Hey guys… I rarely post here any more, as I’m all but done using pheromones at the moment. But, something happened Sunday and I just feel the need to put something out into the ether and maybe find a little relief.
My roommate and I had a dog. Actually, it was her dog, a hearing assistance dog for the deaf. Though a service dog, he was also a pet and a highly adored member of the household. I’ve known this dog for over 6 years and I grew pretty attached to him. Funny… as I’m not really a dog person. Still, life has those funny little quirks that bring even the unlikeliest of people and beasts together, and that’s what happened.
Anyway, over the last few weeks he’d been acting strange, and his tummy had become bloated. The vet said that it was ascites, or fluid in the abdomen, which was symptomatic of a handful of conditions, none of them good. The only way a definitive answer could have been gotten was via costly surgery that, given his age (almost 14 years), had pretty serious risks up to and including death during the surgery. She prescribed diuretics to help relieve the bloating, as well as drawing some of the fluid out. In the meantime, he became weaker and lethargic and was having to be force-fed his food. His quality of life was going rapidly downhill, so in order to prevent any undue suffering, we made the choice to put him to sleep Sunday afternoon.
Both my roommate and I are devastated. She’s taking it especially hard because their relationship was a much tighter bond. Whereas to me, he was a pet, for her, he was her ears. Still, I’m taking it a lot harder than I thought I would. As cliche as the saying goes, it’s really true that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. Certain things that made up the “background noise” of the household are painfully absent and make this place seem so empty. The jingle of his vaccination and ID tags when he’d walk around or the clicking of his nails on the hardwood. Most of all, I think I’m going to miss his unconditional happiness to see me when I come home from work. No matter how crappy my day would be, he was there at the door, smiling as only a dog can, furiously wagging his tail and just saying with his entire being, “Welcome home! I’m so glad to see you!”
It’s tough, and as the days go by, I know it’ll eventually get better. I’m trying to be strong for my roommate, since she’s leaning on me as an outlet for grief. I don’t mind… we’ve shared our lives together as husband and wife, and though that’s in the past, we still have a bond stronger than friendship… but it’s draining. I dare not tell her “Please, not right now” when she comes to me to cry, but in the meantime, I’m left without someone to be strong for me.
I’m posting this not as a plea for sympathy or anything like that. I just have to get it out somewhere. In the past, I’ve posted about some fairly intimate details of my life, and I know that you all are generally a caring and understanding group. So… yeah, I figured it’d be okay to write this out as a form of catharsis. Thanks for reading…
-D4
