This past weekend started out simple enough. It wasn’t until Angela & I were playing with Tobey on the bed that things went awry. We were wrestling with both Tobey and Farley having a grand old time – kicking, screaming, tickling, biting (yes, I’ve bitten my dogs). And then, if a flurry of body parts, fur, and bedding it happened.

Tobey kicked me in the neck.

This in itself doesn’t sound so bad considering all the other stuff we were doing. That is until you realize that I have this phobia about people touching my neck. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve had this fear of people touching my neck. It all dates back to when my sisters and I were little kids and we watched a western on the television. It was during one scene where an Indian jumped out of a tree and jumped onto the back of a calvaryman on a stage coach and slit his throat that I found myself squirming in empathetic agony. Since then I have detested anyone coming anywhere near my neck.

So the dog is squirming around on the bed and Angela and I are flopping around with him. Suddenly, out of nowhere, his rear leg swoops out of the air like a mighty tree limb and manages to club me right on the neck, just under my jaw and my chin. I made a loud ‘GACK!’ sound and tried to shake it off. For a while, it was fine. Then, suddenly, it started to feel sore. After a while I could barely swallow and my neck was warm and swollen. Our dog – the 115 lb. Bernese – had perfected something Angela and I had longed to learn: The ancient art of the Dim Mak. According to that particular link:

Dim mak is an extremely dangerous martial art, which can cause a great deal of damage to the human body. The effects of attacking the dim mak points include knockout, death, and a delayed death.

Angela, in her wise-beyond-years way, attempted to provide medical attention…by having me take Sine-Off Sinus/Cold tablets. Let’s see what the description about this medication says – “Temporarily relieves the following symptoms associated with hay fever and respiratory allergies: runny nose; sneezing; itching of the nose or throat; itchy, watery eyes; nasal and sinus congestion; sinus pain; headache; reduces fever. Strong, fast relief.” Hmm. Nothing about the Dim Mak. One of the side effects of taking this medication, though, was that it knocked my ass out for most of the day. We’re talking passed out and snoozing for more than 7 hours and completely disoriented and fuzzy brained when I finally did wake up.

Today my neck is still sore and my spine is killing me. Who would have thought that being kicked in the lymph nodes would cause so much drama? While talking to Clare this morning, I came upon the revelation:

Clare: you ok?
me: in a nutshell: playing with dog on bed, dog kicks me in the neck, neck swells because – as luck would have it – he kicked me in one of my lymph nodes
Clare: O_O
me: now my neck hurts and is swollen and my throat hurts.
Clare: are you ok?!
me: Yeah. just hurts to swallow.
me: I sound like a porn star with her first blow job scene.
Clare: Icepack?
me: nah.
me: Just needs time to ‘heal’
me: however, should my head turn black and shrivel up and ultimately end up looking like a piece of beef jerky
me: I may send you pics.

So there you have it. If, during the next few days, my head winds up looking like that toe nail that I ripped off then I promise that I’ll post pics of it for all of you to enjoy. Now that would be tough to swallow.