Puppy Therapy

This afternoon, I was standing in front of our house, and I suddenly forgot which key opened the front door.
I kept trying the purple key, and finally my husband took out his keys and opened the door. And I said, "But I use that key every day!" And my husband had to take my keys and show me that it was the yellow key and not the purple key that opened the door. And then I suddenly remembered that in fact, I use the yellow key every day, and every day, it unlocks the door.

To what do I attribute this? I looked up the potential side effects of Lupron, and memory loss is not among them. Is it the grief? Is it fatigue? Is it a side effect of the persistent headache that is a side effect of Lupron? Is it the fact that last night's Lupron shot, which previously seemed fairly painless, was painful, even with use of my trusty icepack? Or is it the fact that today, I read a chapter of a friend's novel-in-progress that was all about the painful death of a parent from cancer and I spent the day having flashbacks of my father's last days?

But there is a great treatment for all of this sadness and discomfort and awkward, splayed hope.

There is a puppy.

We adopted him from a shelter a few hours away just before the first appointment with the only fertility specialist in town, after a really terrible few days of feeling sorry for myself. The puppy displays the typical exceptional cuteness of his kind, even while doing mundane things like sitting on a bookshelf or chasing a ball. This kind of entertainment is enough for the usual level of stress and sadness.

But for my case, I have self-prescribed a special kind of therapy. I give this puppy an ice cube, and hilarity ensues.