Do People Just Look Younger, Now?

So... Facebook popped up a picture of me from my college days. While the specific picture was of me heading out to a Halloween party (probably the Friday before Halloween, 1989), there's nothing I'm wearing in the picture (aside from the small bit of makeup and the bleach-blotted, semi-shredded jeans) that weren't part of my regular look.

At any rate, couldn't remember if I still had the original photo anywhere. It's possible that I do, just have no freaking clue where. But, it did exist in a "Photos from College" folder on one of my cloud accounts. It was actually one of only three photos of me from the entire time I was in college. There's probably  more, but none that were ever in my possession. Basic fact is that there's just not a lot of pictures of me from any point in time as I generally eschew picture-taking.

At any rate, of those photos of my college friends, while everyone pictured looks noticeably younger, none seem to look as young as the college-aged faces I tend to see walking around, today. I dunno whether it's just that I tended to hang out with people that looked older than typical or if my brain is still applying the same filters to those pictures as it formed when I was seeing those faces with regularity (but doesn't to people who are actually 18-22 years old). Could be just a weird perceptual trick ...much like how pictures of former SOs no longer look as beautiful as you remembered them looking when you were still in the good part of when you were dating them.

18 Springs

Eighteen springs ago, I selected two kittens from this bundle to be my companions for 17 years. The kitten at the far left came to us as and remaind "Bella" - she was the breeder's pick of the litter. The kitten to the far right became known to us a "Grumbles" - a name that his actions and demeanor demanded (I don't even remember what the breeder had named him as he name changed the first time I fed him, it changed to Grumbles).

I do wonder if either of the siblings outlived my pair or even lasted as long as my pair. I know that Jagger - the one crawling on top of the pile - was the last adopted because he had some early health issues. Never knew the name of the fourth kitten as she was already promised to another before I selected Bella (and came back for Grumbles).

Plate of Shrimp

One of the worst things about losing a pet to illness (esp. in the Internet and social media era)? The frequency with which information about what your pet died of begin to plate of shrimp you.

For example: when it come to an illness like kidney disease, how we feed our dogs means that, when the disease has progressed to the point of causing nausea, we've no meaningful way to entice them to eat. Our dogs' daily diet consists heavily of what kibble-fed dogs would probably consist of "treats" (our dogs get real meat, veggies, etc. - so, those aren't really "treats" to them).

Also turns out that dogs quickly associate the nauseated feeling with whatever foods they last ate before becoming sick to their stomachs. With a diet that doesn't leave many things as treats, there's not a broad spectrum of foods with which to entice them to eat. And, because they quickly associate the nauseated feeling with the "treat" foods, that limited-spectrum of "treat" foods is more-quickly burned through than dogs that get the same, manufactured dog food their entire, pre-illness lives.

One of the other suck things about kidney disease is, because your pets can't tell you "I feel sick": you don't usually see symptoms until they're well down the disease's terminal-trajectory; the early symptoms frequently display in a way that seems like behavioral issues rather than obvious signs of illness.

In the case of our cats - particularly our female cat - this manifested as urinating outside of her litterbox. Earlier in her life, eliminating outside of the litter box was behavioral. Things that had prompted it in the past had been: changes to litter-brand; annual vet-trips; us going away for family holidays (Bella got carsick and hated being taken on trips); us going away for work trips; us going away for vacation.

While we always had pet-care, Bella was generally upset for a few days after we got home. This would frequently prompte her to pee on Donna's things (presumably, she blamed Donna for our infrequent absences).

The litter-brand changes weren't our choice. For whatever reason, litter-makers always seem to see the need to "improve" things. And, to "encourage" people to switch to improved products, they'd discontinue the ones our cats liked. This happened a couple times with their litter and at least twice with their food.

As to the vet-trips: it's not like we could, in good conscience, choose to not get them annual exams and shots. I realize plenty of people do skip all that, but I've always tried my best to keep ahead of our pets' health needs. Thus, we were conscientious about veterinary care, diet and the like.

With the exception of the cats - who lived a year and a couple days beyond what was expected for their breed - that conscientiousness seems to have been in vain. We lost the first dog we adopted to cancer after only a bit over seven years ownership. We lost the second dog we adopted to (a different type of) cancer after a little less than seven years of ownership. We just lost our third adopted-dog to kidney disease after just a bit more than six years of ownership. Really hoping the first three dogs were an aberration. It would be nice to see one of our dogs actually live to a ripe old age.

Random Musings on Death

I've had the opportunity to deal with the deaths of loved ones and pets. I've had the opportunity to see to the disposal of the cremated remains of both. What's interesting is that:

• Though radically different in size, the volume of ashes doesn't seem proportionate between a full-grown adult and a 50lb dog.
• Each (pet) death, though done via euthanasia was as unique as the pet being euthanized.

My wife and I believe that one should be present when a pet is being put down. This is at odds with how each was brought up, but it works for us.

Ideally, we're also able to have someone come to the house to administer the euthanasia drugs. This saves the dying pet from having to spend their last few minutes putting up with a car ride to a place they don't like (or are even scared by). It also means that, in a multi-pet household, the surviving pets don't wonder, "where did 'X' disappear to". 

While we've only been able to do the in-home euthanasia thing, once, my wife's preference for doing body-preparation prior to cremation elminates some of the "where did 'X' disappear to" problem. The surviving pets are free to sniff about the body that's being sewn into its burial-shroud and say their goodbyes.

With the euthanasia of our first dog, her survivor howled as we took her out of the house for her death-appointment. He obviously knew something was quite wrong. Doing "in-home" avoids some of that.

