sunday (walk it off)

I was talking to my mom, walking past the restaurant on the corner of Luz Saviñon and Uxmal. Nacho pulled and I pulled him back, I don’t let him pee on those plants. It’s in front of a restaurant, people are eating, people are standing on the corner waiting with their extended families, haggling with the valet. I look down and he’s limping. I can feel it in the leash, the rhythm of his walk changed, now it’s kah thunk kah thunk kah thunk instead of what it should be, unnoticeable.

I hang up with my mom and look up the nearest animal hospital. I call the vet who butt-dialed me in the morning. He doesn’t pick up and explains that there was an error with the app. I tell it’s not that, I’m not calling because he called me, I’m calling because I’m wondering if he opens today, it’s Sunday after all, it’s gameday after all, and I think my dog hurt himself. I think I hurt my dog. I think my dog braced because he didn’t want to move and I pulled him and hyperextended a joint. Maybe I tore his ACL, maybe he’ll never be able to walk again. He’s at that age, he’s ten, that’s like eighty in people years or whatever, and when people are eighty and they hurt their knee they never walk again. That’s why my dad always shuffled around everywhere, he was afraid of falling and breaking his hip so he walked agonizingly slowly, the smaller steps imaginable, like a hermit crab who has decided its shell will be a fucking iron anvil.

Anyway there’s a routine I learned from my therapist to derail panic attacks that I now apply to my dog. The routine basically consists in making a list of what is happening and comparing this list against first a normal situation and second a truly dangerous situation. Are my hands clammy? Yes. Are clammy hands a symptom of instant death? No.

What is happening:

• my dog is 10 years old

• my dog is limping after resisting moving forward

Are any of the following happening:

• is my dog whining? no

• is my dog sniffing or licking one of his legs or joints incessantly? no

• is my dog able to walk? yes

Have you ever:

• twisted your ankle? yes

• limped? yes

Did this lead to:

• death? no

• a hospital visit? no

When I was like 8 years old I broke my elbow. My mom knew something was wrong with me when I rejected my favorite treat, peanut butter on toast. My dog is not rejecting his favorite treat, which is walking around and peeing on things. His limp is improving as we continued walking. Walk it off, a man tells me in my memories.

The conversation on the phone is tense. My mom is talking about buying cars, selling cars, going to the doctor, things that sometimes feel out of reach for me. Not that I need or want a car. She asks me what I did this week and I don’t remember. When I was a child I would go to the doctor, to the respiratory specialist, unable to breathe. He would ask, how are you? and I would say, fine! He looked just like my youth orchestra director, Dr Dennis. In my memory’s eye they have become the same person.

After I hang up I walk slowly around the park with my dog, fixating on his movements with exaggerated attention. He doesn’t seem to have any trouble doing anything. We leave the park and walk around for a while. Some people are walking with their dogs, a German shephard and an Australian sheepdog. They bark at my dog, he barks back, I restrain him gently, his limp is back. We stop at a cafe, he insists and I don’t want to injure him again and I also want a negroni. Walk it off, a man says in my memories.

The other week I slammed my toe against a rock. I limped the rest of the way to my therapist’s office, ignored a dull but persistent pain as we talked, limped to a cafe, limped home. When I got home I took my sock off, my toe was swollen but not huge. It hurt to move it but I could move it. I decided to ignore it.

It hurt for a week, it still hurts. Certain positions in yoga are a struggle because I still can’t balance on my toe. But I haven’t taken myself to a hospital, I haven’t gone to a doctor. My dog will almost certainly be fine. So will I and so will you.