No quiet rundown of today’s events, I fear. Not enough normal relatively positive things to report, just a horrid day that started out like any other and then suddenly turned…well: Horrid with a capital H.
I wake feeling weird (in hindsight anyways) finding it hard to get out of bed, and knowing up front that I won’t be able to get myself to do the workout I’m supposed to do this day. The dogs are restless, the weather dark and ominous and time seems to be pressing in everything that needs to be done before big brother and I need to leave for our bi-weekly lessons.
Yadzia needs to be fed, laundry should be hung–but can’t, due to the fact that the batches from the previous days haven’t dried properly yet–and breakfast seems to go down like a brick before I settle behind the computer to get some work done at least.
I manage about four pages before time’s up and we need to get moving, fast, in order to make it to town before the telephone shop closes. Luckily acquiring a new phone, to replace one that’s broken, takes only little time due to the large amount of points we have and allow us to get the mobile for free.
Afterwards, we hurry on over to school and get down to business with stupid tests that have to be done on paper once more, because the darn computers still weren’t fixed.
We spend about an hour and a half with only three tests under our belt, but with the satisfactory result that had we been doing exams, we would have passed.
By the time it is closing time for the school we head on over to the home improvement store to get some more wood for the last supply closet that still needs to be build. I am actually looking forward to starting on it by the time we get home.
We are just barely home, having just finished the pasta and fresh tomato sauce dinner little sister has made, when big brother appears with the disturbing news that Bala isn’t doing well at all.
Bala’s one of our old Golden Retriever, who’s been with us for more than ten years. He was supposed to have been a troublesome dog when we first got him from the animal shelter. We never noticed as much, however. He’s always been a cheerful dog, who loved to swim, play, fetch, and jump into a fray like it was the proverbial bar fight. A true alpha male, who, up until his lost his sight a few years ago was exactly that in our pack of ninety…something dogs.
But I get sidetracked, I tend to do as much on practically every occasion and today seems to be no exception.
As I was saying, big brother came with the news that the Retriever wasn’t feeling well, so I call the vet’s emergency number and inform him that we’ll be at the hospital in twenty minutes and if he can be there by the time we arrive.
Five minutes later we are on our way, Bala, whose entire chest looks swollen, and whose gums are rapidly turning blue when breathing obviously is a problem for him. The poor fellow’s overweight, what with getting very little movement over the past years since his eyes went, but he’s bravely keeping himself up straight as he stands there on the back seat, wagging his tail sluggishly.
He actually manages to walk on his own as we head to the vet hospital and are greeted by a young vet, who apparently is today’s on-caller. We know her as the vet’s girlfriend, and though she is competent enough in emergencies, we are a little annoyed about the fact that our regular vet isn’t there.
He is the expert nonetheless, and his competence always manages to reassure us.
Alas, no such luck today.
The young woman goes through the motions of checking all the things we’ve already summed up. It is a nasty thing about vets that don’t know us well, I fear. They need to check everything before they decide to believe that which you’ve already been trying to tell them since the moment you walk in.
I’m pretty sure, from the moment we depart that this is Bala’s last day with us, and this slowly gets confirmed while the vet tries to biopsy his bloated stomach and chest, confirming that it is filled with liquid, rather than air. That his heart can barely keep pace, that his lungs are working over time without effect and that he has a bad fever.
The X-Ray, she insists on taking, is useless, due to the amount of liquid gathered in his chest, and by the time she starts pocking the poor Retriever with a needle, big brother and I make the dreaded decision of euthanizing him…even though the vet will not give us an educated guess about whether or not treatment, surgery and whatnot, will improve the quality of his life enough to make the trauma of such measures worthwhile.
It is a horrid choice and it is ours to make, whether we like it or not.
It was horrid the first time we had to make it, the second time, third and all the others that followed. And I am sure that it will remain thus with all those that are bound to come in the future.
So we make it, declaring that we don’t want to put Bala through a battery of tests, which are likely to lead to this conclusion anyway, and hug him tight as the vet nods and starts preparing.
She takes so very long. I hate it when they do that while we’re standing there, petting our old friend over and over, telling him it’s fine and that everything will be okay. I know that the vets do this to give us time to say our goodbyes, but in all honesty, in most cases I wish they’d hurry through it.
If I didn’t find it so cruel to leave the dog alone with the vet, knowing full well that the poor animal would never understand, I would not stay there during that final injection. But I feel that this is something any animal deserves: Them not being alone in that final moment is much more important than any emotional discomfort I experience every time we are forced to go through this process.
I admit that I always expected that having a dog put down would get easier as time passed and experience prepared me, but it doesn’t. It hurts every time, in a variety of degrees that wobble with every different dog.
With my hands on his chest, big brother’s over his neck and head, the vet injects the pink anesthetic. The moment the syringe is empty, I can feel–and see–Bala release his final breath, announcing that things were pretty bad, for him to go that fast.
Usually there is a slow decline in respiration; the head drooping steadily before it comes to rest on whatever surface the dog is lying on, until the overdose takes them gently away. For all the ways to die, this one definitely has a lot of pros.
Two seconds and he is gone. He doesn’t even need that final shot designed to stop his heart, or so the vet explains, even as she plays it save and inserts the needle once more.
Bala is gone, just like that, after just three hours of real illness. I still can’t encompass it entirely, but there it is, reality in all its brutal glory, I suppose.
Though big brother sheds a tear or two–it surprised him too–I don’t cry while we leave the hospital carrying Bala with us for burial at home. I’m more angry than I am sad at that point, frustrated too, since I find it so grossly unfair that animals such as dogs have such a terribly short lifespan.
I have had the thought a millions times before, but it keeps returning like a pesky ache, much like that of a loose tooth that one keeps prodding at.
Heading home the atmosphere is morose and quiet, the younger sibs meeting us at the carport and then the kitchen for a full report. They give sad nods, understanding full well how such things go, since they too have lost dogs this way.
Not much talk is exchanged for the rest of the evening, which I bleakly sit out in front of the pilot of “the Mentalist” which was recorded yesterday. Though it is good, I can’t really muster up any enthusiasm about it. Probably not the best idea to watch it tonight, but we’ve got to do something to get through the remainder of the night.
I feel nauseous and tired when I finally head on up to my cabin, the dogs around me strangely quiet when I feel something inside my chest pop all of a sudden.
“This sucks,” is the first thing that comes out of my mouth when tears suddenly start streaming down my cheeks, followed by, “what a horrid, horrid day,” which keeps spinning through my mind, over and over as Bala’s death reminds me once more that for the next few years this is going to be a very familiar feeling.
Most of our pack were gathered during the time Bala came to us, and they too are rapidly advancing in age, making their demise an inevitability that looms in a quite near future, I fear.
This thought, of course, sets me into a genuine sob fest that has the dogs look at me with a mixture of alarm and confusion, as they gather around me, jump on the bed and try to lick my face.
Deciding that I might as well get it all out, I don’t bother fighting the crying jag, and just let it all out until I finally calm down enough and find myself writing today’s Blog.
I want this day to be over, and I want it over fast, preferably.
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