A dog and his girl

Last Wednesday, I took my beloved 6.5 year old Welsh Springer Spaniel - Milo - to the veterinarian for a series of routine vaccinations. While there, the vet tech took his temperature and pronounced him feverish when it came up at 104 F. Thinking back, I realized that far from being the quirk I thought it was, Milo's sleeping on the bathroom floor was an attempt to keep cool. As well, he had been coughing and even throwing up a bit over the last week. The vet came in and explained that what I thought was JUST runny eyes, was actually sinus drainage for a dog. He diagnosed Milo with the highly contagious canine influenza which has been widely reported in the New England area. Poor Milo!!

Because of his fever, he wasn't able to receive his vaccinations but he did walk away with a shot of penicillin and a prescription for 5 days worth of antibiotics and a recipe for chicken and sweet potato cooked plain, in the crock pot. (Lucky dog!)

What does this have to do with climbing Mt. Washington?

Well, it's just a small example of how quickly things can change.

Thursday, for me, was a day packed with activity as I tried to organize work at our new office building, prepared my son's bags for his school trip to Quebec, arranged a place for Milo to stay, did some grocery shopping, laundry and cleaning AND tried to get all the elements together for our trip to New Hampshire. By evening, I was exhausted. Friday morning after seeing the school kids off I finally relaxed - right into a head cold and fever.

So we cancelled our walk up the rock pile.

In some small way one has to wonder if this was my body's way of saying, "She's not quite ready yet."

The downside to this (as if being sick wasn't bad enough) is that we might have to wait until April for our next attempt at Mt. Washington because we have to move our company from Seattle, WA across the continent to New England. Time and money are going to be prohibitive; but at least I will be able to train a little longer.

In the meantime, Milo and I are spending the weekend in bed with lots of orange juice and water, a box of Puffs Plus with lotion, the remote control and a sense of gratitude that this is the first cold we've had in about a year.