Licking The Wound

 Back in November, our dog Santo had a small hard lump on his side. He is a very sleek dog, so we noticed it right when it appeared. After taking him to the vet, it was decided to have it removed. The surgery was pretty simple, and Santo is a tough dog, so it wasn't really a big deal. Except once he got home, he ripped out the stitches. Back to the vet we went. 

He got it restitched and then we put a neck pillow around his neck so he couldn't reach the incision. Things were finally healing when the results of the biopsy came back inconclusive because the surrounding tissue had not been sent in. Back to the vet we went again for another surgery to cut out the tissue to be biopsied. This time Santo came home with a much bigger incision. And some drugs to keep him from being too active. Great? Not so great. 

The incision then became filled with fluid which required being expressed daily. Because this whole wound was now pretty large, the neck pillow wasn't enough to keep him from being able to lick or bite it. So, on went the cone. If you have ever had pets, you probably know what kind of terrible device a cone actually is. Yes, it kept him from licking his wound and ripping out the stitches, but he now was running into everything with his giant cone. Into us, into walls, into furniture, into doors, into trees. This small little problem was turning into a big, drawn-out ordeal. For him and for us.

Finally, his incision had healed enough to take off his cone. We thought we could finally put this all behind us. But Santo cannot stop licking his wound. And here we are in March, four months later, and his wound is still not completely healed. 

People can be like this too. It is not that something happened. It is not that we examined it. And it is not that we did what needed to be done. But the problem arises when we refuse to let it heal and we keep going back and touching that wound.

Everyone gets wounded in this life. And sometimes that wound needs more care, even if we are tough. Sometimes when it is beginning to heal, we need a cone, or some external assistance, to keep from licking it. And sometimes that process is hard for us and those around us. But the real magic happens when that wound is finally healed up, when it is not our go-to self-soothing point. When it isn't oozing any longer, but we are back to normal. And now we just have a scar that tells us what we went through and how strong we are, but not that is who we are.