Fighting the Bug

The doctor is often more to be feared than the disease. ~Proverb

I Monkey here.

As a rule, Mama is pretty healthy. She takes extra-good care of herself, doing all those things humans are supposed to do — eat right, get enough sleep, exercise, avoid crowds of people coughing.

So it’s a Big Deal when she finally takes sick.

Especially when I Monkey am by nature so needy and, shall we say, anxious for her full attention.

All the time.

Of course, I have reason to be, having re-developed “the itchies.”

Mama thought they were gone, after the expensive vaccination Dogtur gave me a while ago. My fur was even starting to regrow.

But when I started scratching and biting my hair again in early February, Mama hauled me to Dogtur for a consultation.

Dogtur gave Mama a special spray to rub on my balding spots, along with two-and-a-half pills for me to swallow. Every day for two weeks.

You should know that I Monkey don’t do pills.

Never have. Never will.

Nope.

When Mama kneels down beside me and starts sweet talking, I clamp my jaw shut tight and give her the side-eye.

Daring her to try forcing my mouth open and shoving a pill in.

Huh.

Humans aren’t nearly as clever as little Monkeys, though, and it didn’t take long for me to train Mama to give me blobs of peanut butter every day before dinner. Cool, huh?

She thinks the peanut-y odor hides a lot of things.

Like icky pills.

Whatever, Mama. Just keep that PB coming!

But I digress.

On Super Bowl Sunday, poor Mama was feeling puny with what she thought was a stomach bug. She told me a gazillion times she didn’t feel well and I shouldn’t aggravate her.

Who, me?

She never threw up. She never coughed. She never took any medicine or consulted her doctor. But she did spend an abnormal amount of time curled up on the sofa with a blanket tucked around her.

I know that because I Monkey refused to leave her side.

Just in case she did anything interesting.

Are you ready to play yet, Mama?

By the next day, she felt fine again, before relapsing the following day; and she kept “the crud” for several days more.

When it was all said and done, she practically tore the house apart, cleaning and sanitizing everything that didn’t move. Tossing stuff into the washer and dryer. Spraying Lysol everywhere.

Yuck.

But I Monkey haven’t quit watching her. Nope, that’s a given. She didn’t realize she was getting a “watch dog” when she got me, but I take my job seriously.

I mean, it’s not like there’s much else for a pup to do on these long, cold, gray days, right?