I had a self-inflicted scare with Pookie last Tuesday night. I couldn't even bring myself to post about it until I had the chance to tell someone about it, just so they could tell me that I was overreacting.
Pookie had been comfortably sleeping in his house for a few hours. I got up to walk into the kitchen for something when I saw that the blanket was no longer laying flat. My first reaction was that he had shifted during sleep and that's why the blanket was raised, but of the 8.5 years that I'd had him, he'd only shifted a handful of times. So, because my stress level was quickly going up, I decided to lift up the blanket to see what was going on. To my surprise, Pookie was sitting up, but still asleep. His head and chest were completely up and off the floor of his house. I softly called his name to avoid scaring him (he'd jump if I spoke too loudly while he slept), but he didn't wake up. I lightly stroked his beard, but he didn't wake up. By now, I was in a panic mode. I proceeded to lift up the blanket to see if he was still breathing, because he should've woken up by now. OH MY GOD! HE'S NOT BREATHING! I stood there watching him for nearly 15 seconds, and I didn't see him take one breath. "Don't panic," I tried to convince myself, "He's probably having a strange dream.. With that said, I again lightly stroked his beard but again got no reaction. I then tried stroking the top of his head, thinking that that would definitely wake him up. NOPE! "OH GOD! HE'S DEAD!" Now I was on the verge of tears, but still refused to believe that he'd leave without saying goodbye. I checked his beard to see if it was black, but it wasn't. He had on his happy colors, all over.
At this point, his blanket was completely peeled back so I could see his entire body, to check for any movement at all. I called out to him again and finally, his sides moved and he took a deep breath. "Oh god, he can't breathe! He's having trouble breathing! He's doing exactly what Digi did the night before she passed away!" (yeah, I was totally freaking out by now) With that thought, I immediately picked him up and held him close to my chest. I kept waiting for him to open his eye, but he never did. Not only did he NOT wake up, but his breathing continued to be slow and shallow. The only difference was that he didn't have even a gray beard. His beard was still white with specks of yellow. He also didn't have any stress marks on his tummy. Because he still never opened his eye to acknowledge that I had picked him up, I feared that he was so uncomfortable (with whatever) that he couldn't open his eye. I held him close and kept stroking his back, to help ease whatever it was that he was going through (if he was going through something), and trying to feel him take breaths.
I sat on the couch with Pookie for a few hours, including nodding off for a half hour. When I awoke, I couldn't decide whether to leave Pookie on the couch or take him to bed with me. I feared that if I didn't take him to bed with me, I wouldn't know if he suddenly passed away and I wasn't there for him. It took me a half hour of pacing back and forth before deciding on taking him to bed with me, and easing my own mind and heart that at least he'd feel my presence if he did need to pass on overnight.
A mere 5 hours later, I woke up with a very heavy heart, and an incredibly achy body (because I had to sleep on my back the entire time). I was afraid to peek under the blanket to find out if Pookie was ok. I stayed in bed for a few minutes before finally deciding to pick him up and place him on my pillow, then covered him under my comforter. About a half hour later, I went back to check on him and to my surprise, he was still asleep. Again, I checked to see if he was taking breaths, and this time, I was finally able to take a huge sigh of relief because he was, normal breaths.
To this day, I still have no idea why Pookie suddenly sat up and wouldn't wake up after being picked up. He never had a dream that was THAT good before. Too bad that I can't speak beardie, because I'm dying to know what was going on that night. Oh, by the way, Pookie's fine.
