I kept pushing this post off knowing it was gonna make me cry, and it already has. But sometimes you need to let it go so here it all is. The good the bad, the ugly.
After my last post in August nothing much changed, I finally went on my trip to Colorado that I had booked at the end of the month for about four days. The trip was fantastic, I got to meet my newest second cousin and spend some much needed time with family. I didn't do much but it was a good break to have to quiet my brain or at least turn off my life for a minute and breath.
My mom let me know that my dog was being more lazy then normal and having issues with laying down or would lay one place and not move as much. We contributed most of it to him missing me and that was it.
I got home and usually he would come out to meet me when I get home from these trips, I came up to him in my room and his tail wagged like crazy but he didn't get up. Figured I'd give him few days. His walks got sluggish and he'd stop and lay down in the middle of them at the park and it would take a bit of coaxing to get him back up and home. Then one day he just wasn't wanting to go for a walk and just laid there and looked at me. I had only been home for about two weeks and felt like my life wasn't my own anymore. Work was more hours with my new promotion and I was coming home, not knowing what was happening with my dog.
So that day he wasn't up for his walk I called the vet and explained what was going on. They told me to go head and bring him in at 3pm. I took him out for short walk just to get him to pee and poop an not in my car which was a struggle as well, he stopped a lot and then we got back inside the apartment and he laid down not far inside and I laid with him and just was there for him. He seemed happy and leaned into me for love and pets, and then I had to fight with him to get him back out to my car. I had tired to use the pet cover in this new car and it fell apart on me so I didn't even bother with putting it up this time. He had gotten so use to it that he leaned his body against the back of the passenger seat, without the support of the cover he slid from the seat his butt headed toward the floor of the car and his body wedge between the seat back and the seat he had been just sitting on.
I panicked for have a second wanting to run around to open the door to the side he was and help him from there but I didn't want him struggling so climbed into the car and helped pull him up back on the seat were he laid on the seat and looked so uncomfortable.
I got him to the vet and when I tried to get him to come out of the car on his own he wouldn't budge, finally with some help I got him out to his hind legs sliding out from under him and kept trying to stand back up and would slid like a seal on the ground which at the time made me not know if I should cry out of sadness or slightly chuckle cause he looked funny doing it.
Thanks to a good man who's wife had seen me struggle to get him up, I could pick him up but I could not carry him. He was too heavy and I was not strong enough to do to both with his 90lbs. I felt like I failure that I could do this. We got him into the vet and they the rushed him in and go him water and were trying to cool his temperature they asked if he had been running or what had happened cause he was running high. They took some x-rays and gave us prescription for antibiotics and one to go get for pain meds.
A few days later at work I had a message from the vet saying I needed to call them back and I did and they told me about what looked like fluid in his chest or abdomen, and they wanted us to take him to a radiologist at another vet. We took him there that evening but they were gone for the day and so I came back with him the next day. I sat there most of the day waiting while the shaved his belly and did an ultrasound. They found he had masses inside all over including his liver, the doc recommended taking him in for observation saying he was probably worse then he looked and that there was possibility of his liver bleeding if we took a sample to try and test for lymphoma which they thought he could have. And the test could come back inconclusive, the money I had even with even opening a care credit account to pay for it wasn't enough to do more then let them do the sample which worked and to give liver pills to help. I couldn't afford to keep him there and I knew with how much he hated the vet or even going to get his nails done that he wouldn't want to be there anyways so I took him home. The doctor did say he seemed more alert once he was back with my mom and I when I asked the doctor to go over everything to make sure we understood it all.
For the next week we didn't take him on walks just to let his hind legs have rest and let him out to pee or poop on the patio and I struggled with feeding him his pills and making sure he ate. Sitting with him on the floor and sometimes spoon feeding him. Soon he's personality was coming back and he was moving around better, slower but better. He'd start to want to hop up on the couch for snuggles and beg for food again like the mooch butt he was. We started to take him on short walks around the complex and he'd still try most days to go the direction that lead us to the park but we knew it was too much for him. I remember telling him maybe in a few weeks if he kept getting better we could go to the park again one day. (Including the day before)
During this time of him getting better the doctor had called my mom to say the results didn't show conclusively that he had lymphoma and if he was indeed seeming to get better to continue with the pills and then go from there after based on him.
About a month later, I got home from work where I had been gone all day and opened the door to him laying right inside the entry way of the apartment where the kitchen wood ended and the carpet began and he looked up at me panting a bit but seemed so happy to see me. My mom told me she had to fight to get him up for his walk that he didn't seem into it. Got him as far out as the corner of our complex and he laid down, after he did his business. She struggled to get him back inside and then he laid down were he was when I got home. I made him his food after I changed out of my work clothes but he didn't seem interested in it either. I don't remember telling him this but my mom told me that I told him it was ok. I went to my room waiting on dinner and started to try and work on a Halloween makeup idea that I had. My mom called me for dinner and I remember watching him as I ate and he was watching me and his breath was off, I mentioned this to my mom and I don't remember what she even said about it. I tired to give him some of my food, a piece of chicken, some cheese he didn't want it. Didn't even sniff at it really just kept watching me.
After dinner I walked by him and since he was in the way of the hallway I stepped over him and wiggled my legs against his body before I went back to my room to continue to work on the Halloween idea (my bathroom is just inside my room where I was). I remember wanting something to drink and remembering my drink from dinner was still on the table and thought about going to get it. But I didn't. My mom called me at 8 when Once Upon a Time came on to ask if I was coming out to watch it, or if she could watch it with me. My makeup wasn't really turning out like I thought it would and I thought about saying give me a minute and wash it off to come out there. But I didn't, instead I said go ahead and watch it don't delete it. I wanted to see if I could make it look better, I got to the point of putting the wig on that had inspired the idea (Blue wig: Corpse Bride) and was still not loving the look, instead of washing it off and calling it quits and going out to join my mom or even check on Him I went to trying some of my paints (not face paint) to make it work.
