Jig: Day 6-The Lost Day.

This is the missing day, the day that for me and Jig, really never was. Sunday night was a dreadful night. I don't know if we had just overdone the exercise for Jig during the weekend, but all night, he coughed and choked. I sat and stroked him, worried by the wild look that was in his eyes. He refused to take water and with every fresh bout, I had visions of ruptured blood vessels or simply his heart giving out. I even started thinking that I was going to be denied even a week of the time I was expecting to have left with him. As I write this now, I think, God, how melodramatic, but in the early hours of Sunday morning, it was far from being that. I phoned the vet school first thing on Monday morning leaving a message for Rory to phone as soon as he was free, and also phoned my own vet for a back-up appointment later in the day in case that was what Rory advised.
Rory phoned and suggested I brought him in so they could wean him off present medication and try something different, sedating him if necessary and keeping him under observation until they could start the new meds. It was 10 o'clock; I said I would be there in about an hour and a half. We live some 12 miles East of Glasgow and the vet hospital is approx. 8-10 miles further to the west of Glasgow, not a mega distance but it was just starting to snow again, and memories of the previous week, when it took nearly 2 hours to get there in similar conditions, were still foremost in my mind.
Less than 10 minutes from home, I had to reverse back off the slip road that led to the bypass and the motorway which, was the most direct route into Glasgow; nothing was moving, so I decided to take to the main trunk roads. By mid-day I had reached the East End of Glasgow, nearing the towering edifice of Celtic Football Ground, some 10 miles from home. The conditions were horrendous; the roads hadn't been gritted and were treacherous and we were into the third hour of a non-stop blizzard. I had never before in my life seen or driven in such awful conditions and I have been driving for more than 45 years. I phoned Frank to ask him to contact the vet school as I had left their phone number behind. He phoned back with the info that the vet school was cut off,  Glasgow gridlocked and their advice was that, I abandon my journey and return home. It was now about 12.30pm.
Jig had been amazingly quiet in the back of the car. The very cold air had had a soothing effect on his throat and the choking episodes had settled to sporadic rather than continuous episodes.                                       It was now that the real nightmare journey started. Whichever route I tried to take, I was turned back on, because of jack-knifed lorries or accidents. I spent hours in stationary or slow-moving traffic listening to the ever worsening road reports on Radio Scotland; at least I was able to let Jig out for pee breaks and snow chomping sessions.

                                             One of the many long tail-backs we sat in for hours

          Looking down on M8 stationary westbound traffic while I was stationary on the A89
We eventually arrived home at 8.45pm on Monday evening; we had been in the car for more than 9 hours and travelled less than twenty miles. I was so grateful for the ongoing dialogue with friends on facebook which quite frankly kept me going when I started to wonder if we were going to get home at all. I also offered up silent thanks to my brother who had given me his old i-phone- I am a bit of a luddite, don't like mobile phones and resisted microwaves for years after they were in common use.
I had thought about leaving the car and trying to walk home, but didn't want to take the risk of what that might do to Jig.
Spare a thought for my poor Frank who works for the Department of Works and Pensions in Central Glasgow. This wonderful example of civil service management finally decided to release their staff  AFTER the trains stopped running and the buses had packed up. He walked the twelve plus miles home... but was still home 3 hours before me. Guess you'd call yesterday, 'mine and Jig's big adventure'.

                                         A sunnier day and better times for Jig, Frank and Flyn.