Life has presented me with a few challenges these past few months. I wrote about the loss of one of my beautiful Bernese Mountain Dog Rebel in November and didn’t write about a health challenge I faced and overcame in January.
And only now am I able to write about the latest (and here’s hoping final) blow.
The one that floored me.
The one that left me devastated and beyond heartbroken.
But let me go back to November.
The week after my Rebel died, her daughter Scarlett, my other beloved Bernese, developed a cough. Rebel had had a cough too for about six months before her death, and given she succumbed to a mysterious lung infection, I took Scarlett straight to the vet.
My vet diagnosed her with kennel cough which in hindsight was reasonable given she was otherwise bright. He told me to give it a few weeks and it would resolve.
It didn’t.
What ensued was a myriad of tests. Her bloods told us she was remarkably healthy for an 8 ½ year old giant breed dog. Her kidneys functioned fine, and she wasn’t harbouring any mystery infections. We eliminated an array of conditions and the vet landed on a possible diagnosis of cardiomyopathy. I started Scarlett on fluid tablets, and within 48 hours the cough disappeared.
Problem solved.
In the meantime Scarlett had also showed signs she was fretting for Rebel. She lacked energy, went off her food and wasn’t playing with her usual toys. So I spoke to my breeder and discussed the possibility of bringing a new dog into the family as a companion for Scarlett. Fortune was on my side – she had two girls born at the end of October that she had kept to breed from. One of those would now be mine.
During that conversation I mentioned Scarlett’s other health issues and my vet’s tentative diagnosis. It surprised my breeder – cardiomyopathy was not something common to Bernese, and she had no history of the disease in her lines. Her instinct was that Scarlett had “masses” in her lungs, i.e., cancer. She encouraged me to have Scarlett’s chest x-rayed. I agreed, just to rule it out.
So on January 3, 2019 Scarlett spent the day at the vet. When the vet didn’t ring me with the results of the x-ray I knew. And when I showed up for my afternoon appointment to collect my girl and bring her home, his first words were, “At least we know what’s wrong with her now. And it’s nasty”.
He showed me the x-ray. My girl’s lungs glowed white, with one small black section down the bottom on one side. The white sections were three large well-defined lung tumours, most likely histiocytic sarcomas. There was a 99% chance that my girl had malignant lung cancer. And she had already lost almost 75% of her lung function.
I was devastated. The thought of losing both my girls within two months was more than I could bear. And while losing Rebel was a shock and a blow, the thought of losing Scarlett felt like a trapdoor had opened beneath my feet and I was falling. Nothing felt real. Nothing was solid. Scarlett was my great love. And I couldn’t face losing my great love.
I dropped into a slump. I couldn’t write. I didn’t want to read. I barely touched my crochet. I couldn’t even binge watch tv shows or movies. I hardly left the house. I didn’t know where to put myself. I spent every waking moment watching Scarlett, making sure she was comfortable, that her breathing wasn’t too bad. I woke at night, and if I couldn’t hear her breathing I got up and looked for her until I found her, just to make sure she wasn’t in distress.
I was her palliative care nurse, and I was waiting for her to die.
Then one morning, about a week after the diagnosis, I woke to her standing right beside my bed. She was panting but otherwise
I sat up and patted her head. She leaned close into me and we cuddled the same way we always had. And right then I realised that I had been grieving her as if she had already gone.
But here she was right beside me, very much alive, and remarkably well otherwise for a dog that was now down to 20% lung function.
So I jumped out of bed, gave her another cuddle, and decided from that moment on, we would carry on as usual. We couldn’t go on our morning walks anymore, she hadn’t been able to walk for a few days by that stage, but we could still sit in the yard, she could still lay on my feet while I worked at my computer, and I could look at her like she was living, not like she was dying.
She died of course. On the morning of 26 January
As I look back I am so pleased I shifted from seeing her as a dying dog to seeing her as the living, loving divine being she was. I have precious memories of those last couple of weeks – of her greeting me at the door with a smile, of me lying on the floor with her while she ate, of what turned out to be her last adventure into our backyard which she circumnavigated as if saying goodbye to her favourite spots, of me dialling the first four numbers of my vet’s phone number then hanging up as she walked into the room with a smile that said, ‘Not yet, mum.’
I have shed many tears. So many tears. I still shed tears. I’m shedding them now as I write this.
But I made it through. I didn’t think I would survive
This is the first thing I’ve written since she died. I’m still finding it hard to settle back into my writing routine. Part of that was having her lying at my feet as I wrote, and I’m not yet ready to face that. But I will.
So my journey with Rebel & Scarlett has ended, just like my journeys with their predecessors Liesl & Holly, then Ziggy & Zali. And just like the endings of those previous journeys, this one precedes a new beginning. Because my breeder still had those two puppies born in October 2018. And I brought one home on 1 February 2019. Her sister arrived on 9 February 2019.
I guess it’s the circle of life. Either that or I am the most hopelessly devoted dog mum on the planet.
I suspect it’s a bit of both.
