite and that’s when he realized that I’d be needing stitches.
He called Animal Control back to give them more details about my wound and I sat on the bathroom floor trying to figure out how to work the insurance website to know which ER I would be covered at (we recently changed insurance plans, so I wasn’t sure the same hospital I had Sam at was still the one I should be using). It was amazing how slowly my brain was working under this sort of stress. Cal and Sam were total champs during the whole ordeal. Sam came in and tenderly patted my back while I was sitting on the floor and he and Cal were so quiet on the drive through the canyon (actually, Sam fell asleep - ha).
They dropped me off in the ER and I hobbled inside to get fixed up. It took almost four hours - triage . . . wait . . . numbing . . . wait . . . flushing . . . wait . . . stitching . . . wait . . . bandaging . . . and I could finally hobble back outside. I must say that I am so grateful to the head nurse who got me settled, placed a warm blanket on me, and just talked and listened and generally helped me calm down. She was an angel. Also, all the kind comments and well wishes from friends and family texting and calling and posting on my instagram and facebook picture really brightened a scary situation.
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In black and white, to spare you the gore. ;)
Just waiting in the ER for my bite to be taken care of - at
this point I had a nice warm blanket on the rest of me, so I was
feeling pretty good. |
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Cal and Sam and Gregg enjoyed a "bag of five burgers" for lunch.
On the grass outside the ER entrance. In February. |
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| Best little ER waiters I've ever seen. |
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Sam loved seeing the helicopter, an ambulance (which even turned
on its lights for them), and the fighter jets circling around
while they waited outside. |
And now for a series of bite photos, which are not nearly as nasty as that first one, but
are still wound pics, so I'll link to them and you can click at your own risk:
We stopped at the pharmacy to pick up my antibiotic and got back home in time to take some ibuprofen, schedule a follow-up wound check for Friday and prep a bit for activity days, which was starting in a half hour at my house.
That evening I felt frustrated by what the Animal Control officer had told Gregg: that they had found the owner of the dog, had talked to her mother on the phone, that the dog is a service animal for this daughter, that the vet had confirmed that the dog was up to date on shots (that part didn’t bother me, obviously), that the procedure for a situation like this is to keep the animal in quarantine for ten days . . . and that’s really all that can be done. I decided I needed to talk to him myself, to make sure I wasn’t missing any details by getting the story through Gregg. Turns out, Gregg conveyed the message accurately and talking to the officer only fueled my frustration and anger. “The dog is a heeler - that’s just how they are.” “When I saw the dog, it just rolled over and wanted its belly rubbed - it was such a sweet old dog.” “This is the first time this has ever happened. If it happens again, then action can be taken.” “No judge will ever take an animal away from a person like this.” (But he couldn’t tell me any details about this adult daughter’s needs/issues.)
I talked to friends and family members Wednesday evening and Thursday morning who shared my frustration and anger and hurt as they heard my story and asked the same questions I was asking: “This shouldn’t happen again!” “They should pay for your medical bills at the very least!” “Is it really a service dog? How can you even be sure?” “An Australian Cattle dog is a terrible choice for a service dog.” Their anger and questions just fed by frustrations and anger and I ended up calling the Sheriff’s office to see if they could do anything more to ensure that this dog couldn’t bite another unsuspecting walker on the path. The deputy was less helpful than the animal control guy, and after I talked with him I felt even more defeated and upset. I talked to my uncle Bryan, a lawyer, who gave me some advice on getting money for my injuries. I stewed and I vented and I groaned about the unfairness of it all. Why wouldn’t anyone take my side? Why was a dog more important than a human being?
Saturday came and I mostly tried to ignore the situation. I was tired of crying. I was tired of feeling so helpless. My leg was feeling great. By that afternoon I was walking without a limp. And I just tried to live a normal weekend with my family, without stressing about another phone call to another person who wouldn’t or couldn’t help me. And then came the miracle.
