Missing Those Termite Days

It's odd how you can look back on something that, at the time, felt crappy, but in retrospect, it wasn't anything.

I complained about May a lot this year. Turns out, I should have been appreciating May.

Termites? Yes, please. I'll take the termites. In swarms.

Because in May, Maverick did okay. She had her usual ups and downs, but it wasn't until Memorial Day that things starting going downhill fast.

It's been two steps forward, one step back since then. Almost a month ago. It's been a month since the hubby and I were able to leave the house together.

A month since I didn't have to hand feed her every meal.

A month since we were comfortable with her being in a room without us for a few moments.

A month since I could do things, even little things, without worrying about her not being in my sightline. Showering, grabbing something from downstairs, getting the mail... It's all become somewhat of a challenge.

I find ways to keep her close as I do things I used to not think twice about doing. Leave the bathroom door open so I can see her on her dog bed in the office from the shower. Talk to her and keep her at the top of the stairs as I put the laundry over in the basement. Leave the front door open as I get the mail, letting our a/c cool the subdivision as she watches me attentively.

She's been doing better. Able to eat. Able to keep her many pills down. Interested in her toys, in us, in being with us.

Yesterday was the best day yet. A cautious sigh of relief. A day of some normality.

Then came this morning.

She was a little lame. Not uncommon. I did not panic. She has severe arthritis in her hips. A daily pain pill. I thought maybe she just needed to just get going in the day. Stretch herself out. I called the vet and, since I was going in for more of her Special Food Extreme Edition (now she's eating dry only! I'll take success anywhere I can find it!), went ahead and made an appointment. The earliest  he had was mid-afternoon.

I figured he could take a look at her, ease my mind a bit. As he always does.

The day has gone on. And on. Her limp has become more pronounced and has centered itself not, as when I first thought, in her back legs and hip area. It's her front legs. As the minutes tick by until our appointment...

I find myself watching her continuing to bark and run as the UPS man comes to the door (with a jacket going straight back in the mail to be returned).

I watch her as she wags at me when I talk to her, anxious for her next meal.

As she comes up more and more lame with every movement until she can barely walk.

She has not cried. Not once. As she pulls up, lending zero weight to one leg, I can see the pain in her face. I think she doesn't cry solely for me. She's trying to keep me from losing it.

I push myself to forget about the bowling ball in my stomach. That pure, unadulterated panic. That helplessness from being unable to fix it. To make it better. To make it stop. To give her herself back.

I shove it all down. Try to find that part of me, that auto-pilot Happy Wife that takes a horrible situation and doesn't think about it at all. She just acts and reacts and takes over. Completely. Responsibly. Competently. She is a bulldozer. She can do this better than I can.

I have trouble finding her and holding onto her, this other me. I try not to think about physically getting to the vet. How a car ride will feel for Mav. For the first time, I plan on pulling up to the office and bringing her into one of the 2 techs to hold as I park the car. Because I can't chance her in the parking lot. I will limit her every step.

My husband is at work, where he should be. I called to tell him that when he can come home, he should. A reasonable hour, please. If it isn't necessary and deadlined, if the whole team isn't there with him, bring it to work on at home or do it tomorrow during work hours or later in the week. After I hang up, I force myself to stop thinking about what if she can't get in or out of the car without an extra set of hands.

I do not doubt my ability to lift the hundred pounds of her. This helps.

I feel like I am watching her fall apart in slow motion.

She's been just sick enough this month. Almost too sick but never quite there. Colitis. A parasite. Any dog can have these. Her new illnesses, causing concern but not meant to cause much more.

She has been the queen of treatable conditions. Thyroid pill twice a day for how many years now?

Things like epilepsy, more difficult for me to watch then for her to experience, so I've heard. Never frequent enough to warrant medication intervention.

Now these small breaks, these little cracks, all adding up to what?

Is this God preparing me to let her go? So very slowly?

Will I be punished until I reach a point where I beg for her comfort over my own?

Is this because we lost our other dog so suddenly, her death so much a surprise that it incapacitated me for months? Is this the flip side of that coin? I thought the flip side would be cancer, would be something inoperable, something big. Something specific, something clear.

Something unmistakable.

I don't know how so many people just walk around. How do you have a sick kid at home, with the flu? With something more? My mind doesn't reach around that at all. I have a dog. It's not apples and oranges. It's apples and helicopters.

How do we lose the people, places, familiars in our lives and just go on? Go to the grocery. Watch a movie. Sweep the floor. It's mind-boggling to me. Our capacities to handle what is given. To watch. To continue.

It seems to be that I need to suck more joy out of the joyous. So that I can stumble through the rest. Until my auto-pilot comes back on. I am eating fruit roll ups for lunch and scouring the internet for the least productive things possible. I am listening to one of the cat's purr as if it is the most important thing I have ever heard. I am folding my arms around myself until I feel so warm that it is too much.

I am watching Maverick breathe. In and out. In and out. In and out.