Difficult Appreciation

Pant, pant, pant. That's what I hear and feel down to my bones. Each of those panting breaths puts me on notice that my sweet Bubba is struggling. I am ever so grateful for the moderate temperatures this week – it could instead be a heat wave and I hate to contemplate how Nicholai would cope with that.

Yesterday our friend Diane appeared at the back door at 5:25 am. She chauffeured me and the dogs, along with her two old pitbulls, for a lovely caper on the Columbia beach. Nicholai gamboled at his own pace, nosed around for garbage snacks, dipping his feet in the water but deigning to swim. While leaping over a log – a simple thing for him a few weeks ago – he slipped, and required a boost from his special person. Only too glad to give it, I was certainly sorry to have to.

He's taken a kind of "drop" this week – in energy, in ease of breathing, in – dare I say it – appetite. He's picking at his breakfast, preferring his proteins – eggs and meat – to veggies, sweet potatoes and yogurt. Of course, I will give him whatever he will eat. Yesterday, Diane and I hit the road, thanks to her willingness to drive, and trucked on out to Kookoolan Farm for fresh raw milk, chicken, and beef organ meat. Nicholai was thrilled with the free-range, grass-fed beef kidney I put in his breakfast bowl this morning.

The work required for me to stay focused on the present is now harder. I watch Nicholai for signs of increased duress and wonder what day (or middle of the night) he might take a sudden and urgent downturn. I forget to be in today – a chronic problem for me – and I worry about "the end." I know that it might be sudden – and I am not ready. I also know it could be long and drawn out, and I am no more ready for that.

I'm frustrated with this eye injury and surgery and frustrated with the inability to work and lack of income that represents in the light of increased medical needs for both me and my canine pal. I'm annoyed with my own temporary disability, quick eye fatigue, and downright lousy vision.

I am working on appreciation. We have medical insurance, and while it's not great, it will provide help with the huge bills for the eye surgery. I'm trying to be grateful. As for the restrictions, it has been a challenging week; I like to do things and I am independent to a fault. This week has helped with accepting and appreciating assistance. The quiet time with Nicholai has been an odd blessing. While it is painful to see him losing ground, I don't want to turn away from him at the end. Our culture is so weak in the areas of embracing disability, aging, and death – all seeming to fall behind a dark curtain like the one that threatened my left eye last week. I have to wonder if it's a total coincidence that at the moment Nicholai is beginning to deteriorate, I find myself so limited in my own activity, all that's left is to hang with my dying boy.

There, I've said it. It's been happening all along. Nicholai's cancer has never been in remission, but like a miracle, he's had many, many months of reprieve, and we have danced the dance of the living. Now, I am newly aware that he is a Dead Dog Walking. My heart is heavy with the knowledge.