It was one of those days when you’re simply happy. When everything feels just OK, and then suddenly the shit hits the fan.
I went to visit my Slovakian friend living near Turku. Since I had a few days free to explore, she recommended I do Saariston Rengastie – a roughly 100 km island-hopping route around the Turku archipelago. Great idea!
This was one of the reasons I wanted to own the van: to take trips like this, to listen to locals’ recommendations and explore places that would normally never come to mind. So Eliot, Sisu, and I hit the road.
We had three beautiful days crossing several islands, taking ferries, walking in forests and along shores, observing deer, listening to their calls, and connecting with nature. Saariston Rengastie is a beautiful experience, and I really recommend it.
Everything was great, until it wasn’t.
It was actually nighttime – I was about to go to bed, just brushing my teeth, listening to music, and thinking to myself that everything was just fine. Eliot was sleeping, Sisu was playing by herself next to me, and we were all fairly tired.
We were on a new island, Korppoo, where we’d arrived just a few hours earlier after taking two ferries and driving through two islands to find a sweet spot in the middle of a beautiful forest where I planned to spend the night. No people, no phone connection – just pure nature at its best. Lush green forest, swamps, us in our van, and many, many deer and other wild animals.
I’m always looking for spots like this, especially nowadays because 15 weeks old Sisu likes to explore, and I don’t like limiting her with a leash when I don’t have to. She always stays around the van but loves observing nature – butterflies fascinate her, as do ants. When birds are singing or making weird noises, she’s always so curious. She loves playing with pinecones, nibbling wooden branches, and hiding under the van like it’s her secret bunker where nobody can catch her.
She was trying to climb onto the kitchen counter, and I was talking to her about what she was looking for, smiling because I loved how curious she is and full of life. Especially before bedtime, it was always as if she collected all the unused energy from the whole day and decided to spend it instead of wasting it sleeping.
In one moment, she decided to jump onto the kitchen counter – something that would never have occurred to me because it was so high for her. But she did. And she fell. And fell badly.
So badly that she started screaming, and I knew this wasn’t good. I used to call her a drama queen, but this wasn’t one of those times, and deep inside I felt that something very serious had just happened. My heart started beating faster, and I was trying to breathe deeply and not panic, even though my hands were shaking and I was desperately hoping we were already in bed and this was just a bad dream.
I took Sisu outside to see if she was just acting or if it was really that bad. She didn’t move – she was standing on three legs and crying, crying so much that I wanted to cry too, but I had to take action. I’m the one in charge here.
“I love her more and more every day. I was explaining to her today that I will love her forever and that I will always be here for her, protect her, and always have her back. The same way I was always loving Eliot and covering his back, whatever he did.” That’s what I wrote in my diary the night before. Who could have known I would have to prove my words so soon?
It was midnight. We were on a small island – what were the chances I’d find a vet here and now? I jumped into the driver’s seat and started driving. Since I had no connection, I had no idea where I was going, but I was determined to drive until I found the first house and asked for help.
After ten minutes of driving, when we’d gotten out of the forest, I saw the first house. There was still a light on in one room, so I parked and rang the bell. After a while, a pretty old gentleman in pajamas opened the door.
“Do you speak English, please?” I asked with a shaking voice.
“A bit,” he answered, so I started explaining that my dog had hurt her leg and I needed a vet.
“There is no vet here on the island,” he said. “You have to get to the mainland. There should still be ferries operating.”
“Even at night?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yes,” he said. “I love you, Finland,” flashed through my mind.
He asked me to Google the ferry company’s website, and as I was typing the ferry company’s name into my phone with shaking hands, I realized I had connection. I thanked him and ran to the car.
I Googled where the port was and headed there while calling Jessi, my Finnish friend who’s become like family, hoping she was still awake and would help me solve this, as she’d helped me so many times already with my little life disasters. Thank God she was awake and sent me the address of an emergency vet near Turku.
When I put it into my navigation, it showed I had to cross six islands, take two ferries, and then drive 70 km to the vet. Arrival time: 3:40 AM.
I was very stressed, half asleep, still hoping this was all just a bad dream. I had to drive very carefully because all of Finland is full of deer who are very active at night, and there were way more of them here in the south, on the islands, as I’d been told and experienced myself over the past few days while exploring other islands.
After all: 1 deer directly on the road, 8 standing next to the road watching me, one squirrel who jumped in front of my tires at the last moment and survived, one white cat standing on the side of the road, and one rabbit sitting in the middle of the road on a bridge between two islands. And he didn’t want to move. Standing there like a statue, reminding me that I had to hurry up slowly because every life counts.
I tried calling my vet friends in Europe, but they were all asleep, so I tried calling my friend Nicky, a vet in Argentina. I had no idea what time it was there, but given the time difference, I hoped I’d be lucky and she’d answer. She did!
“Take a video of her walking and send it to me. And don’t panic! It’s not life-threatening,” she said. “Everything will be OK.”
Sisu was lying in her bed next to me – she wasn’t sleeping, was breathing heavily, but not crying. Just occasionally whimpering, though she looked very apathetic, which scared me maybe even more than crying would have. I stopped to take a video.
She wasn’t happy that I was taking her out of bed, and once she was on the ground in front of the car, she quickly walked on three legs toward the door, wanting to get back to bed. I took the video and sent it to Nicky.
“It’s bad – it could be hip or knee,” she wrote back. And I think I even lost consciousness for a second. I had to slap myself to stop tears from rolling down my face, because then I couldn’t see properly while driving.
I got to the vet at 4 AM, and the rest is history.
It’s not a knee, it’s not a hip, thank God. It’s a broken femur, broken “nicely” almost exactly in the middle of the bone. The best possible fracture, as the doctor said.
So now Sisu, my little lady who’s normally full of life, is in a cage. All day, every day for the next few weeks. It’s very hard to see her struggle with even the smallest movements, to hear her crying breaks my heart, and waking up at night to bring her outside hoping she’ll pee or poop is draining my energy.
But we’ll manage it. We have to. And it will make us stronger, both of us. I know that.
“Everything will be OK in the end. And if it’s not OK, it’s not the end yet.” – John Lennon
My dear friends, if you’ve had to go through a similar nightmare, I want to say: I feel you, I’m very sorry for you, and I’m proud of you at the same time, because you managed! Seeing our babies cry and being unable to help is, for me, one of the most heartbreaking experiences in life so far.
And if you could do me a favor and share with me:
- Any suggestions for how to entertain a puppy with limited mobility while she’s in a cage
- Tricks I can teach her to keep her brain engaged during recovery
I would be incredibly grateful. Right now, keeping Sisu mentally stimulated while she heals is one of my biggest challenges.
I wish you all good health and that experiences like this will avoid you, even though they are as well a part of this adventure called life.
With love,
Vendula
AGILITY ON THE ROAD 
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