After numerous scans and extensive consultations, the staff unanimously confirmed what I’d been told in Urumqi—that the cause of Gobi’s pain and strange hopping was an injury to her right hip. Whether she had been hit by a car or a human, it was impossible to say, but sometime during her runabout in Urumqi, she’d picked up the injury, which had forced her hip out of the pelvis.
The staff recommended Gobi have a femoral head ostectomy: a form of hip surgery where the top of the femur is removed but not replaced with anything, leaving the body to heal itself and the joint to reform with scar tissue.
I’d been reassured a dozen times that this was a standard procedure that could yield excellent results. I was confident in the team and felt we were in safe hands. But as I stood and watched them about to begin the hour-long operation, I was still a nervous wreck.
Again, it was the noises that got me, though this time Gobi was too heavily drugged to make a sound. She was lying with her tongue hanging out like an old sock, breathing steadily into the mask placed over her mouth, while the nurses shaved away all the fur from her right hip. What bothered me this time was the sound of the machines that were monitoring her heart rate and oxygen levels. Ever since Garry’s death, I have always hated hearing the sound of those machines on TV. They remind me of the night I stood in my sister’s room and listened to the medics try to save him, and whenever I hear the steady beeps, I ask myself the same, simple question: If I’d got out of bed sooner, would I have been able to save him?
A conversation broke out among the doctors, their voices slightly raised. Kiki must have sensed my concern because she tapped me on the shoulder and spoke softly. She told me they were trying to decide how much of the drug to give her to prevent a heart attack without going too far and inducing one.
“I hope they know what they’re doing,” I muttered. I felt physically sick inside.
Eventually, when the room quietened down and they started to operate, I told Kiki I had to go. “Come and get me as soon as it’s all done,” I said. “I can’t be in here.”
The hour felt more like a month, but when it was finally over, the head surgeon came to reassure me that the surgery had gone well and Gobi would soon be coming around. I sat beside her in the recovery room and watched her gradually wake up.
There was a moment when she looked at me, and everything was just as it was every morning, her big eyes locked on mine. But a second later the pain must have kicked in, for her high-pitched whimpering started up again. Looking at her, listening to her, I understood clearly that she was in a world of pain. Nothing I could do seemed to help.
Within less than a day, Gobi’s true spirit was shining through again. She was in pain from the operation, and I knew her hip would take weeks to fully repair itself, but by the time I got her back to the flat, she was back to her old tail-wagging, face-licking self.
I, on the other hand, was feeling unsettled. I couldn’t be sure whether it was seeing Gobi in pain that had bothered me or the memories of Garry’s death, but I knew for certain that in the days and weeks that followed, I was still worried about Gobi’s safety.
Right from the start of our time in Beijing, I’d felt a little nervous about the number of people who recognized Gobi. But as we spent more and more time in the flat during her recovery, I grew a little paranoid. If I was down in the lobby waiting for a lift and someone else joined me—especially if the person wasn’t Chinese—I’d make a point of getting out at either the tenth or the twelfth floor and using the stairs to reach the eleventh, looking over my shoulder as I went. I knew it was silly, and I knew that if someone did want to snatch Gobi, it would take a lot more than my amateur spy impression to keep us safe. But the instinct to be suspicious about strangers was too strong to resist.
It didn’t help that the rest of the flats on my floor were also short-term rentals. That meant there was a constant turnover of people. Remembering the visit from the guys in suits in Urumqi, I eyed all residents carefully.
“It’s okay to go out and live a normal life,” said Kiki after I shared my fears one day.
A normal life? I wasn’t even sure I knew what that meant anymore. Four months earlier I’d been working sixty-hour weeks, away three nights out of seven, fitting in my training at nine or ten at night while others were watching TV. I was filling my time with work, training, and trying to live life with Lucja in our home in Edinburgh. Now I was on long-term leave, living thousands of miles away, barely running, trying to keep safe a little dog who seemed at times to be the most famous pup in the whole world. Normal was a lifetime away.
I was also concerned about the number of photo requests Gobi got whenever we went out. Most people were great, and I liked that Gobi made people happy, but I knew, for some, she was just a cute photo opportunity.
Part of the stray dog problem in China stems from people’s buying pedigree dogs, bringing them back to their flats, and then getting annoyed when the dogs make a mess on the floor or trash the furniture. In a country where there’s so much wealth, dogs are sometimes treated as a fashion accessory—temporary and disposable.
Gobi deserved better than that.
A month into my stay in Beijing, the result of the rabies test was due.
All throughout the twenty-nine days we’d spent waiting, my instincts had told me Gobi would be fine. I knew the test would come back clear and we could move on to the next phase of waiting the ninety days for the second round of tests. But as much as I believed this, a part of me had started to wonder. What if Gobi did have rabies after all? What then? If we couldn’t bring Gobi back to the UK, would we move to China to live together? Instead of bringing Gobi home, would we have to bring home to Gobi?
The result was as we expected. Gobi didn’t have rabies. I exhaled a huge sigh of relief, cheered with Lucja, and shared the news with the rest of the world via our growing social media accounts. The reaction brought a tear to my eye.
So many strangers were heavily invested in Gobi’s story, and it still amazes me to read of the ways in which she has touched people’s lives. For instance, one woman who has cancer told me that she looks at our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages every day to see what Gobi and I are up to. “I’ve been with you from the start,” she told me.
I love that the story isn’t just about Gobi and me trying to get home. Whether people have lost their jobs, are suffering with depression, or are going through marriage troubles, this little dog has put a smile on so many people’s faces.