I got really annoyed yesterday because no one in my household could read my mind. This isn’t unusual, of course.
I’ve been waiting for my husband’s E.S.P. to come in for over a decade.
My other roommate is our 20-year-old college student who is also male, so…yeah. It’s fine, though. I would never expect someone still lacking a frontal lobe to have magically acquired the ability to read his mother’s mind, after all.
Anyway.
I had placed an appointment on our shared family calendar two months ago. When I made that appointment (two months ago) and placed it on our shared family calendar (two months ago), we had no inkling that one of our dogs would be having major surgery just two days before that appointment. We also had no inkling that Kylo’s recovery suite would be our living room and that she would need extensive monitoring in those initial post-surgery days.
A human would probably have been hospitalized or in a rehab center post-this-surgery, but dogs, evidently, are simply sent home with whispers of “Good luck…”
TPLO (Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy) is the gold standard surgery for dogs with a torn cranial cruciate ligament (CCL), the equivalent of the human ACL. The procedure reshapes the shin bone (tibia) using a surgical cut, rotating the bone to a new angle, and securing it with a metal plate and screws. This eliminates knee instability without relying on the ligament. Recovery takes about 10 to 12 weeks and requires strict activity restriction.
And so, yesterday, at 12:39 pm, I felt the inklings of rising rage when I realized that no one in my home remembered that appointment (placed on the calendar two months ago) or that, with a dog in sickbay, I would need a break from nursing duties to attend the appointment.
Here’s how it happened, and yes, some may say I am partially at fault. Let’s not worry about that, today, okay?
At 12:30 pm, I realized that my 1:30 pm appointment was actually at 1:00 pm, and a wave of panic rolled over me. I realized the mistake while scrolling my phone while applying ice packs to Kylo’s leg, something the vet tasked us with three times per day. Is it difficult to ice a dog’s leg? Not as difficult as it was to ice our cat’s leg when she suffered a leg injury years prior.
As that panic increased, I frantically zipped out a plea to the family chat, “Could someone come sit with Kylo? I have to go to my appointment.” No, I didn’t mention why I had to leave for a 1:30 pm appointment (according to the calendar) at 12:40 pm.
The response? Crickets.
More crickets.
Continued crickets.
I threw the ice packs into the freezer before starting the clumsy process of dressing Kylo. Her vet had suggested a surgical suit to reduce the need for the cone of shame. It is truly the best invention ever, though a bit challenging to put on. Similar, I suppose to shoving an octopus into four pairs of compression socks. As I velcroed and shifted and told Kylo what a very good girl she was, I also listened hopefully for the sound of footsteps signaling the arrival of someone to take over.
Crickets.
More crickets.
Continued crickets.
Frustrated and fully panicking, I sent a second note, knowing that I was now going to be late to the appointment whose time I had flubbed even though I had put it on the calendar two months prior. “Okay, well, I have to leave. Kylo is dressed, and I’ll also put her cone on.”
Kylo, sweet Kylo. She is not to be trusted post-anything because she operates at the level of a four-year-old on a diet of cotton candy and red-dye number 7, even while loaded with painkillers and sleep aides.
Still, I couldn’t just leave, could I? No, that didn’t feel wise.
I yelled up the stairs for an assist. “Can you come down and help me??” Our son’s door swung open as I finished my sentence, and he said, “Yeah, sure, sorry. I thought your appointment was later.”
Damn it, he had read the calendar.
While the endless texts to confirm appointments are annoying, it might have been helpful if I had read the three that came in the days leading up to this appointment, as each indicated that my appointment was at 1:00 pm and not 1:30 pm, as I thought. I don’t know why I got 1:30 pm stuck in my head, but I do blame the craze of the dog’s surprise surgery and managing the recovery ward. If I had read any of those texts, it might have clicked that I’d put the wrong time on the shared family calendar (two months prior).
Damn it.
For many, a calendar hiccup is not a big deal. For a non-recovering Type-A personality type? This flub hit me hard.
I wanted so desperately for my rising rage to be justified by someone else’s failure to read, but it was my mistake. In reality? The chances of my husband having any awareness of an appointment are always slim, as his calendars (work or otherwise) all merge to create a palette of pretty colors that are difficult to dig through. Combine that with the flub and his continued lack of E.S.P. and, well, it was a lost cause.
The fact that my baby adult actually acknowledged something being on the calendar would normally bring me joy and pride, but I couldn’t really lean into that joy and pride because I was too busy beating myself up for flubbing the entry while accepting the idea that I was going to be late.
I spent the entire drive to my appointment wondering how I could explain it away, berating myself for making such a careless error, and reminding myself that:
- It really was a stupid mistake that literally anyone could have made.
- I probably should have given the house a heads-up hours before go-time to avoid unnecessary stress, rather than assuming they’d know when my appointment was, even if it was the wrong time.
- Having hope for my husband’s E.S.P. to come in is fine, as long as I consider that a very loose and unpredictable fallback plan.
In the end, I was only five minutes late. When I scheduled my next appointment, I did add it to the family shared calendar again, but this time, thirty minutes earlier…just in case.