Perhaps more interesting is how each pet - even though the methods were notionally the same - died:

• Upon injection of the white (propofol) Lana, seemed unaffected at first. Then, she blinked twice. Then three times. Then slowly slackened and slid to a prone position as we laid her down. Her eyes closed somewhere between sitting an laying. She lay there knocked out, breathing normally. Then, the vet administered the pink (pentobarbitol), and she ceased to breath soon after. There was only very minor twitching in her extremities as the muscles sought the last bits of oxygen. Overall, it was still fairly peaceful.
• Our second dog, Puckett, was in very late stage of cutaneous lymphoma. When we took him in, he went differently. He was severely underweight from the cancer, so the drugs acted far more quickly. With the administration of the white, he quickly melted out of my arms and pancaked onto his blanket. He was so skinny. I could see his heart beating. And when the pink was administered, I could see his heart stop. It stopped long before even the full dose of pink was infused. His only death-twitch was a flip of his tail - almost like he was saying a happy goodbye for the release.
• It was with our cats we first engaged the services of an in-home euthanasia specialist. We'd received the diagnosis that the female cat's kidneys had completely failed and that the males were in stage IV failure. Our vet knew that our cats hated riding in the car, so suggested we look at in-home services. We found Lap of Love. Their staff was very nice and the vet who came to our house to administer the service was very good about providing a non-rushed service (almost too non-rushed: I had a bit of a "can we get on with this" feeling at one point). The cats went a bit differently than the dogs. Upon administration of the white, they went quickly ragdoll. Unlike the dogs - but what is apparently normal for cats - their eyes didn't close. Being less than 20% the weight of the dogs, the administration of the pink was quickly done. And they expired equally quickly - eyes never closing. They twitched a bit more than either of the prior dogs had, but quickly settled.
• This past week/weekend, we assumed we were going to be able to do similar in-home for our Staffie. The vet knew her kidneys were failing, but thought she probably had a few days left if we were able to keep her adequately hydrated (sent us home with several bags of saline having walked us through administering subcutaneous fluids) and eating. Unfortunately, her kidney failure was complicated by a kidney infection. They'd administerd a fairly powerful antibiotic, and she'd initially seemed to rally, but, after about six hours at home, she crashed. We had to abandon our plans to euthanize her at home. In the pre-dawn hours of Saturday, we concluded with the vet "it's time". We took the short trip into the vet hospital. They'd offered to do the service in the car so she wouldn't have to spend her last minutes in the hospital. Problem was, our staffie had far more distaste for the car than the hospital. So, we brought her back to the same room where we'd put Lana and Pucket down six years prior. As sick dogs are want to do, she rallied a bit. Her energy quickly ebbed, though, and she went back to sitting ...though her tail was still wagging and she was still greeting staff as they came in to help with prep. Unlike the prior two dogs, the white didn't make her eyes close. Even though 20% lighter than either of the prior dogs, she didn't succumb to the effects of the white as quickly. Her melt to the quilt was much slower than Lana's had been ...who, in turn, had melted much faster than Puckett had. Instead of looking sleepy, or confused, her eyes just sort of faded. Lights were on, but nobody was home ...much like the cats. And the melt and the lights-out wasn't until well after the white had been completely administered. After she'd fully settled onto the quilt, the vet administered the pink. As with the white, she didn't succumb to its effects until well after it was completely administered. Her breathing shallowed and eventually ceased. A short time later, you could feel her finally leave, and the vet nodded his head that her pulse had finally ceased. As her corpse lay there, there was a lot more twitching than in any of the prior animals' deaths. I guess that, at 8 years and six months' age, her muscles were still a lot more close to in their prime. So, their oxygen starvation elicited greater responses than that of my 17yo cats, my 11yo Lana or my cancer-ridden Puckett. I can only assume the differences were from being a tough little dog ...and probably why she was able to reach the physical state she had without showing symptoms until just a couple days before everything went to hell. 

Deathwatch Begins

Apparently, the month of March really seems to hate my/our having pets.

This week, the upset stomach we'd taken Cira to the vet for ultimately resulted in a terminal diagnosis.

It started late Tuesday morning with stomach upset. She'd bolted her food like she often does and then threw it up shortly thereafter. Scarf/barf. This wasn't something she frequently did, but it wasn't completely out of the blue, either. She had the nickname "hollow-dog" for a reason: she's really food-motivated.

Donna tried again with a small, bland food offering. She ate it. And seemed to do ok with it. But she was still showing som signs of nausea, so we called the vet for guidance. They instructed us to come in for an initial evaluation. We were assuming we were succumbing to the usual "overly-nervous dog parents" thing.

The evening vet did an initial evaluation, and decided that, while a little bit dehydrated, she seemed otherwise fine. She was active, waggy and not showing signs of pain - even with fairly firm abdominal palpation. So, he gave her a subcutaneous fluid injection and some anti-nausea medication. He instructed us to bring her back if she showed further symptoms and they'd order further tests and try to address any further symptoms. He also told us to try some Prilosec, the next day, if the nausea persisted.

The remainder of the evening was fairly uneventful, so I went to the office to work, on Wednesday. Cira was still mostly herself, so Donna tried the process of re-introducing her to food. She started with some plain rice and chicken in the morning, and repeated a few more times throughout the day. She'd also given her a Prilosec in the morning, per the vet's orders.

Thursday, I had a doctor's appointment scheduled, so it was going to be a telework day. An hour or so before sunup, I heard Cira hacking - as though she might be gagging or vomiting. Not wanting to light up the whole room, I came over with my cellphone — flashlight on — to check on her. Since I was shortly due to get up to telework, any way, I opted to bring her downstairs with me so she could nap by my side on my couch.

Donna came down with Lady and fed each dog. I apprised her of why I was downstairs so early with Cira. After the dogs finished their breakfasts, she went upstairs to check for vomit and found some in her bed-area. It was about time for me to leave for my doctor's appointment, so I told her to contact the vet and get an opinion. They advised Donna to bring Cira in and had an appointment available to do so. Donna let me know this while I was at my appointment. My appointment ended early enough that I was able to meet them at the vet only a minute or two after the consult started.

The vet gave her more fluids, some more aggressive medications and a script for medications to administer at home. We were instructed try bland food again with the medications and to call if Cira showed further signs of illness. The plan was that, if Cira did exhibit further issues, they'd do Xrays to verify that there weren't any bowel obstructions.

