I've barely had any sleep. The dog stumbles anxiously through the house at night. At 2:30 am I hear him cry and whimper because he can't get himself out of his crate even though the door is always open. I take him outside where he stands in the wet grass, looking lost and dazed. I go back to bed and he paces from kitchen to bedroom and back again. Finally, I grab my pillow and sleep on the sofa in the living room, while he dozes on his bed by the front door. When I wake during the night to check on him, he's lying on the floor next to my slippers. I hear the heat kick on.
After driving my son to school, I head to the gym. I need to work off my anxiety, and my grief. I know the dog doesn't have long. I've noticed that diapers with white liners show brown spots amid the yellow stains. Blood? The other washable diapers had dark liners, and everything rinses out a nasty, smelly tea color in soapy water. There's very little to be done for a dog who refuses all medications and cannot travel. A dog who barely eats and is slowly losing the ability to walk, much less control his basic digestive functions.
The ellipticals are empty this morning so I hop on the first one and tap in Program 1. I don't go as fast as I can because I'm trying to mind my heart rate, or at least keep it vaguely reasonable. The cardiac lag between what the monitor displays and how much effort I'm actually exerting is laughable. My pulse rockets past its theoretical maximum rate while I maintain a steady pace on level terrain. Then as I start to climb, the monitor displays a falling HR. Uh, what?! This happens several times during the 30 minute period. I'm wearing a sleeved Boy Scout Camp shirt today because it was chilly and wet outside. It's soft and comfortable, except for the crew neck which I keep pulling down from my throat. I'm so much happier with a V-neck cut, or a tank. Tomorrow I'm definitely wearing a tank to avoid the unpleasant choking sensation crew neck shirts give me.
When I'm done, I stretch at the Cage and then face my first real challenge: pull ups. I haven't done them in weeks and I'm worried I won't be able to get any! I squeeze out 15 and don't feel so bad. There's no class yet so I join a few other women in the class room. They're doing an assortment of DB and isometric exercises. I just need to knock out core. And push ups. I'm shooting for 50, but lose count. Probably because I didn't get enough sleep. So I've either done 45, or 55. Planks are much harder than I remember, and my hand goes numb while my arm trembles. Afterwards, I decide to see if the Smith is empty.
It is, so I do a few sets of Inclined Presses. I just want to get a feel for it again. Since I'm still doing post-op eye drops, I don't push too hard. And I totally skip shoulders and triceps. Instead, I stretch a bit and then attempt another set of pull ups. This time I get more, but those last 3 weren't pretty at all. Still, I'm counting them.
Between sets, I start to reminisce about my old dog, before he got old. We got him from a shelter, the last of his litter because he was rough and mean to all his siblings. He was also the only puppy my older dog didn't threaten to eat. Instead, he climbed all over her and she just sat there passive, looking at me helplessly. He was two years old when we brought my son home from the hospital. He did used to get the other dog in trouble by initiating naughty behavior, like pulling the stuffing out of the futon pillows. He was seven when I had to euthanize the older dog, who was only 12 but had already lost the use of her back legs, bladder and bowels. His favorite game was "get the child to chase me around the yard, circle the house and hide behind the garbage cans." Two years ago he ruptured his canine ACL. A few months later he ruptured the other one, so his running and jumping days were over. For some odd reason, Leonard Cohen's song "So Long Marianne" pops into my head and stays there, even while I have tunes playing in my earbuds.
When I get home, I call the hospice vet and we chat about my old dog's prospects. I don't want to euthanize him too soon, because you can't undo dead. But I don't want to wait too long either. She suggests that he's developing some sort of dementia when he stands in the yard looking lost. We agree on Thursday afternoon. She can come sooner if needed, or later or, I can change my mind. First there'll be heavy sedation. Then an overdose of anesthesia. It's painless. She asks how I want to handle afterwards, and while I've got two dogs buried in the front yard already, I don't think there's room for another. Well, there might be, but I'd have to dig the hole beforehand, and I know I'd be hitting an awful lot of tree roots.
The last dog was cremated, and I think that'll be okay. I've never had the option before of communal or private cremation. You get back the cremains of your pet with a private, but who's to say those are really your pet's ashes, or even if they're ashes at all. (Concrete dust, anyone?) Communal is a mass cremation, with ashes sprinkled on the grounds, or so they tell us. Of course, private costs more. Again, it's all theoretical. I'd like to bury my dog, but the ground in the back is so sodden that it'd be like tossing him into a cesspit if I could ever get a hole deep enough. So I think cremation is my only choice. My hubs has already told me he doesn't want to be present for the event. And I don't think this is something my son should have to witness even though he knows the dog doesn't have much time.
I wonder if I have recordings of my dogs playing in the snow, of them chasing my son through the yard. I think about making a memorial card for the dog. Which I've never done for any of my dogs. But, as imperfect a dog as he is, not the smartest dog I ever had, not my "best" dog, never learned any tricks, refused to fetch, hated baths, scared of new things including swimming in lakes, cries during car rides... he's still my baby. And I'm missing him already.
Monday and trying not to cry
30 min elliptical
Program 1
Calories 275
Miles 2.47
AHR 156-180
HGPU 15
Push Ups 45
Side Planks 2 x 60s
Bird Dogs 2 x 60s
Crunches 30/20
Smith Inclined Press
Bar x 10, 12 (adjusting bench down)
50 x 13
70 x 12
80 x 12
Stretch
HGPU 20
I am so sorry to read about your dog I have been there too. But it is better to do this a day too early, than a day too late. We took Charlie and Cody to the vet for euthanasia, and had the vet come out to our van to do it. That way neither of them was stressed about going to the vet, and we could all be there with each of them, in a friendlier setting. We also took them both to the pet crematory. It wasn't cheap for private cremation, but was worth it to me.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this will give you some small comfort.. http://themonkeywranglersblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/old-friends.html