Gregg came back from the Priesthood Leadership session of our Stake Conference and asked me how I was doing. I told him I physically felt fine, but I just didn’t know what step to take to ease my mind and get the justice I deserved. He suggested we take a different approach than what we had been thinking for the past three days (and, I’ll admit, I didn’t want to like it at first): let’s think about these people. Let’s put ourselves in their shoes. Their dog, which clearly plays a big role in their life, has just bitten an innocent bypasser. How are they feeling? Are they afraid that someone will knock on their door and take their dog away? Are they worried about being sued? Let’s send them an email, reaching out to check in on them and offering to help figure out a solution to keep the dog where it is supposed to be.
I sat on the bed for a second or two, knowing that he was right but not wanting to let go of the need to be justified. And then I said, “That would be the Christlike thing to do.” (But not fully convinced that I could do it.) Then I went to the evening session of Conference while he stayed home with the kids.
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Callie drew this for me and it hangs on the wall next to my bed.
"Mom, this is you in the flowers of spring! And this pink thing
on your leg is your bandage." |
Our visiting general authority was Elder Jorge Becerra from the Seventy. I haven’t been to a Saturday session of Stake Conference for a long time, but I’ve never been to one quite like this. He spent his portion of the meeting “instructing” rather than “preaching”, beginning first with a powerpoint slide showing a
painting of Christ performing the Atonement that I had never seen before. He was lying down, with his face covered, and his body clearly in agony from the huge pain and weight of what he was doing. Elder Becerra asked for people to comment about what they learned or noticed from seeing this image. And in the midst of this discussion he invited us to turn to
Doctrine and Covenants 45:3-5. As soon as I read the first line, I had tears in my eyes: “Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him -” That’s exactly what I was looking for! An advocate! Someone to listen to me and fight for me and be on my side. But guess what? I already had one! Christ is my advocate for stakes a lot higher than a dog bite case. He knows what it feels like to be bit. He knows what it feels like to feel like no one really is listening. He knows what the frustration and anger and helplessness feels like (and that goes back to my favorite
Alma 7:11-12, which Elder Becerra also referenced).
And then I noticed something I had written in the margin - a note indicating that my Grandpa Thornley shared these very scriptures at a Christmas Eve evening in 2008. And then there was an arrow pointing down the page to where I had written something that he had said that night that had stuck with me, but something that I hadn’t really remembered till I saw it again with new eyes. My grandpa had said, in reference to verse 5 where Christ is asking that we may be spared and given everlasting life: “not the least punishment but the greatest reward”. How that hit me! How many times had I thought and heard that in the past few days? “The least punishment! They should at least pay your medical bills! They should at least lock the dog up forever! They should at least say they’re sorry!” But instead, I should offer the greatest reward I can give: forgiveness.
I got home and blubbered to Gregg about my answers - I truly believe that God was speaking to me right then - and he immediately drafted an email we could send to these people to offer our compassion and our assistance, while still conveying that we are concerned about the safety of others. We talked together about the parable of the debtor, where the man is forgiven such a huge (impossible, as
Elder Holland has taught us) amount and then turns on someone that owes him a trifling amount and won’t forgive him. How can we know what these people are going through? They clearly have more issues in their life than we do, and even if they are lying about the service dog thing, they still have more issues than we do if they feel like they need to do so. We are okay. We have enough money (and where did that even come from anyway? God.). The bite was as good as it could be, really, even for being a huge, raggedy, nasty gash. It didn’t get my bones, or ligaments, or Achilles tendon. My kids are fine. We’re going to be okay.
Ever since that decision to just let it go, I have felt so much peace. I’m lighter. I am not worried or anxious or frustrated or mad. It’s just gone. It’s amazing. And it’s completely a miracle of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Just stopping to remember what He would do (and has done) was huge. Life changing. And if that’s the reason why I went through this ordeal of the past few days, then I’m so grateful.
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Yet another gem from my Callie-girl.
I love her heart and her sweet faith (you should
hear the sincere prayers she still asks almost every
night "to bless mom's dog bite to feel better"). |
