Column: Yes, our luck can turn bad, but then it rebounds

Sometimes, my husband, Paul, and I seem to have a run of bad luck. The week of Thanksgiving was an example.

On Sunday of that week, Paul had to take our oldest chicken, Snowy, to be euthanized at an emergency vet clinic. She had not been herself for a couple of weeks, and a few days earlier Paul had brought her to a veterinarian who is knowledgeable about chickens. That vet gave her a thorough checkup, and said he thought her behavior was just part of the aging process.

We believe she was either seven or eight, and the vet said eight years or so is a typical lifespan for a chicken. We had thought it was more like 10 years.

In any case, Snowy stopped eating the weekend before Thanksgiving, leading to our decision to put her down in a humane way.

Wednesday of that week was Paul’s birthday, and he had to bring the car to the shop. If he didn’t keep that appointment we would have had to wait awhile to get in. Since the repairs involved the brakes, among other things, we thought we should get the car fixed sooner rather than later.

The repairs cost $600.

On Thursday, we were looking forward to having Thanksgiving dinner at a local restaurant. We had reservations for 11:45 a.m. I gave the dogs and cats lunch at 11, then got ready. Paul and I then sat in the living room with the dogs for 15 minutes or so. Five minutes before we were to leave, our pit bull/lab mix Martha had a panic attack.

Martha is a skinny, hyperactive, 35-pounder. She had done this at least once before. Martha started licking every surface in sight. Dogs eat grass in order to vomit; Martha took it one step further by licking the furniture, the carpet, the floor . . . yes, until she upchucked.

The throwing up, as bad as it was, was not the worst part, though. She wouldn’t stop licking afterwards. I was so upset, I thought I was going to pass out.

Paul canceled our reservation. I got out Martha’s “thunder shirt.” This is a wraparound sweatshirt for dogs that helps them calm down during thunderstorms or other stressful situations. We had bought it for her after she was attacked by another dog nearly two years ago. Martha wasn’t physically injured in the incident, but she had some post-traumatic stress that caused her to shake on multiple occasions. Paul and I found that the thunder shirt helped with that.

But we hadn’t used it for months. The pictographic instructions were difficult to follow. Both of us wrestled with the darn thing until finally Martha was “wrapped.”

Next, I took her out to the room we call the “ell.” Our Victorian house once had an attached shed. It wasn’t as well-constructed as the rest of the house, and we finally had it demolished in 2012. Then, in its footprint, we had a family room constructed.

This room can be shut off from the rest of the house because there is a door between the ell and the kitchen. I sprayed the room with Adaptil, which is a calming agent for dogs. I lit a lavender soy candle. On my phone, using Pandora, I played Indian flute music.

Our chocolate lab, Aquinnah, also has panic attacks. His involve drooling and an inability to settle. I had found that taking him into the ell, and putting on smooth jazz helped him calm down.

When Martha had a PTSD incident following her attack in 2015, I played smooth jazz. It didn’t seem to help until a Native American flute piece appeared in the mix. Aha!

The music worked its magic again. Paul and I surmised that she had worried about why we were dressed up to go out and yet didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Her brain circuits overloaded. But now, finally, Martha fell sound asleep, and when she woke up, she was very hungry.

Well, so was I. I thought I had nothing to eat in the house because I knew we wouldn’t be hungry after the Thanksgiving buffet. Then I realized I could make an old favorite. I sauté garlic and broccoli in olive oil with lemon pepper, pour this over thin spaghetti, and top with a dash of parmesan. It made a tasty, if untraditional, Thanksgiving dinner.

The following Sunday, Paul and I made plans to go to a new brew pub that has opened in our town. I fed the dogs early but we didn’t sit down to kill time. We just headed out.

We thought we knew what we wanted to order, but our server told us that a “Thanksgiving pizza” was still available. Paul and I thought it sounded good, and, well, since we hadn’t actually had a Thanksgiving dinner . . . .

It was delicious. Turkey and all the fixings atop a hand-tossed, wood-fired dough. It really tasted like Thanksgiving.

And I was more than ready to give thanks.