I was 20, on the cusp of 21 when my
roommates and I decided we wanted to get an apartment dog.
I spent months obsessing over what
kind of dog, and even longer trying to find one. I came across a family that
wasn’t very well off whose Chihuahua had a litter of puppies. I started
emailing with the family and soon received pictures of what was soon to be our
dog. My dog.
In the first photo I ever saw of
her, she looked like a rat. A bug eyed rat the size of a remote control. No.
Smaller than a tv remote control.
I met the family in a Target
parking lot and handed over $150,
$50 more than the price they wanted for her, and $350 less than the original
price they were asking for her.
I brought her home with me. She
slept in my bed, peed all over my floor, and quickly weaseled her way into my
heart.
She’s 6 ½ now and has been by my
side through many of lifes journeys. She has seen my ups, my downs, and
everything that’s been in-between.
The Wednesday before Easter weekend
we noticed she had a slight wheezing cough. We took her to the vet and after
Xrays, and bloodwork they found nothing wrong with her. Except her usual
issues. A heart murmur that may have intensified, her degenerative back issues,
cherry eye, and slipped discs in her knee caps.. Generally she’s a gigantic
mess.
We take her home and the next day
make an appointment with a cardiologist for the following week. Thursday night
she gets worse, and by Friday we’re taking her to the ER for pets. They
immediately rush her to the ICU and put her in an oxygen cage, and find fluid
in her lungs with an Xray. She’s put on a lasik drip and everything seems like
a hazy dream.
Kh and I leave the ER, unable to
really speak and drive back home.
I climb into the shower in the dark
and cry for half an hour.
We begin the waiting game.
Later that night I get a phone
call, she’s responding well but still in critical condition.
I couldn’t cry anymore. If my eyes
stay open, they’re in a permanent squint. I take a sleeping pill and try to sleep.
I get a phone call at 6am. She’s
doing better. Still on lasik. Still getting oxygen.
I get another phone call around 11.
Same thing. More waiting. They ask if I want to visit her and bring her food.
We get ready and head up to see
her.
I try my hardest not to cry when I
see her get excited at the sight of us. She rushes to the front of the oxygen
cage, an IV in her left leg wrapped in a gauze. A nitro paste taped to her
right ear.
I get it together and choke back my
tears. We stay with her for 20 minutes and feed her. She gets sick of us doting
on her and starts to give me that “alright, enough already” look. We leave and
get a stiff drink at a chain restaurant down the street.
We go home. I put on my pajamas and
take up my ever vigilant mope on the couch. I have a few drinks. I take a sleeping pill.
We wait some more.
Easter comes and we aren’t
interested. I get a phone call at 6am again.
Kh’s parents come up and have lunch
with us. It feels good to try and distract myself. Kh’s mother awkwardly tries
to divert the conversation and ends up going right to how she’s doing and when
we can see her again.
I keep my phone in my hand every
minute, not wanting to miss a phone call with an update.
It finally comes, right when I’m
finishing my 2nd glass of wine. I run up the 2 flights of stairs to
make it outside in time to answer the phone call. She’s stabilized; her heart
rate is down, fluid in her lungs is gone, and is well enough to be discharged.
I choke back tears and put on my
game face to finish up lunch.
We pick her up at the ICU. She
sleeps the rest of the night and I cry any time I look at her for the next 2
days.
Tuesday morning I take her to her
cardiologist appointment that we just so happened to have kept from the week
before. I cry the whole way there. I cry the whole way home.
I keep it together long enough to
get to see her Xrays. Her tiny little rib cage. Her heart. I get to see her
echocardiogram and try not to cry when he shows me the valve that isn’t working
the way it should be.
She’s given her diagnosis. Chronic
valvular disease. She had congestive heart failure and her heart murmur had
worsened. She’s on the less complicated side of things. No liver or kidney
failure or even signs of failure. She’s put on 3 different medications. She has
to take twice a day. Indefinitely.
Her cardiologist tells me the
general survival rate is 12-18 months after the initial congestive heart
failure, but he has patients that are 2x past that and are healthy and doing
well.
I cry the whole way home. I cry the
next 3 days when no one is around, and lets face it, I’m always alone unless Kh
is home.
Friday night we finally go out. We
go out and drink and try to take a weight off our shoulders.
We start to notice a difference in
her. Her energy is back. She’s playing with her toys. She’s humping her bedding
and bringing me her favorite (albeit completely falling apart) favorite toy.
We take her to her follow up
cardiologist appointment this past Tuesday. He says everything sounds good and
she’s looking much better. We get her bodywork back, everything’s normal. No
signs of kidney or liver failure which is our big concern.
I’m relieved and only tear up once.
That brings us to now. I try not to
think about it. How terrifying it was, and how I don’t really know how much
longer I have with her. I don’t know what my future would look like without her
in it. She’s so much apart of me, I believe a part of me will die with her.
I got sick of hearing people say "Pets suck" and "oh that's tough." I'm not one for words of empathy when it's hollow and forced. Out of all the pain I've felt in this life of mine, this has been some of the worst.
I’m trying not to dwell on it. She’s
here with me now. And that’s all that matters. Taking a break from worrying
about what my weekends looked like, or getting caught up on what someone else
wore during a week is the last of my concerns. Blogland, some times you need a
reality check. Life isn’t really about how you’re decorating your living room or
what you liked most on pinterest.
Real life lies outside these cyber
walls, and I’ve been a bit too consumed with it.
xo
