Last week, I took Ginger to our vet. Ginger is eight and has been to the vet so many times I can’t recall. She has also been a patient at Purdue Veterinary Hospital three times and spent one visit in the intensive care unit (ICU). As for ordinary visits to Purdue for various medical issues, she and I have driven down to Purdue dozens of times. Ginger and I share one thing in common: we both have danced with death twice.

Ginger and my time are getting progressively shorter and shorter as we grow older. Unless you have done the dance, you know you aren’t immortal...intellectually. Dancers know that reality is deep within their very being.

Ginger needed to undergo a tooth extraction, along with the removal of three growths on her body: one on the inside of her ear flap, one on her front leg, and one on her tail. She’s had surgeries before, and this was to be just another under the knife. I dropped her off at 8:00 am and would pick her up at 5:00 pm. I kissed Ginger, told her to take care, and handed her over to the vet. I drove home and walked into my home. I had a long list of things to do before picking Ginger up in the late afternoon. As I walked into my home, I felt a strange sensation come over me.

The silence was deafening. I walked around the house; it was different from what it was before I took Ginger to the vet. All my surroundings seemed different. They were the same items, but the nuance wasn’t the same.

Ginger wasn’t underfoot. I went into the kitchen to make some coffee, but Ginger didn’t follow me. That sense of emptiness lasted the entire day. When I drove to the vet's, and we were reunited, Ginger didn’t bounce off the walls like she does when I return after shopping. She looked like she had a bad hangover. I helped my drunk dog into the car, and then she merely curled into a ball as I drove home. She slept off her hangover for several hours. This video is of Ginger after her rest.

You can see a 3-inch incision on her upper left leg, which was used to remove a large, 1-inch-diameter growth that was at least ½-inch thick on her left leg. The lower right leg was shaved for the I-V. The blue tape covered a small infection due to an allergy.

The following is a photo of the incision on her tail.

As for Ginger’s extraction, I had to make her dry dog food easier to eat.

A couple of days have elapsed, and Ginger is back to her normal hyperactive self. It isn't easy to control her activity as her body is recovering from her day under the knife. When she isn’t underfoot, she wears her crown, which would stop her from trying to remove the stitches.

Ginger is getting back to her normal self. When it is bedtime, and I’m in the bathroom, Ginger will curl up on my side of the bed with her head on my pillow.

I have to tell her to move over, which she does...about six inches. After another request, she will reluctantly give me more space. Our routine is that I talk to her before dozing off. When she thinks that I’m asleep, Ginger will go to the foot of the bed, facing the bedroom door. She will protect me if an intruder breaks into the house. However, Ginger must be touching me. I’ll wait a couple of minutes and then rub my foot against her body. It’s our nighttime pretend dance.

In the deep recesses of her canine brain, Ginger knows the angst of the near-death experience. The two of us want to get the most out of life as our clock ticks louder and louder. We are fortunate to grasp the benefit of leading death on the dancefloor of our lives.