Before today, I had never had the opportunity to help a friend come down from a bad trip.

It turns out that the sedative the vet used today to calm Ella down enough that a steady X ray could be taken is in fact a hallucinogen. After the X ray, I sat on the floor of the examination room and held her in my lap while she twitched and trembled and weaved her head around like a snake charmer, or Stevie Wonder. According to the vet, Ella was seeing colors. She would sniff or lick my face as her nose went by, but only in passing. Her eyes were completely dilated, and if I hadn't held an arm around her head she would have bashed it repeatedly against the floor or the wall.

This was not nearly as cute as it might possibly sound. It was fairly disconcerting.