It was the longest darn Friday I think I've ever experienced.
It was a couple weeks ago.
It dragged on for hours, starting way early, and ending in late afternoon.
And I was filled with dread. Near-debilitating fear. I'd get involved in something – thinking about what to cook for dinner, something I needed at the store, mowing the lawn – only to remember what I figured was about a 50/50 chance, come 4 o'clock. Probably worse than 50/50.
“Oh yeah,” I'd think. “There's that,” and get back to the tedious work of worrying.
Earlier in the week I'd noticed a slight limp in my best friend Mitchell's walk. I couldn't figure out if it was his right or left leg. Sometimes both.
Then that Thursday, Mitch's limp was decidedly worse. We had to cut short our afternoon walk. Mitch couldn't chase a rabbit, even a slow one. He hunched up to relieve himself, and his hind end collapsed. It took him a couple tries.
“I'll call the vet's office,” my wife said.
It was my job to get him loaded into my wife's car first thing in the morning. (She doesn't do early.) Had to be her car, because there was no way Mitch could jump up into my pickup.
I'd written a column just a couple of months earlier about reaching the age – 75 – when it becomes a real question if, when your old family dog dies, you should get another dog. After all, the critter you get could easily outlive YOU. I couldn't figure out what life would be like without those walks, morning and afternoon. Without him snoozing next to my recliner. Without that wagging tail.
He recognized the vet's office right away, and assumed a triangular pose, paws spread, hind end planted firmly on the floor, to fight every inch of the way. (He'd been there before.) They told us they'd call after they did tests, and set a time to meet with the vet.
I've been there more times than I want to remember. And left brokenhearted, without a truly loved member of our family. All I could think of was hip dysplasia. Cancer. An enlarged spleen.
Cancer in the spleen got our old dog Sam. He was a black lab, 80, 90 pounds. He'd lived on the street for a while, and knew how to turn over garbage cans to get something to eat. He ate a whole plate of raw hamburgers one night that I left out on the counter.
That dog figured out how to get the storm door open, and could let himself out the front door.
The first time I brought him home, he ran big figure eights out in the back yard, he was so happy to be sprung from the pound, in a back yard all his own.
About a year later, we were told Sam had an enlarged spleen, but fixing that can be a tough surgery, so we put it off as long as possible. But then it had to be done. It was one of those take him in first thing in the morning, then find out the verdict (cancer) late in the afternoon deals.
And I'll never forget this. My wife went in for the afternoon appointment. Surgery would be early the next morning. Sam would stay at the vet clinic overnight. But when he saw my wife, he thought he was going home. As usual, he was hungry. And he wanted, with every fiber of his being, to go home. But she had to leave him there. And he had to spend the night alone, in a strange place, and hungry, because of the surgery in the morning. What he must have thought tears my heart out.
The next morning I got a call telling me that Sam died sometime during the night. Alone. And hungry. And now, years later, that still upsets me. My old friend Sam.
So those thoughts were going through my mind when we headed over to the vet's office to find out what the heck was wrong with Mitch. We had been through this routine before. And we had been there when old, beloved members of our family were “put to sleep.”
I prayed for Mitch. “Please, Lord, don't take this wonderful creature away from us yet. I can't imagine our house without him.”
And this time, my prayers were answered.
The vet showed us x-rays of Mitch's spine. Arthritis. It had gotten so bad he couldn't chase a rabbit, or hunch up to answer the call of nature. But he was the perfect candidate for pain relief drugs. Just like the pills I take for the aches and pains that come along with being an old guy, like Mitch, with gray hair and a lot of miles on the odometer.
What a relief. To not be saying goodbye, at least yet. His tail was wagging at 1,000 rpms when they brought him into the exam room. He was going home.
With us.
I know this is temporary. I know how this family love story ends.
But, I'm savoring every second of this wonderful reprieve. And Mitch is his old self again.
Dave Simpson can be contacted at DaveSimpson145@hotmail.com
