I left New York today after 10 really fun days in New England with one of my best friends on the planet. It was a great trip, and we saw tons of beautiful sights, even if we didn't get to see a moose. Nothing in life is perfect, and if the worst thing that happens to me this month is not seeing a moose, I'll take it. This trip was designed to be a nice retreat and chance to get away from stress and sadness and worry for both of us.
When planning the trip, I also decided to take a few extra days for myself and stop off in New Orleans on my way back to Arizona. I'm here now, as a matter of fact. It's 9:30 pm, and I'm relaxing in my room in my pajamas. I just finished reading the most incredible book, Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley.
Because I'm an idiot and wasn't thinking clearly, I started reading this book today, at La Guardia Airport. I guess I didn't really think too much about what it would be about. I just read, "Lily and the Octopus is the dog book you must read this summer..." Maybe it was also the right time for me to finally read this book. Maybe it was what I needed to read at the moment. This book was really memorable and life-changing.
A little background for those of you that may have missed the incredible hurricane of sorrow that swept through Mooreville this past year (warning...it's long):
In August of 2015, I landed at the airport, headed home from a trip, when I received a phone call that Craig, my 12 year old Boston terrier was missing. He was there that morning, and then he was gone. I got home that night, and with the help of friends, I found him dead in the desert outside our fence. He was old, and I knew he was getting sicker. I didn't anticipate him sneaking out of the yard to die. Sometimes dogs know it's their time, and I truly believe he knew it was his time. Losing Craig was devastating. I could write 10,000,000 words on how it hurt and how I felt guilty that I wasn't there. He was fine when I left town. He was gone when I got back. He chose his own way to go, and my heart was broken to put it mildly.
That left me with Booney, Myrtle, and Gigi, my three big dogs. Myrtle had been with me the longest, followed by Booney and then Gigi. Craig had been the newest addition to the crew just a year before. I knew we were all going to be fine. I hoped we were all going to be fine. Well, I knew the dogs would be ok. I would get through losing Craig, and we continued on with our routine at the house. I was lucky to have them. They loved me through being sad, and they helped me remember what loving was despite being sad.
That Thanksgiving, three months later, I went home for visit. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I left for the airport to fly home. Right before I boarded the plane, I learned my dad had a heart attack in the span of time that I had left him and driven to Charlotte Airport. My brother, Jerome, said he was ok, he was airlifted to a bigger hospital, he was stable. Not knowing what to do, I got on the plane anyway and flew back to Arizona. I FLEW BACK TO ARIZONA! Seriously? 10,000,000 words on sadness and guilt and fear and sorrow....
I told myself that If I needed to, I would turn around and fly back to Virginia again the very next day. I ended up flying back a couple of weeks later because we had worked out a schedule where my brothers and I took turns being at home with Dad right after the heart attack. I flew home for about two weeks before Christmas to relieve one brother, and after me, another brother stepped in.
Thank goodness dad is doing great now and feeling so much better. It's true he's feeling better, yet I also feel the need to type here it like it's some kind of magical spell...that I make it more true simply by typing it. It has been a series of scary months as he and his doctors figure out his medicines. I can only imagine how stressful and scary it has been for him, knowing how it has been for me and my brothers, and we aren't the ones living with it!
I had been back in Arizona for a couple of days in December after being with my dad, when one morning, Myrtle started coughing. I took her to the vet, and we started her on medicine to treat what we hoped was irritation from stomach upset maybe...hopefully...please. Please let this be nothing serious!
Unfortunately, after a few days, it wasn't getting better. It was getting worse. On a Saturday (the worst stuff always seems to happen on the damned weekend), I loaded her up and took her to the emergency hospital where they discovered fluid in her chest cavity from some unknown source. They drained the fluid off, ran some tests, and sent us home until we knew more.
The very next day, a Sunday, Booney stood up from the couch and started weaving back and forth. I called my friend Cassie who said to check his gums. They were completely white. I had never thought to check someone's gums, and seeing his the color of paper was alarmingly clear that something was wrong. I somehow managed to get him in the car despite the fact that he collapsed on the living room floor, and I rushed him an hour up to the same emergency vet in Tucson that had just taken care of Myrtle the day before.