Donna gave her the meds, but Cira wasn't interested in food. I'd assumed that, because the vet had warned us that the one medicine was very bitter, that Cira wasn't interested in food because of how awful the medication made her mouth taste. Later in the afternoon, she threw up the pills and the food she'd had for breakfast. We tried feeding her again, but she still wouldn't eat. More worryingly, she wasn't even interested in licking peanutbutter off of either of our fingers. Obviously, we called the vet and they told us to bring her back.

This trip, they opted to do an X-ray to ensure that the week's sudden onset of vomiting and persistent nausea hadn't been caused by any kind of bowel blockage. The first indications that something truly dire was going on was that her spleen was noticeably enlarged and she had what appeared to be calcification in both her kidneys. We discussed diagnostic and treatment options. We opted to leave her there for some additional testing, some antibiotics and IV fluids and then returned home.

An hour or so after we got home, the vet unexpectedly called us. We weren't expecting a call till the next morning when the various (sent out) tests should have been back. Usually, early callbacks are rarely good news. This call very much wasn't good news. Cira's kidney-function tests were showing extremely high BUN and creatinine levels - a couple multiples of the numbers typically seen for stage IV renal failure in dogs. The enlarged spleen, while worrying, was no longer the top priority.

And now, we're waiting for ultrasound results to try to determine what all's going on in there. It's unlikely that the results will be anything outside of the immediate to less-immediate spectrum. At this point, it's mostly a case of trying to determine how much time she might have left at an acceptable quality of life. Call's already been put in to the in-home euthanasia service to check provider-availability. So, depending on the sonogram results, this could all be over very shortly or in a few day's time.

The bugger of it all, aside from the shear unexpectedness of it, is the timing. We lost both our cats to renal failure on the twelfth of the previous year's March. Similarly, we'd received a lung-cancer diagnosis for an earlier dog back in March of 2011. So, March is proving to be a hateful month for our pet ownership.

Rainy Days and Longevity

So roofer came by to do his inspection. Definitely need new roofing all around.

Now to wait to see what the estimate is and whether it all fits within my rainy-day savings or if I have to finance. If I have to finance, I'll probably look to see how much bigger the loan would have to be to accommodate a solar install.

Was kind of funny - if a bit sobering: the estimator had forgotten to leave us with the swatch-book of shingles. When he came back by to correct that oversight, he was showing me the different categories and says to me, "I personally wouldn't splurge on the 'premium' shingles," to which I replied, "my goal, in all of this, is to not have to worry about putting another roof on this house till I'm eligible to collect full social security: I'll be 47 this January". He responded back that I definitely wouldn't need the premium shingles/roofing materials since everything was guaranteed for well longer than 20 years.

One of the funny things about being in the back half of my 40s: I need to start weighing so many more decisions against actuarial likelihoods:

• Will this roof repair last me at least as long as I plan to be working
• Is it likely that this new doctor/dentist/etc.will still be in practice for as long as I need their services
• Does it make sense to buy this new appliance now, or wait "X" years so that its likely end of life will be sometime after I've retired and moved away

And it all ties back to the realization that, even if I live to be 90, I've got less years ahead of me than I do behind me. Right now, for the more ahead than behind to happen, I'd need to live to be 93 or so. In which case, even if I've planned my savings appropriately for a typical lifespan, I'll likely have outlived those savings-plans.

Bleah.

End Times (Again)

Not that I want her to feel bad, but the problem with pets with a terminal diagnosis is they often "rally" during their decline-trajectory. So, in the days leading up to the appointment with the euthanizer, you're periodically left to wonder, "wait: did I jump the gun on this? Do I need to delay?"

Last night, while she was pretty low on energy, when I took her over to the food dish, she ate well. This morning, I came down, and, for the first time in days, she was off the couch. She was actually down at the water dish, drinking. There was no pee smell on the towel she'd been sleeping on. The secondary (low-sided) litter pan had been used for urination (and the absorbant was pretty much soaked).

I guess I'll see how she's acting when I come home from the work: if she's still in a rally, I'll call the vet who's scheduled to come, tomorrow, and ask her opinion on the matter.

Bah. I don't want to send her off, prematurely, but I don't want the rally to end, be in worse shape than she was before, and have to seek out an emergency euthanization.

I'd made a similar mistake with Puckett. We'd scheduled him for an appointment, based on diagnosis and earlier trends. Difference was, I'd scheduled further out. Then, a few days before he was due to go to that appointment, he crashed. We'd gone for a walk to enjoy the weather. He'd been especially energetic on that walk. However, when we came back and I went to feed him a chunk of cheese slathered in peanutbutter, he refused and gave me kind of an "I'm ready, now" look. I knew that if we waited for the appointment, he'd have been "beyond ready".

I don't really want that for Bella - especially given that I can't even really make the gamble worthwhile (she doesn't do treats).

:(

Observation From A Party of Friends

It's a lot easier to not notice that you're getting older if you don't hang out with the same group of people (periodically) over time. The problem with infrequent get-togethers, is that it's a stark reminder that your friends are all getting old (and, by extension, that you're getting old).

Used to only notice this when I would go home to visit my parents. Each time I did so, they looked older - particularly my father. It got to the point where the visible aging became hard to bear and made it such that, even though I really loved my parents, I couldn't bear the psychological toll of seeing how much older they looked each time I saw them. It meant that visits became more and more infrequent. Sadly, with reduced frequency of exposure, the progressive effects of aging would be all that much more apparent because the snapshots had longer intervals between them.

Who knows: maybe the key to not being bothered by it is to see people more frequently That way the changes are less stark and the resultant shocks less jarring.

Dunno, but people need to stop getting older - it makes me feel too old when I see.

Girl?

I did not watch the Super Bowl, this year. I had no interest in the teams playing. The commercials - frequently the best part of the whole thing, any way, were all immediately available to view online. I had no interest in this year's halftime-show installment of the over the hill gang.

Once the Super Bowl was over (thank you FaceBook for being the barometer for this), I hit the NFL.Com website to see if the commercials were decent. Some good ones (the various car commercials seemed the best) some mediocre ones and some that made me wonder why they bothered (pretty much all of the movie ones - especially the one for Phantom Menace - sucked).

