Dealing with Losses

Riley has his own Facebook page, Living the Life of Riley.  He tries to spread the word of canine epilepsy and what it means to live with it.  Through that page we have connected across the globe with other who live in that same world, and we are as united as any family.  Common threads.  I posted this on his page today.  The canine epilepsy family had another loss today.  I never met them, didn't know them, but my heart broke for yet another pet parent facing what we can't fix.  There has been a lot of that this year.

 

Dealing with losses.  Our little Facebook family has seen so many lately.  Too many this year.  You question, why?  Why my baby?  They didn’t deserve this.  All they ever did was love me.  You doubt God.  How could a loving God allow this to happen?  Surely there is no Supreme Being if innocent animals are allowed to get sick and die.  It just isn’t fair. 

You grieve. 

And then you start to live again.  Tentative at first.  Is it okay to laugh?  Too soon?  Am I a bad pet parent?  I just slept through the night and didn’t wake up at every little sound, worried.  We just went all day and never thought about med times, even once.

Without loss, in my opinion, there can be no growth.  A tree planted in a flowerpot will only grow so much.  There is no place for the roots to spread and pull all the necessary nutrients from the ground that it needs to reach its fullest potential.  Losing someone you love hurts like hell.  No question.  But if we can focus less on why they are gone and more on why they were in our lives to start with, then maybe the doors start to open a bit.  Something, or someone, can move in.

Christy and Stormy were the original Tanksley "Girls".  Precious Pomeranian hairballs!  Mom and Dad loved and adored them.  They went everywhere together and it was a perfect little family of four.   Later Molly would join the family as the first rescue, adopted from the Wyandotte County animal shelter.  And then Midnight as a stray “let’s get this baby out of the 10 degree winter Kansas night and find her owners in the morning”, for whom that morning never came, but so many other wonderful mornings did as a Tanksley.  And life was good.

One day Mom noticed sores on Stormy’s little pink tummy.  She took her their vet, whom they really liked, and it went from allergies to bacteria and needing her teeth cleaned and back to allergies and back to teeth cleaned.  Mom got a second opinion.  Stormy was diagnosed with Cushing’s Disease.  Mom and Dad did their research and learned what they could.  Not long after, Christy faced the same diagnosis.   They took their medicine and it was easy to treat.

Until it wasn’t. 

After several years of living with Cushing’s, Stormy had developed right-sided heart disease (yes, there is a difference in heart disease based on location).  They took her to the emergency vet at her Cushing’s doctor on a Friday night, came home with Lasix to try to relieve the fluid around her heart over the weekend and they would do more test on Monday.  Mom took her on Monday, and they ran their tests and sent her home.  That night Mom was trying to give her the medicine for her heart.  It had not been easy.  She was carrying Stormy in her left arm and talking to Daddy on the phone with her right hand.  Stormy’s heart suddenly seized up and she died.  Just like that.  Right in the crook of Mom’s arm.  They said it could have been a blood clot from the Cushing’s or the heart disease.  We’ll never know for certain.  

Mom and Dad cried for three straight days.  Barely able to even move.  It was a loss unlike either had ever experienced.  It seemed senseless and completely unfair.  She had just turned 11 years old the week before.  Still young in their eyes.  She’d never done anything to anyone except to love unconditionally.

After toying around with having Stormy hermetically sealed in a space bag or cloned (animal cloning was big in the news about that time), Mom and Dad decided to cremate her so that, like in life, she could always be wherever they were.

Looking back now, I can see how much I have benefitted from Stormy being a part of Mom and Dad’s world.  I never knew her.  Mom and Dad didn’t even move to Mississippi until after she had passed.  But the things they learned from her may have been big contributing factors to them even agreeing to keep me when they found me.  They learned that no matter how much you love your vet, it is okay to get a second opinion.  In fact, it may be crucial.  No one person can know everything about everything and you have to ask questions.  You don’t always just accept.  Mom never would have done that before, and she does it all the time now.   They learned to research; to seek out their own information to pose the right questions.  They learned about diets and medications and supplements.  That the world is not a one-size-fits-all kind of place.   

Christy lived to be 16 with Cushing’s Disease.  Her lesson to Mom and Dad was that sometimes things do get managed.  You find the right fit and life rolls on.  I was definitely the beneficiary of all that.  Mom and Dad working as a team with multiple vets in various disciplines earned me two seizure free years.  If they had followed the advice of some of the first vets, I wouldn’t be here today.  My tenure as a Tanksley would have only been months instead of the almost seven years I have gotten so far.

They learned that hearts heal.  And get bigger.  So many people won’t get another pet after they lose one.  Hurts too much they say.  Mom and Dad not only got another one, but there was a whole population explosion!  Every time we lose a family member, seems like there is another someone in need waiting in the wings.  Had Stormy lived as long as Christy, there might not have been room for Frankie, or Patches.  Molly’s passing made room for Maggie.  Midnight left a spot that Gabby ultimately filled.  If Mom and Dad hadn’t taken me in, I would not have made so many wonderful friends through this virtual family we have.  The world of canine epilepsy is so much vaster they realized and they learn from others every day.  Mom wouldn’t have connected with a fabulous woman with not just one but two epi warriors.  That gave her the strength to consider a second one for us when there was a warrior in desperate need of a safe home.  In the end, his family kept him, but Mom and Dad probably wouldn’t have even given it a glancing thought five years ago.  I was enough of a handful!

So yes, losing hurts.  But it is what is left behind that makes it okay.   You don’t always see it, or know it, immediately, but one day it just “clicks”.  And you know.  There is a reason why we come into a life, and a reason we leave it, and leave it when we do. 

 When our work here is done.