He had a blood transfusion, and they found a huge mass on his spleen, most likely hemangiocarcoma. WHAT? He could either have an invasive operation, remove his spleen, and still die in a few months anyway because the cancer most likely would already have spread, or I could take him home, make him comfortable and wait for the next big bleed from his tumor, which could happen in days, weeks, or months.
He spent a couple of days in the hospital, and I brought him home to enjoy his last weeks with his family. He wouldn't eat for several days, and I kept looking at him like, "What's happening now? Is it time? Will you survive the day? The week?" I kept thinking if he wanted to eat, I would know he was going to be ok, but for the first few days out of the hospital, he didn't want anything to do with food. I was worried about him, trying to figure out Myrtle's situation, and also taking care of Gigi.
Later that week, we learned that Myrtle also had the same illness, hemangiocarcoma, but the tumor was surrounding her heart. That's what caused the fluid in her chest cavity, and what had started to cause edema throughout her body.
I said goodbye to Myrtle first. She had been overnight at the vet in Tucson to remove more fluid and to be there bright and early for the test that ultimately revealed her tumor. I drove back up and spent time talking to her, petting her, and letting her go.
Booney was ok for another three weeks or so. One night I heard him cry out in discomfort. He grew restless. By 4 am, we were fully awake, and I knew that the day had come to say goodbye to him, too. He had managed to go outside into the yard. I put on clothes, and fed Gigi knowing we would be gone for a while....that I would be gone for a while.
I went to try and get Booney into the car, but he wouldn't move. I called my friend Sean at 5:00 am to help me get Booney into car. I couldn't speak when Sean answered the phone. I could only sob. A good friend is someone who wakes up out of a dead sleep, drives to your house, and helps you load your dying dog into the car after you call sobbing. That kindness and many others from friends over the course of this time period are burned into my memory, and I will be forever grateful.
I remember thinking as we drove to Tucson that it was a full moon, and that the moon was following us all the way there, staying right by our side. I took pictures of that moon with my cell phone. It moved as fast as we did, speeding to Tucson.
With Craig, Myrtle, and Booney gone, that left me and Gigi, my sweet Gigi Bean. When I adopted her, I always thought I would have to say goodbye to her first. She had bad hips, bad elbows, and a degenerative condition that would eventually make it impossible for her to walk. Gigi had been holding steady, though, and had been getting around ok.
The first sign that something was wrong was the day I had to say goodbye to Booney. When I got home late that morning from the vet hospital, Gigi was in the yard barking. She had gone out the dog door, and she was stuck in the yard. I went to see what was happening, and she couldn't stand up. I lifted her back end, helped her walk inside, and massaged her hips and legs. "She's just upset about Booney. She's just upset that she saw me load him in the car this morning in a hysterical mess. That's it. She just got cold sitting outside waiting on me to bring him home. That's why she couldn't get up."
That week, I bought her a Help-em-up harness. It has handles on the front and back to make it easy to life a dog up and help them walk. I put the harness on her, but she was still walking and getting around mostly on her own. My friends Cassie, Beata, and Michele came to visit from Phoenix. They got to meet Gigi and also make sure I wasn't a total emotional disaster after everything that had happened. I joked that it was a suicide watch, but I do think people were worried. It had been a rough few months. We all had a good visit, and I almost felt like a normal person. Gigi loved all the attention from her fan club. That made me happy to see.
We had several normal days, weeks, hours. Gigi loved all the undivided attention. I would spend evenings sitting on the floor with her, sharing an electric blanket. I would massage her muscles and talk to her. Then it happened again....I came home from work one day, and Gigi was out in the yard barking. I went to check on her, and she couldn't get her back legs to work. I got her up and into the house. She was shaking and scared and panting.
We went to our local vet. It was all happening so quickly. It was bad news. Her nerves were not firing, which is what happens with a degenerative condition. Her brain would say stand up, and her legs wouldn't get the message all the time. It was like a short circuit that works sometimes, for a while, but keeps getting worse and worse. Just like that....a few weeks after saying goodbye to Myrtle and Booney, I had to make the decision to say goodbye to Gigi too. Over the course of several days, she worsened considerably. This was it, the moment I knew would happen with Gigi but that I somehow convinced myself would happen many months or years later.