FaceBook, Twitter and Plus were all aflame with how good Madonna's performance was (even with an undercurrent of "I don't know why she didn't play the 80s classics" and "I don't care for the new stuff). People were talking about it at work and it was being mentioned on all the news. The news stories, however, were the most annoying.

Madonna hasn't been "The Material Girl" for twenty plus years, now. When you're post-menopausal (presumably), you're no longer a "girl". If the AARP is starting to recruit you, you're no longer a "girl". If you look great from a distance and in soft-focus, but closeups reveal aged, crepey skin, you're no longer a "girl". As such, it's more than slightly ridiculous for newscasters to still be referring to Madonna as "The Material Girl".

Channeling Brezhnev

Why does it seem like, the older I get, the more my eyebrows try to channel Brezhnev?

That's the question I posed to my friends on FaceBook. One astute commenter pointed out that most people - at least the ones on social media sites - probably aren't old enough to remember Brezhnev:

This guy, right here: look at them eyebrows (that's your future, son!)

I replied that, if they ain't old enough to know who Brezhnev is, they're likely not suffering the eyebrows problem, either.

Sadly, not long into my twenties. I lost my hair (if you Google around - perhaps even looking at my Google+ profile - pictures of me are easily found). So, while my eyebrows are growing progressively bushier (I tweezed a brow-hair that was like half an inch long today!) - and my ears, etc - the rest of the hair on my head has been going the way of the dodo. Hell, even my goatee is now mostly white (though that started in my mid-20s, too).

And, while the overall greying of my goatee combined with my baldness and build make me look like someone created some kind of Brundle-Fly by tossing Colonel Sanders and a meth-dealing Hells Angel in a teleporter-pod, I can mostly take these signs of aging in stride. What I have problem with is why the fuck are my eyebrows mutating into something that the Farmer's Almanac can predict winters by? And, the white in my beard was ok, but the stray white ones in my eyebrows are really quite a bit too much.

/me sighs

Disheartening Realization

When Puckett died, after being my pet for slightly less than seven full years, I'd hoped that the rescue we'd gotten him from had been wrong on their age estimate. When we'd brought him home, June of 2004, they'd estimated his age at about 1½ years of age. That would have made him less than nine when he died. As awesome as he was, I didn't want to think that he could have been that young. Knowing that we were the second family to adopt him (he lost his first rescue home when the couple that had adopted him got divorced), I'd sort of assumed that they must have meant he was 1½ years-old when they adopted him. This would have hopefully meant he was at least two years old, possibly over three years old when he came into our home. This would have meant he was nine or ten when we put him down at the beginning of April. Either age would still have been to young, too short a life for such a great dog, but, still: better than nine.

Recently, we adopted a new dog. It had taken about two months to find a dog that both said, "hey, you really want to take me home" and was cat compatible. The only other dog that said "take me home" pretty much failed pre-adoption cat testing. Ultimately, we found an AmBull/Pitbull-mix that both said "take me home" and gets along with cats. This is her:

A Pet ConFab

She and Grumbles frequently share my couch with each other. Basically, if I'm home, they're both on my couch with me

The other thing you might notice, if you've read prior posts on her predecessor, is that the sorta resembles Puckett. That was an accident, more than anything. I wasn't looking for a Puckett-clone. And, personality-wise, while both are/were very happy dogs, they are more different than just their gender and breed-mixes. I don't have any temptation to call out "Puckett" when I really mean her (closest I came to that was a reflex response to Donna screaming at me, "call your dog!" when she was being under-foot in the kitchen: my programmed response, after years of such entreaties was, "PUCKETT!").

When we adopted her, the rescue had her name listed as "Miss Lady". In reality, she didn't really know she had a name. However, she's very much not a lady, so, I kept the "Lady" part of the name mostly for its irony-value. She's just in recent days started responding to it as though she understands "oh, when they say 'Lady' they mean me." She's only ten months old and is still very much a puppy in her actions and outlook on the world. Seeing this puppyishness and remebering back to when we got Puckett, it becomes evident that Puckett died on the wrong side of nine years old.

End Times

So, we'd thought that we were going to have to put Puckett down, tomorrow. His cancer was aggressively advancing and he was looking thinner by the day. He was starting to have trouble holding down food or having interest in but all the most favorite morsels - fresh meats, peanutbutter, cheeses and the like. He'd lost interest in his rice and was eating around it. So, we'd switched to all meat & vegetable  dinners and hand-feeding him bits of meat, peanutbutter, and cheese any time we passed through the kitchen.

Sometime before I woke up, this morning, he'd scratched open the tumor on his head. Not wanting him to get an infection - even if there might only be a few days (or less) left - I brought him into the bathroom to clean up and treat the wound. My bathroom's a little on the small side. So, to get the door closed to prevent dog-escapes, I have to manhandle him. I decided to just lift him up from his bed and carry him in to make the whole thing easier. It was at that point that I realized just how much weight the cancer had taken from him: he was noticably lighter than his normal 57lbs; he was noticeably lighter than Lana had been when I'd had to carry her body from the vet's; he felt like he might actually even be approaching Cira's 42lbs. So, I knew we were close.

While I knew we were close to the end-date, we thought we had a little more time. We'd already gotten our prefered vets' schedules for the week when Donna had gone in to get him the anti-nausea medications. Friday, both of our regular vets were scheduled to be in. So, we figured, given the recent rate of decline and our preferred vets' schedules, that we'd do it Friday.

Today, when I came home from work, he was still taking handouts, but he seemed like he was doing it because it was his favorites, not because he had any real interest. So, I called and made the appointment. Then, we went out for one last walk, because it was a really beautiful day. I'd have put him in my convertible and taken him for a drive in the open air, but, it was the thick of Northern Virginia rushour (and would have been pointless). Donna had already taken Cira out from a longish walk. I was only intending to take him down to the end of the block and back. The effort of even that was noticeably wearing on him. But, as I was about to turn us around and head home, I noticed Donna and Cira coming up the next street. So, I waited for them to get closer, figuring the four of us could walk back home, together.

