Baxter has featured prominently in this blog before, so if you've followed it, you know the story: beloved pooch I adopted during my return to Minnesota after meningitis who helped me through my recovery; constant companion for years in Olathe and back in Minnesota for a year after I was laid off; then separated from me by graduate school and his bout with cancer in Jan. 2012.
After surgery that month to remove his tumor (and a chunk of his liver with it) Bax continued to live at home with Mom, Dad and Grandma, where he received tremendous care as further medical issues piled up. He already suffered from arthritis that caused him to limp on his back right leg. This got progressively worse until he was practically dragging the leg at times. Then he got diabetes, which severely restricted his diet and necessitated insulin shots twice daily. He usually tolerated them well, but there were a couple biting incidents. Luckily he was also having teeth removed due to gum decay during that period so there wasn't much bite to him.
About a year ago he started to go blind quite quickly, possibly due to the diabetes. That's when we started talking seriously about euthanasia, Mom and I. Well, maybe I more than Mom. Even though she was bearing the lion's share of the Baxter care, she had a hard time imagining letting the little guy go.
Baxter had always been pretty clingy, but losing his eyesight made him downright distressed any time there wasn't someone familiar within ear shot, or better yet, pressed up against him. Then he started to have bladder control issues and getting Mom up several times a night to go outside. Or not getting her up, which was worse.
That's a very long, probably unnecessary explanation to justify why I made the decision to euthanize my 15-year-old, arthritic, diabetic, blind dog. It was difficult.
April 28 just happened. It was the weekend after Dan and I got back from South America and the first feasible time I could be home to do what had to be done.
So I flew into Minnesota Friday night and spent the next couple days saying goodbye to my dog. Fortunately the weather was beautiful after months of Arctic winter that exasperated even the hardy Minnesotans. Bax and I enjoyed my parents' backyard and the river that runs through it, just as we had about 9 years earlier when I was in a wheelchair and he was my new dog.
Then Monday came, and I was scheduled to take Bax to the vet at 1:00 p.m. Mom and I were thinking about him that morning, I suspect, which is why neither of us thought much of the fact that my Dad, who is normally up by 7:30 or 8, was sleeping in quite late. Mom mentioned it, but it wasn't until just before 11 a.m. that she went to check on him.
In the interests of respecting my dad's privacy (sometimes I forget that not everyone wants to broadcast their medical issues), I'm not going to get into a lot of details about how he was. Suffice it to say, we were concerned enough that we drove him to the emergency room. I stayed there for a couple hours, phoning the vet to tell them we would be late on Baxter's appointment and might not show up at all.
Tests that day confirmed that Dad had had a stroke. But he seemed stable and while not quite himself, coherent. He was apologizing to me for screwing up my plans, which is classic Dad. Selfless.
With a plane to catch that night, I left the hospital, went home and retrieved Baxter from Grandma's room downstairs. I asked him if he wanted to "go for a ride in the car," which didn't perk him up as much as it used to when he was younger and it practically sent him into a lather. He struggled to stand up in his dog bed, straightening his legs slowly and then stretching. In previous trips home I had seen him try to get up and collapse back down, needing two tries to stand up. Another heartbreaking sign that it was time for him to enjoy his final repose.
He struggled into the backseat of the car, taking a moment to locate the doorway by poking around with his snout and then another moment to climb in, kicking his back legs futilely at first. In my mind I had imagined opening the windows for him and letting him stick his head out one last time, but it was raining that day and he didn't seem very interested. On the advice of the vet we had given him an oral sedative hours earlier and he was pretty zonked.
When we got to the vet I had to pick him up and carry him in, thankful for the automatic doors. A young female cashier at the front of the store looked at the fluffy, sleepy dog in my arms and immediately let out an "Awwwww." She clearly didn't know what we were there for.
The Banfield Pet Hospital staff did though. They had cared for Baxter for years, helping him live longer and better than he probably should have given all his maladies. They were sensitive that day, offering me as much time with him as I wanted before they proceeded. I didn't have much time and honestly I didn't want to drag it out. As it became more real the tears were starting to poke at the edges of my eyes.