Our vet, Daniel Horton, always says that dogs with mobility issues are the worst to have to euthanize. They are there mentally...100 percent good. 100 percent living life...they just have a bum wheel, or in Gigi's case, four bum wheels.
We woke up early on a Saturday. Dr. Horton was open that day and was going to see us through the process. Saying goodbye to Booney and Myrtle had been with the vets at the emergency hospital. I didn't know them or the staff. While they were nice and professional and caring, it wasn't the same as going to the place where the staff had become my friends....part of my family in a lot of ways. They knew me and my dogs better than a lot of other people. I was glad that with Gigi we would be surrounded by friends.
I was doing almost all of the walking for Gigi's back end now by holding the harness to keep her up. Her poor elbows in the front were struggling, but she was getting around enough to go outside and sit in the driveway with me one last time. She smiled and wagged her tail. We took our time. I loaded her into the car, and we headed to see Dr. Horton.
Was this really happening? Again? Poor Gigi had an accident on herself on the way to the vet. She never had accidents, and I could tell this really distressed her. When we arrived, I got her out of the car and wanted to clean her up before taking her inside. No dog of mine was going to die with poop on their back legs! No way. Gigi was too good for that.
As I was struggling to hold her up, rinse her off, and get her cleaned up, I looked up in the parking lot to see my friend Cassie pulling in. She had gotten up super early to make the three hour drive from Phoenix to be there with us. I am so thankful that she was there. I had done this twice already by myself, mostly because I didn't want to ask someone else to have to be there for something so sad and so private and difficult. Having Cassie show up in that moment, when I was struggling to keep it together, really made a huge difference.
We sat in the room at the vet office for a long time with Gigi. Dr. Horton sat with us too and talked to Gigi. He had been her doctor and friend for years. She was happy because she loved everyone there. We talked to her and rubber her ears and her belly. Dr. Horton gave her a sedative, and we spent a long time with her as she relaxed and feel asleep. Then he gave her the second shot, and she was gone. They were all gone, and I was broken.
At that point, a huge part of my brain and my heart simply shut down. The list of sadness was too long. My dad, my dogs, where did it end? I was numb most of the time and still am in somewhat of a state of shock. I am still processing the grief in little pieces....manageable chunks of sadness. In the meantime, there have been other things piled on to the list....worry about family members, a broken heart, things that just keep adding up on the tab of sadness. Through the worst of this, over the winter and early spring, I made myself sick with worry and sadness....I had mysterious stomach problems and chest pains and panic attacks. I had never had a panic attack before I was 39. All of a sudden, I was having them all the time. At first I didn't know what they were. I just thought I was dying. It was somewhat of a relief to learn it was just a panic attack, to learn that I was just crazy and perhaps losing my mind instead of dying.
It took months, but I'm starting to feel physically normal. I'm starting to feel things again, too. I'm less numb. I adopted Taz, a Boston terrier who is really a great dog, and he's helping me do whatever it is people do as they survive sadness. Get past it? Not really. Learn to live with it? Not exactly right either. He makes it ok to love someone again, and that's healing. He loves to sleep under the covers next to me, and he makes me laugh a lot. I'm lucky to have him.
And then I planned this trip with my friend to New England because we always have great trips together, and we both needed this break from the stresses and sadness that had piled up in our lives. And I thought it would be nice to have a few days on the back end of the trip where I went somewhere random and tried to reconnect with myself a little bit. And then I started reading Lily and the Octopus on the plane to New Orleans, and I would put down the book several times during the flight because I would be reading and crying and probably freaking out the people around me.
About 50 pages from the end, I had to stop reading on the plane because I knew I wouldn't be able to stop crying after a certain point. I saved the ending for the privacy of my hotel room. Who would have thought that on my way to a few days of reconnecting with myself, that what I started reading was in a lot of ways the story of my life and what it means to be living on pause, to confront grief, to know love, to figure out how to live? Throughout the whole book, I read things that were true and real and made sense, even though it's a work of fiction.
Aside from the emotional connection I feel with the book, it's also a wonderfully written book. It is imaginative and magical. The writing is interesting, and the story is engaging. In short, it's a really great book that people should read. I'm glad the book found me when it did. Thank you to the author, Steven Rowley, for writing such a beautiful book.