Donna wanted to take Puckett on one last visit to our local boarding kennel (Royal Pet Kennel). One of Donna's friends is on staff and was fond of Puckett (in all honesty, I don't know anyone that spent any time with him that wasn't fond of him). So, we extended our walk a little bit and went to see if Donna's friend was in. She was, so, we hung out a bit and let her say her goodbyes to him. Then, we walked home.

Donna opted to stay out on the front porch and enjoy some sun-time  in her rocking chair. She fetched up a bag of chips and a drink, got a pillow for Cira to lay on and hung out.

I went in to get Puckett a drink and try to feed him some more treats. He drank heartily - with the sloppy gusto that he'd always sloshed his water dish with. Though, in retrospect, there was a bit of desperation to it rather than just gusto. We'd kind of been thinking that the cancer may have been spreading from his lungs to his kidneys. The water said that was probably true. I left him out into the back yard so he could go to the bathroom. He took what, for recent trends, was a very short break. He didn't seem terribly interested in the usual sniffing about and lolly-gagging that he always indulged in on days as temparate and sunny as today.

I went out front to let Donna know he was seeming a bit out of it. She'd had enough of her chips and handed me them to bring back into the house. I figured, offer one to Puckett. He had no interest. Worried, I went into the kitchen and dipped my index finger into the jar of Jif and offered it to him. No interest. At that point, I knew that we couldn't wait for the planned exit. If he was refusing a finger of peanutbutter, he was in dire straights - probably in pain or discomfort that he couldn't communicate in any other effective way. I went out onto the front porch to show Donna the untouched peanutbutter. We agreed that we should take him down to the vet, post-haste. So, I called and got the ok to bring him in, immediately.

For better or worse, our vets' practice is just down the hill from us. So, it was a short trip - the only thing keeping us from getting there in under five minutes being the traffic along the one-mile route. I was already starting to fall apart, so, I had Donna go in and sign him in while I waited with him in the car. It was a short wait. They sent her out to get me and prepped the room while she did so. I walked him in, taking him down the very long hallway to the euthanasia room. The sign on the door said, "in use," so I thought, "damn: bad day for pets." No, the "in use" was to indicate that the room was waiting for us. They opened the door and directed us in, then summoned the duty-vet.

While we waited, they went through the paperwork with us. It was all too familiar, having just been through it only five months previous with Lana. Yes, we wanted to be in the room for the proceedings. Yes, we wanted the paw print. No, we didn't want to send his remains off for cremation - we'd already called Sunset Pet Services to let them know we'd need to use their after hours service. Then, they took Puckett out to get his catheter put in.

While he was off getting his catheter, I went up to take care of paying. Recently, I've been pumping most of my expenses through my Visa. Apparently, I'd left it at home. All I had with me was my AmEx - the same AmEx I'd paid for Lana's services with. I remarked that AmEx was apparently my personal death-card. Yeah, that's me - find the absurd and grim humor in any given situation. I'm perky like that.

They brought Puck back from getting his catheter in. The vet came in a short time later. She wanted to confirm that we really wanted to be present. She wanted to make sure we were ready for what we were about to see. I cut her off - letting her know we appreciated the cautions, but that we'd been through it just a few months previous, so were well aware of how it could go down and the steps involved.

Pets should never become sick in such short succession to each other that your vet's euthenasia discussion feels like when the stewardesses go through their seatbelt and breathing-mask spiel.

The vet laid a towel down on the floor and Puckett sorta laid half on and half off of it. Mook: always had to be goofy with things.

She prepped her syringes: the three salines for clearing the line; the knock-down anesthetic of milky bliss (Propofol); and the vial I've come to think of a "pink death" (probably some kind of sodium pentobarbital cocktail). Much like the euthanasia talk shouldn't be like the stewardess speech, one should never be familiar enough with the chemical agents to have nicknames for them. Dunno how vets are able to do it - it's such an awful task. Then again, I used to have problems watching the emergency vet shows on Animal Planet.

She pumped in the first of the salines to ensure that the catheter was clear. Then, came the milky bliss. Within seconds, he was pancaked. The last voluntary motion from him being a final, vigorous wag of the tail. It happened quicker than Lana's had. Didn't even really have time to see him flutter his eyes. Then, another syringe of saline to make way for the pink death. Finally, the pink death was started in. I felt him leave even before the last of the vial was gone. The vet seemed kind of surprised for me to say it, because it usually takes longer. But, when she applied her stethoscope, she confirmed that he had in fact passed.

Death is funny: you can feel "something" leave; you can see the eyes go from alive to being utterly empty. What was them is just suddenly gone. Even more, you can feel it - whether they were previously conscious or if they've been comatose. Never really understood it until I watched family die. It was really driven home by recently watching two pets be euthanised. I'm not spiritual. I'm not religious. But, when you're there for the moment that someone or something passes from alive to dead, you feel it.

The vet asked if we wanted time with his body before they took him for cleanup. Such an odd question. 

I'm generally not the most emotionally demonstrative person in the world. I didn't really cry at the death of my grandparents. I didn't even really grieve all that much when my dad died, two Novembers ago. But damned if I wasn't absolutely racked with great, heaving sobs of grief. For a dog. Not a human. Not my blood relations. For a dog. The rational part of me just can't rectify it other than that the deaths of humans I've witnessed or attended to, I played no part in. Even when you know it's the right thing, seeing to the death of a loved one - even if it's just a pet - is unbelievably hard.

After I got through the worst of it, Donna asked if she should go get the vet staff so they could take care of Puckett's body. Body. Yep. At that point, that's all it was: just a body. Puckett was gone - well and truly gone. She left the room and sought out a staffer. While she was gone, another wave of grief wracked me. It suddenly struck me, "crap: this might trigger a seizure." It was probably just the hyperventilation making me feel weird, but I didn't trust that I wouldn't have a seizure. So, I gave Donna the keys to the SUV and asked that she drive. 

