Reprieve

Today I flew back from Sao Paulo to engage, among other things, in the grim task of going to the veterinarian in order to assess how my favorite little gal, Ursula, is doing.

The state of the play when I left for Sao Paulo was: Not so good. A couple of years ago, she just barely survived a kidney infection that left her with damaged but still for the most part functioning kidneys. But she had worsened again from a new infection, needing to be hospitalized and placed on IV, which in turn had transitioned to no-heroic-measures. Here is how she looked in the vet's office a few days ago.











So when I went to see her today (with spouse), having pretty much just gotten off the plane from a redeye flight, my understanding was that it was not impossible that we would need to be saying goodbye to her very soon. To my relief, however, she looked pretty good - there is plenty of energy and fight left in the little gal yet, at least for now. So she has returned back home, where she is eating and rubbing her head against people while purring loudly in the accustomed manner. No telling how long this will last, however, and she will be needing daily water shots.

I hope Ursula wouldn't mind if she knew that I was cozying up with some other animals while I was in Sao Paulo. Kind of burying my sorrows, I suppose.