People have many things that they fear- heights, spiders, being alone, clowns, words spelled with the letter q... you get my drift. Well being the roommate of a Fruit Bat has brought me face to face with two of these fears in one week. Fortunately, I took a back seat for both of them- unfortunately, that didn't stop the worry. A few days ago now (I've been waiting for FB to post this story herself, but she's been busy) our school had an outdoor event featuring free pizza. College students+ free= massive attendance. The people in charge of the event were blasting music, and several of the girls were dancing. One such girl had a small white dog. I grabbed some breadsticks (the pizza was gone) and FB and I sat down. I was feeling twitchy and sulky- I don't like really loud music, and I'm not a big fan of social interaction- pathetic, right? FB on the other hand looked moderately excited, and told me she was going over to see the dog. I followed after a moment, in time to see the dog lunge toward something on the ground, and FB try to ask if she could pet the dog- at least I think that's what she said, I couldn't hear her. We started on our way back to the dorm, FB stopping to look back at the dog, which was behaving erratically. She went back to him, he was twitching, snapping at the air, hopping up a little on his leash- then his legs folded underneath him, still snapping. FB realized what was happening before any of us -that thing the dog had gone after earlier had been a chicken leg, and the dog had tried to swallow it whole. FB tried a version of the Heimlich for dogs which involves doing something to the back, and stuck her hand inside his mouth to see if she could feel the obstruction- she assures me that this is what you are supposed to do. You may recall that the dog was snapping. Here enters the first fear- Fruit Bat got bit by a dog. We're just happy that it was a little dog, not a Deko-deko sized one! She called me over to hold open the dog's mouth (which I did) while she pulled out the chicken leg. The whole affair didn't take very long, but it sure felt like it at the time. The dog's owner was very grateful to us- and yes, the dog was fine. Now, the other fear. Last night I got to bed a little later than FB, she was trying to catch up on some missed sleep, and I was more interested in reading for a little bit. I went to bed around midnight- but was still awake when FB suddenly sat up in bed, stumbled to her feet, groping for a water bottle. She was making horrible wheezing sounds, I said her name, and she responded, "I can't breathe!" I didn't know WHAT to do, what can you do in a situation like that? Pat the person on the back, that's what, feeling panicked. I knew that she could still breathe at least a little bit (in my experience, if you can talk, you can still breathe, if she hadn't told me she couldn't breathe, I might have called 911.) The attack only lasted a few minutes, but both of us were creeped out- poor FB didn't get back to sleep until 2 or so, and I was jumping every time she coughed! She went to the clinic today, and apparently she's having "bronchial spasms" which is sort of like asthma's twin cousin. Now she has an inhaler, some medicine and a vaporizer given to us by her grandmother- neither of us want the next time to be worse.The picture can be found on DA under Destiny Island Cats or ignesfatuis- I recolored it a while back.