The vet techs came in and asked if we wanted him put in a coffin. I've been down that road many years ago when cancer took my rabbit, BamBam. In vet parlance, a "coffin" is little more than a cardboard box barely large enough to hold the body. Sorry, but this was a family member, not something I'm gonna send via FedEx. We'd brought a large towel and his death-shrouds, at any rate. So, I politely declined the box, indicating we'd brought the towel. The techs and I carefully ensconced Puckett's body in the towel - they were nice enough to bring diaper-like pads to help control any post-mortem leakage on the journey home. I picked up the awkward yet disturbingly-light bundle and carried him out to the truck, bundled him into the back seat and set next to him, on it.

Donna drove us home. Traffic seemed oddly light. Then again, the sun sets later this time of year. Puckett's heart had stopped right around sunset, it seems. It was actually well after seven at this point - we'd apparently arrived a little before six PM. What feels like such a quick process actually takes surprisingly long. For both Lana and Puckett, we were at the vet for over an hour's time, each.

She pulled into the driveway. I got out of the truck, went into the house and into the back yard so I could unlatch and open the back gate. I came back down to the truck and carried his body to the back porch so Donna could prepare his body for delivery to the cremation service.

When a pet dies, Donna likes to send them off the right way. She likes to make them a set of shrouds to wrap them in and cover the outside of the bundle with the various names we'd called the pet during their life. The suddenness with which Lana's decline had crept up on us had meant she'd had to place the names using a sharpie. The slow nature of Puckett's decline meant she'd had time to hand-embroider his names into the sunny yellow exterior cloth. With blue embroidery floss, she'd placed names like: Puckett; Pucketty-Puck, Mook, Mooktastic, Mookenstein, Pucklehead and Indawä. The last was just a way of putting into a single word his tendency to always be under foot or "in the way". The yellow cloth was to commemorate the sunniness that was his personality.

It was kind of an odd, yet very fitting procedure. When I laid him down on the back porch, he kind of rolled over onto his back, his body assuming the same playful pose he often had in life. The way his lips sort of drew away (by gravity) even looked kind of like he was smiling.

We got the blue cloth, and placed him carfully on it, tucking his legs up against his body and tucking his chin towards his chest. Then we began to roll him up into the first cloth. As we got near the end of that length of cloth, his tail flopped out. It was like he was trying to wag his tail one last time. We carefully tucked his tail back in and then began rolling him into the embroidered, yellow cloth. Once wrapped up, Donna began to stich him into it. It occurred to me, if we're sending him off this way, we should send him off with a favorite. So, I grabbed one of the previous night's remaining hamburger rolls, slathered it with peanutbutter, and had Donna tuck it in with him.

I came out a while later to check on the progress. Donna had him all but completely stiched in. Much as he'd seemed to try to wag his tail while we did the initial wrap, he'd slobbered through his shrouds. Lana hadn't done that during her wrapup. So, it seemed like yet another, last, Puckett-y thing.

I called Sunset and let them know we were on the way. We drove out the all too familiar route to Sunset. When we got there, I got out and rang the night-bell. The staffer came out, we put his body on the cart, then went inside to fill out the paperwork. Paperwork done, I joined Donna at Puckett's body and we bid one more tearful goodbye to him. Then, we drove home.

House feels empty, somehow. I've got another dog, laying on her dog bed, working on a bone-toy. I've got a cat curled up at my hip as I write. Another cat is skulking about the house. Donna is sitting behind me quilting as we have a really awful zombie flick on NetFlix Streaming. Still, with all this life around me and the noise from the TV, the house feels quiet and empty.

 

If anyone actually reads this, sorry it was so long. I had to spill this all out so I have it to re-read later. It's gonna take a while for me to process. In the meantime, I can do a version of retail therapy and look through PetFinder.Com in hopes of finding another bundle of life to fill the gaping hole left by Puckett's departure.

Morning Revelations

Got up, this morning to start my daily routine. The last couple weeks, this routine has included letting Puckett out. Used to be, I'd go about my morning routines, alone, and Donna would let the pets out when she got up. Since being put on the steroids, Puckett's allowable time between bathroom breaks is greatly-reduced (he's drinking a lot of water and, naturally, is also producing a lot of urine).

When I brought him down, this morning, I'd noticed he'd scratched one of his tumors open. So, after feeding him some peanut-covered bread and a peanut-covered rice-ball, I took him back upstairs so I could take my shower. Before hopping in the shower, I decided to clean out where he'd scratched himself open. I dunno that he has enough time left for it to get infected, but I don't want to take the chance, either. So, I picked him up to go wash out the wound (he tends to resist going into the bathroom for cleanings and I didn't feel like the fight). He's definitely lost/losing weight. He feels like he weighs less than Lana did and probably not much more than Cira does. So, it's probably safe to assume he's dropped out of the 50lb range. This in a dog whose life-long, healthy weight was around 57lbs.

The Time Draws Close

Ugh. I feel like one of those sign-whackos you see out in front of public spaces. I feel like I should have a sign saying "the end is nigh".

Now that I'm home from work, I'm able to see that Puckett's noticeably skinnier, this evening, than he was last night before bed. I can actually see his heart beating through his chest (though, at least, his breathing doesn't seem labored, right now) and his face is so bony-looking.

I'd end it, tonight, but I'm not about to do something that requires me using the "night depository" at the pet crematorium. He deserves better than being left in a drop-box, even if what would be left wouldn't really be him.

I've got stuff at work that pretty much has to be done, or I"d do it tomorrow, during the day. Fortunately, both the vets that have been seeing after him, the past few years, are on duty, Friday. So, assuming he can wait that long (or doesn't experience some kind of miracle before then), we'll take him in and send him off.

Too Short A Time

Looking back through pictures, earliest I can find of Puckett are late-June 2004. So, I did some research. Looks like we got him on or about 6/20/2004 (though, our first encounter with him was a week or so earlier). Still... We'll have had him not even 7 years when we finally have to send him on his way. 