I held Baxter in my arms as the staff placed a catheter just above his right front paw. He whined a little as it went in, but was otherwise still. I stroked his head and tears began to drop onto the soft fur of his back. I think somehow he knew, maybe, what was going on. Maybe that's crazy. But he seemed peaceful. As the first of the drugs went in his arm, he fell asleep and went limp. I was sobbing as they injected the second one, to stop his heart. The vet placed a stethoscope under his chest to check for the heartbeat that would never again come from there. She nodded to the vet tech and the two of them left me alone, in a small exam room, with my dog.
I sat and cried for a minute or two, maybe longer. Then I realized I was holding a dead dog. I lifted him up onto the metal table, his body even limper than before — the lifelessness was tangible. He was no longer Baxter. I laid him on his side on the table and tried to close the eyelids completely, like I'd seen on TV. But they didn't want to stay closed. So I left him like that and walked quickly out of the building, out to where the rain could hide my tears.
I wanted to go back and see my Dad, but I didn't have time. I had to pack up my stuff and head to the airport. My brother was going to drive me halfway there and then drop me with my uncle, who was nice enough to come down from the Twin Cities and retrieve me after it became clear that I didn't have a ride anymore.
Uncle Dennis tried to engage me in conversation, but I'm afraid I wasn't very receptive. I was praying for my dad, and posting a note on Facebook soliciting other prayers. The sporadic updates from my mom and brother were too mixed to know the results of those prayers. By the time we got to the airport, I was pretty distressed and really didn't feel good about getting on a plane and going 500 miles away from my family.
It was here that a small act of kindness by a total stranger made a huge difference. I told my uncle I wanted to try and change my flight and he accompanied me to the Southwest desk. I told the attendant there what was going on, that my dad was in the hospital and I wanted to postpone my flight. He asked me when I wanted to fly. I dithered.
"You don't really know, do you?" he asked, not impatiently, but in a way that suggested he had just understood my uncertainty.
I nodded and he read off a list of options. We settled on the next night.
"How much is the change fee?" I asked.
"Oh, I won't charge you a fee," he said, as he handed me my new reservation.
It was a small thing for him maybe, I don't know. But for me it made a big difference. And any money Southwest lost in not charging me a fee it will make up for many times over in my new loyalty to their airline.
That wasn't the end of the kindnesses. I told my employer I wouldn't be back for another day and my superiors understood and were completely gracious about it. Uncle Dennis promised to come up to St. Cloud and pick me up again the next day to take me back to the airport. Then he dropped me off at the Northstar stop, so I could take the last train out of the Cities to Big Lake, where I would then have to catch a bus to St. Cloud.
Or so I thought.
Almost immediately after Uncle Dennis dropped me at the train station I got a text from my friend Katie: "Just saw your FB post — prayers are being sent your way. I'm here for you if you need anything."
Katie lives in the Cities. I knew she could get me back to the hospital faster than the train/bus. So I called her.
"Can you drive me to St. Cloud?"
She didn't hesitate. It was an immediate "Yes." And again, I was so grateful. I have been blessed with so many advantages in my life, advantages that I had little or no control over — supportive family, 22 years of good health, stable community and nation in which to grow up. If there's one thing I can take credit for in helping create my success, though, it's picking the right friends. I marvel all the time at their loyalty and generosity.
So I was back in St. Cloud when Dad woke up that night in the hospital and said, "Hey, I thought you were gone." And I got to say "Don't worry about it Dad, Southwest was nice enough to let me change my flight."
"What about work?" he said.
"Don't worry about it, Dad, everything's taken care of. It's fine."
And I got to grip his hand with what's left of mine, holding on tight with a lonely right thumb made strong through 10 years of exclusive use. The roles we played a decade earlier were reversed, but the love was the same. He is the man I want to be.
By the next day he would be much better, almost miraculously better, and I would feel much better about going to back to Kansas.
But that night we sat by his bed and we tried to make sense of April 28.
"What is it about this date, anyway?" Dad asked.
"I don't know Dad," I said. "I guess it's the day when our family gets all the bad shit out of the way."
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