Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Pashy-moo, Princess Prancie, Missy, Mish-mash, Lady Chattery...

15th January 2015

I lost my dog Pasha yesterday, to cancer. It was very sudden. When we brought her to the vet a week and a half ago, she had a slight limp and showed no signs of pain. Eight days ago we were told she had osteosarcoma, cancer of the bone, and after a rush of tests we got the devastating news that it had spread to her lungs. Within a few days it was an ordeal for her to walk to her food bowl, or get up on her sofa. When we realised the maximum dose of opioids couldn’t give her anything like a normal standard of life, my husband phoned our vet.

    Yesterday two of our local vets, who knew Pasha well, came to our house, to her sofa, and while we petted her, she went to sleep.

    Pasha was a sweetheart. There was something about her that made you want to protect her from everything. She was dreamy and loved the feel of leaves on her back - she had a particular shrub in the garden that she would stand under, moving an inch forward and then back, her eyes half closed. She would poke her long nose under your hand and shrug it back onto her head, to let you know she wanted pets. To be honest she always wanted pets.

    When I tell you we loved Pasha, I mean that recently, when my husband and I were on an airplane and hit turbulence, my only thought was that we hadn’t made a will settling who would look after our two dogs and leaving money for their care.

    So this has happened, and before it happened, it was one of the top three fears in my life. (Because I have my husband, and another dog). And now my husband and I have to deal with it.

    We’re atheists. I’m completely crap, I know - I never know how to comfort someone in grief. So when someone says something to me, and it doesn’t help, I don’t think that person is an idiot. I do sympathise. But I still find myself dreading certain exchanges. I think it might hold true in a lot of cases - atheists can comfort atheists, and believers can comfort believers, but the two don’t cross over easily or well.

    She’s gone to a better place; She’s at peace now; She’s in heaven. These sentiments are meant well but to me, they offer hollow comfort. It’s like telling me Pasha’s not dead, that she’s gone to a farm in the country. I know she is dead. Telling me that she isn’t, really, doesn’t help me with the reality.

    There’s a woman I meet when she’s walking her two dogs. I think she’s a nurse. When we had just got the news that the cancer had spread, she said, ‘You’re in a new phase now. It’s all about quality of life. It’s all about what you can do for her.’ This was oddly comforting to me.

    Now, my husband and I find comfort in the fact that we cherished her, every day we had her. She was petted and cuddled, she had her own sofa, and still regularly lolled on our bed or mooched her way onto our sofa. We found parks where she could run like a big silly hare, without shooting out onto the road. We took her for two walks every day, choosing routes where she had lots to snootle and sniff. She lived a life made interesting by the dastardly council van, that drove past the back garden each morning and was duly barked at; the fox that would appear silently on the green some nights; kitty-garden, where the sleepy immovable grey cat always sat and stared back; the hedgerows full of disgusting, delicious grot; and all the pee-signals, that required careful and prolonged smelling, interpretation, and urinary replies.

    All these things comfort me. And although it simultaneously makes me feel like I’m being kicked in the chest, I’m comforted by knowing we gave her the easiest and most painless death we could.

    All my love, all my anguish at losing her so early - at losing her at all - finds an outlet in the past, in the care we took of her, in the love we showed her, in the way we knew, always, how precious she was.


18/02/2015

I wrote that over a month ago, and since then I’ve woken up every morning and the first thought that hits me is that Pasha is gone. Lately I haven’t then started crying, although I’m crying again now writing this. I read articles and blogs about osteosarcoma and I emailed greyhound rescues and vets, just trying to understand what happened - how we went from having a healthy, happy dog, to losing her, so quickly. It’s very common among greyhounds, which I never knew.

Everyone deals with loss differently, and I find myself reacting to it in lots of ways, some of which make sense, some of which don’t. One particular way of thinking about it - as if Pasha is somehow aware of the fact that she’s dead, that she can feel sad about it - made no sense at all and was just painful and awful. But I had to catch myself thinking that way in order to see that. It was like extracting a splinter. Now I just miss her. I miss her beautiful face and her silky fur, and her funny otter voice.

The thing about death is, it affects everyone. It’s this terrible thing that you can’t change, and one of the major keys to being a happy and useful person is probably the ability to deal with it. And yet, it seems like the only method that’s commonly offered is the heaven option - pretend it hasn’t really happened.

We have another dog, Zuni, and at some point I realised that while Pasha no longer needs me, he does. Dogs don’t like it when their people are crying all the time. And shouldn’t I be happy that I’ve still got him, and my husband (not necessarily in that order, of course)? It would be stupid to waste the time I could spend being glad of them. And it’s kind of silly to waste the space we have here for another dog. There will always be more dogs needing homes than there are homes for dogs. If Pasha was looking for a home, I’d want her to have it. So I want Tess to have a home, too.

Tomorrow we’re going to Offaly, to meet Tess, a seven-year-old black greyhound who’s had a pretty crap time so far. We’re hoping to take her back with us, and give her a happy loving life. Only the living can feel that you love them, and for some crazy reason, there’s only so much love available for greyhounds.