Note to self: don't dig for answers you might not like. It was gut-punch enough getting the news of his impending demise. Pinning down the date to one that was far later that you'd specifically recalled just "piles on".

This Is What Death Looks Like

So, we took Puckett to see the vet, this morning. Much as I'd feared, his cutaneous lymphoma appears to have spread to his lungs. The vet took X-rays, to eliminate the possibility that he might just have kennel-cough. Normally, they take a sequence of three X-rays to get a good view of both lungs and along two axes. The vet only bothered to take one picture (shown below):

Canine Lung Cancer

On the plus side, we didn't have to involve a radiologist to read an iffy X-ray. We also didn't have to subject him to a CT scan. We didn't even have to subject him to the full rigor of being held still for three X-rays. Pretty much anyone can look at the above and know it's bad juju. I mean, that's just a view of one lung from one axis and you can see quite a number of masses. To me, it looks like his lung is a third cancerous tissue, at this point. I don't know how he manages to breath as well as he does.

Hard to believe how fast his clock has been running-out. It was just last month that we got the cutaneous lymphoma diagnosis. And, it was only in the last few days that he just sorta fell off a cliff, symptom-wise. I'd been hoping-against-hope that it wasn't going to be this. I'd been hoping that he'd beat the averages. Unfortunately, the only way he's beating the average is in just how aggressively the cancer has progressed and spread. "Like wildfire" doesn't seem to do it justice.

As I sit here, typing away on my couch, Puckett lies breathing, fast and shallow, next to me. Unless the steroids work miracles (i.e., make his breathing less labored and reduce the irritation in his lungs so the coughing stops), I'm thinking I'm saying my final goodbyes come Monday. In the mean time, I'll try to use these last hours to spoil him (thus, why he's got couch privileges after a lifetime without). Even the other animals seem to "know": Cira's curled up on the floor below him and Grumbles is curled up next to him on the couch. Even Bella doesn't seem to be offended by his presence in her nesting-space.

Winding Down

So, a month or so ago, my dog, Puckett, was diagnosed with cutaneous lymphoma. It's pretty much a death-sentence as it's not a type of cancer that responds well to the usual cancer treatment options and, even if it does respond, it has a high incidence of recurrence. In that month's time, I've seen an 11yr old dog go from an energy level and demeanor that caused most people to guess his age at maybe a third his actual age to seeming like an eleven year old dog.

When I say he used to act like a dog a third his age, I'm not kidding. Included in the people fooled, by Puckett's energy, have been neighbors that have known us more than four or five years (and did pet lookins when we were out of town), vets and vet techs who'd not yet looked at his file. Of course, people new to him, were always immediately fooled.

It just seems like, in the last thirty days, the full weight of eleven years of life have come slamming down on him. The initial diagnosis said that dogs with his condition average about six months from diagnosis. That projection was based on later detection than was his case. So, I was hopeful that he might go on the long side of that death-sentence. With his recent, sudden aging, I'm feeling like I might be lucky if he makes it to summer.

Today, the sudden aging really struck home. Throughout the entire time that Puckett has been with us:

• He was always the first dog at the door. He was always the most exuberant. This last week, especially, he's no longer at the front of the lineup - he's sorta hanging back, waiting his turn for the hellos.
• You could always tell when he was near a wall, standing near a table, next to the kitchen island, counters or appliances or even positioned "just right" in a doorway by the loud banging of his tail. And, if he happend to be standing in a corner, where his tail would hit two surfaces, it was a loud, stacatto drum-beat of enthusiasm. His wag was always done with such energy and vigor that, even if it wasn't banging against something, it made is head bob about as some kind of counter-balance. His wag has been so everpresent that he even frequently wags in his sleep (a bit disconcerting a phenomena). He's still wagging his tail, but it's not with quite the same vigor and, it seems more that he's doing it in response to a request for it than doing it unbidden out of shear zeal for life.
• Except when drawn away by food or not being inside the house, he always followed me into the bathroom. I'd come to make it a habit to leave the door open, lest he stand there bumping at it till I let him in. Today, for the first time, as I sat there with the door open, he remained parked in the living room, resting.

He's also been a bit wheezy and generally tired the last week or so. His legs seem to be stiffening up. And, of course, the "coffin-nails" (what I've come to refer to his skin tumors) seem to be multiplying - as yet, most are detectable just as a disturbance in the lay of his fur rather then yet being felt by a stroke of his fur.

Tomorrow, I take him to the vet. I'm hoping that some of the energy levels and wheeziness are related to it being allergy season: I know my energy is sapped and my breathing gets ragged when the pollen count's really high. However, obviously, I fear that it's more than that. I fear that the vet's going to deliver yet more bad news that I just don't want to deal with, yet. And, if she does, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do.

I've had a number of dogs over the years. Each has been special. I've celebrated the lives of each and grieved the loss of each. However, there's been something special about Puckett. I'm about the opposite of the permanent-happiness that Puckett affuses, so, I fear that losing him will effect me - the impending loss is effecting me - more than any previous pet has.

When we lost Lana in December, it seemed natural to get another dog. This has been how I and my family has proceeded upon losing a pet - try to find another bundle of life to help fill the hole left by the prior one. Cira's been a great dog. She's her own kind of sweet and her own kind of happy. She's not Lana, but I wasn't expecting her to be - any more than any prior "replacement" pet has been the same as its predecessor. Yet, with Puckett, I don't know whether I want to try to fill that hole. Or even if I do, whether I want to do it as immediately as I have with prior pets. Who knows - maybe the severity of the loss will make me want it more than in prior instances. Hell, it might take two dogs to "replace" his energy, presence and shear "Pucketty-ness". Dunno. Any way you slice it, I'm not looking forward to finding out, but it seems to be bearing down on me like a runaway truck. 

Death Sentence

So, it looks like I'm getting to experience the joy that is having had a pair of similarly-aged dogs reaching their respective end-years. We had/have two dogs, Puckett and Lana. Both were middle-weight bulldog mixes. By their size, their average lifespans should have been about 11-13 years. Both dogs were rescues. Both dogs' estimated birth years were 2000. So, 2010/2011 puts them within the last 1-3 years of their expected lifespans.

