All Gone Wrong
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Thursday, February 21st, 2008‘We can all have breakfast together now,’ I say brightly but my heart aches with emptiness.
Two nights ago I was awake from 2am sitting with my poorly dog.
Last night I was awake from 3am, grieving for her.
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‘Defa doesn’t seem quite herself this evening,’ I say to Matthew as he gets home on Monday. We both look at her. She’s looking at us expectantly, greedily, for food, for something, anything. But he knows better than to contradict me given I seem to have developed a sixth sense about her well-being.
Sure enough, the following morning I find Matthew clearing vomit off what looks like the entire kitchen floor. Later a friend calls, but looking across at the dog I tell her I don’t want to leave Defa and invite her round instead. At lunchtime the vet does what he usually does - an anti-emetic and tells us to bring her back the following evening if she is dehydrated - and I take her home. But she continues to be sick. By the morning she is struggling to get the one step to her water bowl. At the vet’s they admit her and put her on another anti-emetic and as she is now on a drip, some opiate painkillers.
I have learnt to read the tone of voice of the various vets. Tim is relentlessly upbeat and I have learnt - the hard way with Brin - not to trust his optimism. Sarah is more candid but often guarded. But Jane, a locum, admits Defa today and when she calls saying there has been no improvement I can’t tell whether her slightly downbeat tone is normal for her. I feel gloomy and ask her to call me if her condition deteriorates but when I hang up I try to remain optimistic and hope she will be better in the morning.
A couple of hours later and the on-call night vet calls me. ‘It’s bad news about Defa,’ she says and I stupidly think how, if she is deteriorating, I can bundle the children in the car now as they have finished eating and go and see her. ‘She died sometime in the last twenty minutes after surgery closed and me checking on her when I arrived.’
**********
I am grateful that, in between the acute episodes of pancreatitis, she was in rude health. Even on Monday she was as well as she has ever been, chasing deer, birds, anything that moved, in the field. I am grateful for the love and loyalty she showed me. I am grateful for knowing for the last year that she was terminally ill and I could cherish the moments with her. I am grateful for her dragging me out on those bloody awful early morning walks while the rest of the family had breakfast together in the warm. I am grateful for just knowing her.
But I am indescribably sad that after nine years of near-constant companionship, she died alone, without me, without anyone even in the room with her.
That hurts. Terribly.
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Posted in All Gone Wrong, Dog Days
Enjoying these days
Thursday, November 22nd, 2007The dog is home and until last night was doing basically okay. Tuesday’s test confirmed pancreatitis and a shortenened life expectancy.
Today she is very sick again. If she is going to be repeatedly sick and/or in and out of the vet for stressful overnight stays we will have to consider her quality of life. If she gets an acute episode and the vet cannot manage her pain levels we will have to make an instant decision about putting her down.
At least I am prepared for the worst. There will be no taking her in to the vets and expecting treatment and instead being told we must euthanase her.
And I am making the most of her company and enjoying her presence knowing that she will likely not be here much longer.
Still. Not a good week.
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Posted in All Gone Wrong, Dog Days
When what you’re doing might not be enough
Thursday, August 23rd, 2007William is my boisterous four year old. He is in many ways still my baby: not wanting to leave me when he goes to preschool, still sucking his fingers and unable to leave his muzzy comforter at home, still needing cuddles. But in many other ways he is so obviously not a baby: he is as tall as his five and a half year old brother, as fast, legs like a colt, already writing and beginning to read.
But he can’t talk properly. At four and a quarter years old.
He should be starting ‘big’ school in two weeks, but we elected to keep him on at preschool for this year until we have made longer term plans for both him and his older brother about schooling. I’m thankful because the thought of him struggling to be understood in a class of thirty noisy children would be filling me with dread.
He has been in speech therapy since he was two. His vocabulary is probably average. His understanding is good. But his pronunciation is terrible, to the point where he is unintelligible to most people outside the family. I’ve been busy over the last year and I tried not to think about his speech delay too much, figuring it would sort itself out as he approached school age if we did our speech therapy exercises. But the truth is, he is not making progress.
I sometimes wonder if part of his unhappiness at school is because his teacher doesn’t understand what he is trying to say. Because, you know, that would be pretty frustrating, right? I’ve asked her if she has any problem understanding him and she says his speech is not good but generally she doesn’t have a problem. But I’ve seen first hand her misunderstand what he says and had to interpret what he said for her.
It doesn’t help that he and his older brother are like twins - particularly inseparable at the moment - and have their own ’sibling language’. If we all understand him, and make extra effort to understand him, are we doing him a disservice by not making him be more coherent with us, by not making him speak more slowly?
With all my children I have tried to look at the bigger picture, to imagine them as adults when Matthew and I will look back and wonder why we ever worried about these things: Ben’s failure to thrive? Look at him now: six foot four and prop forward for the England rugby team! Harry’s immaturity? Look at him now: in the army and unlikely to be crying whenever he doesn’t get to watch television! William’s speech delay? Look at him now: a public speaker for a living!
But you know, the doubt niggles. It grows and keeps you awake at night. And as parents you know you are doing all you can but still it might, just might, not be enough.
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Posted in All Gone Wrong
Joe
Thursday, July 5th, 2007As I hold my poorly son’s hand, entwined through cot bars, I’ve been thinking of you. Almost ten, as we unpacked trunks, we found matching pyjamas, a shared birthday, destined to be friends. Then a few weeks later, when noisy footsteps came to get you and roused us from sleep, still their day but the middle of our night we listened in interested silence until we heard your sobs of grief. Then a long time later you came back because, well, where else could you go? And night after night, we held hands, across the gap between cold metal beds as you sobbed silently. And I think of your son, asleep across the hall. Newly nine, also an orphan.
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Posted in All Gone Wrong
All over again
Monday, February 12th, 2007Monday
‘Where’s Brax?’ the cleaner asks brightly when she arrives.
‘We buried her this morning,’ I reply glumly, tears pricking at my eyes.
Sunday
I clear away breakfast, watching Brax carefully. She and I have been up since three, seeking comfort in each other as she struggles to breathe. My parents are on their way home. I have already warned them how poorly she is. I know that if her breathing worsens I will have to call the vet before they return.
A few minutes later she is agitated, lying down, sitting up. I go to her, stroke her soft fur, rest her head against my shoulder. She falls forward into my arms. It is instant, painless, eyes open. Her body relaxes, reflex breaths come intermittently. It is silent in the room as my tears drop onto her fur.
And so now I begin grieving all over again.
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Posted in All Gone Wrong, Dog Days
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