It wasn't much after 9pm when my mom called and said you might wanna come out here I think he's passed. I came out and as much as your heart couldn't understand it or want to, your brain was telling you yes he was. His paws were cold, his eye glazed over and his body was still.
We found the address place we had took him to just a month ago that had done the ultrasounds on him and mom had asked (at that time) if they did take passed dogs in and they said yes for a fee. So my mom pulled the car around, I remember prior to that trying to close his eyes like they do to dead people in movies to close them but his didn't close. I wrapped him in a blanket and tried to pick him up with my mom to take him to the car but had to stop it was all too clear he had passed the weight was just different in his body now from when it was trying to pick him up when we were outside my car that day just a month or so ago. We got him to the car and me being the morbid person that I am asked my mom, how to do people do it? and she asked do what? I said carry dead bodies around when we can barley even get a 90lb dog to the car without struggling. (Hi I'm Chandler from friends, I make bad jokes or comments and inappropriate times to help deal)
The place we took him to had actually closed down, they merged with another one further up the street. My mom went in and I stayed out with him but not in the car outside it near the back where he was. My mom came back out saying they needed me to make decisions.
I came in and they were showing me prices of cremation and getting his ashes back, or just a group cremation and never getting them back. I couldn't afford the first and my mom mentioned putting on my care credit card and they said I could. But I did not want to be paying for his death for months on in. So I decided a group one, when I was looking at these options my mom went out with the vets and the gurney they had brought out and let them take him around back. Part of me wishes I could have said goodbye at the car before they did but I did give him a butt rub for the road as I waited for my mom to bring the car around earlier.
The rest of the night was quiet and we watched or rather I half watched the rest of our shows after a shower and then went to bed. Before I went to sleep I looked over at the spot he usually laid and saw the mark he had made in the carpet and remembered my post I made when I had come back from Colorado saying tomorrow this will be your view as you go to bed not suitcases and realized it would never be my view again. I lost it then for a good while trying to be semi quiet not to wake my mom or anyone else.
The first few weeks were so strange and horrible, I'd be ok for a few and then not the next. Coming home late or going to bed without him was the worst and still is most nights (more tired with my crazy work hours lately its not as noticeable most nights) and so is leaving most days for work because the apartment is so empty and I was so use to saying good bye to him before I left and I don't anymore its strange. I keep thinking I need to get a new dog, and that it will help my stress and loneliness. But I'm stilling paying Care Credit off or rather the vet for the ultra sound stuff from when they did the test and then our usual vet we had him on a health plan but its for a year and if we try to close it now we'd be paying out of pocket what they covered so I'm still paying that till May/June next year. So I think I'll wait till then to seriously start looking, as much as I'd love one for Christmas.
I feel direct-less most days, my work and stress get to me a lot the other day I just laid on his pillow I still haven't gotten rid of yet; the space is just too empty in my room to do so at the moment. and opened up to the stuffing area ( I had just washed the cover the day before) to smell him and just lay there and try to refocus on the moment. When I dream of him it helps but those dreams are sometimes far and few between.
My word on the outside hasn't really changed, but my life has completely flipped upside down from where it was back four months ago, hell three months ago when I was just fighting him to take his pills. Or the days before when we were sharing bell peppers and jicama and watching Billy Madison ( I almost lost it when I saw those in the fridge a few days after, still love them but don't eat them as often now).
I remember my brain trying to come to grips with the idea of it being real, I remember back when it all started to happened I had said I didn't think he'd making it through the year. I didn't wanna be right though, I remember asking my mom if we were sure he was dead two nights after and went to explain that I wasn't there when they took him. She reassured me she asked and they checked for a pulse and noticed his eyes were glazed over and yes he was indeed gone. I felt guilty for asking the vet to put his shots together back in Aug before I left for my dad's my mom had to console me on that one reminding me that they wouldn't have done that if they couldn't. I remember thinking every time the house phone rang there would a message from the vet saying hey he was just sick he's alive here's the bill. I wanted that outcome over reality.
There was a moment or day rather a few days after it all happened that I was out and a quote on a sign at Ross made me think he was talking to me and then at Albertson's a song. I remember the night he passed I posted an Instagram photo of him and tagged it "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, forever my baby you'll be." The song was that came on the radio I looked up once I got the car its called: "Love you Forever," by Ryan Houston. I had never heard the song in my life. But the song speaks so much about him and me and it's silly since most would say he's just a dog but he was my friend, my partner in crime my fur baby even if I didn't like that name. The Chorus spoke the most since it goes "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, for always together we'll be."
When I couldn't get sleep to become my life (Ever since my trip I'm tired by 11-12, am exhausted by 1pm if I fight it and my body is waking me up by 9am most mornings) I let work take over my time. Trying to do stuff to take the focus off him or just keep me away from being home and not having him there. I can't do that anymore. It stresses me out, my life is not my job and as much as I wish I didn't have to deal with his passing to get back to my life I keep being reminded every day or a few times a week by shows or articles on the internet or people about life and as much as I'm scared of the ultimate end I'm even more scared of it if I don't live it for all I've got. I fight with what I believe is waiting on me at the end of this whole thing and some times it paralyzes me in fear. But I know that if I don't live it well, by using the length and the width and making my body better at being able to live it well I'm not doing myself or even this world any favors.
As much as I'm looking forward to saying good bye to this year and starting a new one in a few short weeks. This year and all its craziness will be a favorite because it had him in it as the last 13 years did. I just need to make the ones going forward count too.
Thanks for reading.