This was a picture of them taken in late April of 2009. Here, they're pictured doing one of their favorite things: begging for food from me as I ate dinner on the living room couch. It's a crap picture because I'd snapped it with my cellphone's camera. I was just lucky enough to catch them in a pose that, to me, looks like they were both laughing at something terribly funny.

Laughin' Daigz

When we'd first gotten Lana (pictured at right), she was a black-faced boxer-mix. By the time this picture was taken, most of the black in her face had turned white. We called this "liar-face". Her "liar-face" was a daily reminder that she was in her later years...

This past December, we lost Lana to a combination of lymphosarcoma and spondylosis. Really, it was more the latter than the former as the former was treatable - even if expensive - whereas the pain from the latter made undertaking the former's cure a non-starter. So, we had her put down rather than put her through the chemotherapy experience when she'd only come out the other end of it still in back pain and with less than two statistically-likely years to live. Factor in a lifetime with a heartworm-damaged heart (and the associated expected shortening of natural lifespan), and it made no sense to put her through the chemotherapy.

In recent months, Puckett started to develop skin irritation problems that resulted in hair loss. Initially, lab results had indicated that he had a staph infection in his skin. We initially treated it with basic antibiotics, pending lab results. The initial round was largely ineffective - the lab results eventually told us it was because he'd managed to contract an antibiotic-resistent form of staph. So, we put him on more powerful (and much more expensive) antibiotics for a month. That seemed to get the infection back under control. Shortly after we'd had Lana put down, he managed to scratch himself open. So, we ended up putting him in a "Comfy Cone" (a soft E-collar) to keep him from further harming himself. It had looked like the wound was healing, and then, one day, it was back to looking angry and sore. So, we took him back to the vet so it could be surgically addressed.

While in surgery, they discovered another skin lesion along his abdomen. So, they removed both lesions and biopsied them. It turns out, Puckett's skin problems weren't so much a skin infection as a relatively rare and not chemotherapy-treatable form of lymphosarcoma. Ironically, had he had Lana's variety of lymphosarcoma, there'd be a high likelihood of it being curable with the chemo. I'd have found a way to afford the $3,000-$5,000 they'd quoted for Lana's potential treatment. For better or worse, that's not even an option.

Now, I get to wait for his skin to worsen over the coming months. Normally, they project an average of six months from diagnosis to terminal-condition. They caught his unexpectedly early, so, it's possible we may get a few extra months. Still, it's essentiall a death sentence. On the plus side, he still acts like an adolescent dog and the vet thinks he'll likely to be that way right up to about the time we need to put him down. On the plus side, it means he'll be his Pucketty self for another several months. On the minus side, I'll have to put down a dog that's still full of life but in growing discomfort from the multiplying skin lesions.

Fmeh. Why does it seem like, as you get older, all that's left is to wait for the death of everyone and everything you know, while you feel yourself winding down. Right now, it feels like the world is dying.

Milestones of Aging

I dunno why, but, tonight, it suddenly occurred to me, "people born in 1990 will be legal to drink this year". It was a realization that made me feel old. It made me feel old, in part, because it means that, in just shy of one year, there will be kids in the US taking their first legal drinks who weren't even born, yet, when I took my first legal drink.

There's a lot of commonly recognized age milestones in life. For someone born in the US, those are typically things like:

• Turning 16 and being allowed to drive (though, it seems that's getting delayed in some states)
• Turning 18 and being allowed to vote, sign contracts, be tried as an adult (without special legal considerations)
• Turning 21 and being allowed to drink
• Turning 25 and being able to rent a car by yourself (and, in many cases starting on the downhill curve of auto insurance rates)
• Turning 30 ...because you're now "over the hill"
• Turning 55 and, at least according to AARP, joining the ranks of "senior citizens"
• Turning whatever age you're eligible to start receiving Social Security

In addition to these, there are also other less well recognized milestones. These are the kinds of milestones that make you say, "fuck: I'm getting old".

• The first time you open up a Playboy and realize, "I'm older than the Playmate of the Month".
• Remembering sneaking your dad's porn mags when you were a kid looking for porn
• When you get hit by a driver who wasn't even born when you first got your drivers license.
• Looking around, at a concert or nightclub, and being astonished at the younger elements of the crowd being old enough to drink
• Realizing that the T-shirt you're wearing is older than some of the adults in the room
• Having the original versions of several of the T-shirt being hawked by Hot Topic (et. al.)
• Watching a sporting event where the teams are wearing their "throwback" uniforms and remembering when those were the uniforms were current
• Realizing that the "underground" music you love(d) is now twenty or more years old
• Realizing that the band Tshirt some kid is wearing was from a band who's lead-singer (etc.) died before that kid was even born.
• Realizing that so many of the things that are "retro-cool" were things you grew up with or came of age with.
• When your first relative dies of natural causes
• When your first parent dies of natural causes
• When your first peer dies of natural causes
• Realizing that you've been working for a living for nearly two decades ...and that you still have two (or more) decades yet left to work.

There's tons more. It seems I discover more and more of them each day. And, for better or worse, there's many I won't get to experience (e.g., unlike my mother, I'll never have the sobering realization of having a child who's 30, or 40 or has just reached retirement-age).

You Call This a Snack??

Ok, clearly I've gotten old. I'm sitting here in a house full of sweets and junk:

• there are left-over homemade cupcakes that Donna made for a party, yesterday
• there's a couple of fruit hamantaschen with my name on them
• there's a similar number of rugelach waiting for me
• there's part of a bag of Jelly Belly jellybeans
• there's two boxes of assorted gumdrops
• there's even a mostly-full bag of Cheetos sitting on the end-table, next to me.

But, what did I end up having as a late afternoon snack? I had the below:

Sunday Snack

That's some slices of french baguette for dipping in the extra garlic hummus and a plate of vegetables (tomatoes from the garden, cauliflower from the farmers' market and pickled peperoncinis). What the hell am I thinking??