Grief and Guilt

As I sit and write today, there is a noticeable absence in our office. Both our dogs made their trip beyond over the past three weeks. The house is quiet and the last of the dog hair has been vacuumed up.

And I spent the last week crying.

It’s not that we haven’t had to euthanize dogs before. When Eric and I got married, he brought two dogs and I brought three kids. The dogs got age-related illnesses in the same year. The kids all came out ok and went on with their lives. In the greater scheme of things, that all happened as expected.

A month after we lost the two dogs, our son Tommy showed up with a Husky/Pit puppy named Dexter. We expressed concern over naming anything with some Pit in it after a serial killer, but the name stuck. Dexter was a complete goofball from the time he was born. I can’t decide if he was really lacking mental prowess or truly had mastered the art of manipulation. He would go outside using the doggie door and then scratch to be let in as if he suddenly forgot the door existed. He would wine when he got stuck behind furniture because he couldn’t figure out how to back up. If Zoolander were a dog, he would be Dexter.

Dexter was the family dog. Everyone loved him and spent time with him. After six years, we decided to get him a roommate since we had become busy with work and weren’t home as much. We adopted six-year-old Comet, a lab/greyhound, from a shelter. While we were told that the boys were the same age, Comet always appeared older. Dexter spent the first few weeks with an odd look as if to say…”It’s nice that he’s visiting but when is he going home?” Eventually, they became friends, somewhat like the Odd Couple, and where you found one, you would typically find the other….usually with Comet barking for Dexter to stop being stupid.

About three weeks ago, we realized that Comet had not moved from a spot on the carpet all day. He had lost the use of one of his back legs to arthritis. He was on a variety of anti-inflammatories and up until that day, was still going on walks, albeit very short ones. He would use his one good back leg to keep pace with his front legs. We had discussed Comet’s life span with the vet and we all agreed that as long as he had the will and desire to get around, then we would just keep on as is. On that day, he couldn’t get up at all. We fashioned a sling to take him outside to pee and he cried in pain the whole way. We contacted the Vet and realized that with neither of his back legs working, and the fact that his pain had increased, it was time to let him go. We contacted a vet service to come and euthanize Comet in our home, a decision that we will always make going forward. The vet that came told us that he believed that Comet had a tumor that may have finally taken out the back leg and that most likely nothing would have been done after considering Comet’s 12-year-old age and arthritis. We cried over the loss and moved forward.

One week later, I got the news that my uncle died. This was my mother’s only brother and what all the cousins would refer to as “the adult at the kid’s table.” Uncle Doug was this forever young 78-year-old who never seemed to develop the ability to dismiss someone. If you were talking to him, he was riveted, engaged, and made you feel like the most important person in the room, even if you were seven years old. Everyone in our family had recently reconnected after one of our aunts died. Everyone felt his loss.

During this whole time, I was working on a consulting project and was pretty distracted. I had Photo-dynamic light therapy around that time and had a face covered in Auqafor to remove pre-cancer spots. We still had Dexter in the house and we figured he would revel in being an only dog again. We noticed him laying around after a few days and thought he was depressed over the loss of his companion. By the end of the week, we decided that either it was more than depression or he needed some Puppy-Prozac and Eric took him to the vet. The vet discovered that Dexter had a UTI and started him on antibiotics. We went into the weekend hopeful that he would be back to normal the following week.

He wasn’t. We took him to the Vet ER on Sunday when we couldn’t get him to eat. The Vet pumped him full of fluids but to do any real testing, it was going to be $2000 as a down payment…with no set cap. We had just paid $500 for all of the same tests to be run on Friday, but wouldn’t have results back until Tuesday, since it was Labor Day weekend. We paid the $600 for fluids and anti-nausea meds and sent an urgent message to our vet that he would need to be seen Tuesday morning. By Tuesday, he had no energy. Our son took him to the vet when they opened and we received word that the blood tests from Friday were back. The infection was in his kidneys. Tommy drove him to the vet on Tues, Wed, and Thursday for fluids and more tests, and picked him up each evening. By Thursday, we were alerted that he was in Kidney failure. He was miserable and we had found him several times trying to go to a far part of the yard alone.

We called the traveling vet again for a second house call. Dexter left us in the presence of us and two of our sons. Our youngest son face-timed with him that morning.

Sometimes we think that grief should be felt sparingly, and only for the loss of a person. I’ve come to realize, however, that you can grieve people, pets, jobs, relationships, etc. Grief is just that…loss. We lost two of our housemates and a favored uncle. Of those losses, however, only one caused me to grieve with a heavy weight of guilt.

I spent much of last week second-guessing myself. How did I miss that Dexter wasn’t feeling well? It had been over 100 degrees for a few weeks, which meant that we weren’t walking the dogs much. Dexter had always been a heavy water drinker, easily downing the bucket that we kept on the floor. Should I have realized that was a sign that his kidneys were having problems? I’m a nurse…I just kept joking that maybe he was Diabetic. Dexter had his regular checkups until last year when we got focused on Comet’s issues. Why didn’t we get him checked also? I was so focused on a project I was working on for the past few weeks. Why wasn’t I paying more attention to him?

All of those questions kept me from sleeping and kept the tears rolling. My son made a comment recently, that helped me to move forward. He said, “do you remember where his favorite place was? He loved to sit under your desk when you were working.” It was true. Dexter would also sleep next to my side of the bed and I would step over him when I got up in the morning.

While I might have caught things earlier, I’m not sure if it would have made a difference. What I do know, however, is that he felt loved. I didn’t do everything right, but I did do some things right. And maybe that is all I can lean on right now.

I still have to move my mind along at times, and remind myself that guilt can have a purpose if it helps us to change our future actions. But just sitting in it when there is no way to change the outcome, doesn’t do any good. I can’t bring that silly boy back.

What I can do is look at those that I love and try not to miss important things and important moments. I can take the moments when I think…”I wonder if…?” and ask the questions, just in case.

And I can make sure that those around me feel loved.

Because in the end, none of the rest of it matters.

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