The time has come to talk about a difficult thing, about running out of time, about Stevie, who doesn’t have much time left.
The balance between the amount of Tylenol 3 (with codeine) he can take vs. being able to be awake, aware and enjoy life has been reached. I don’t know how long he’ll stay balanced, where I can give him just enough medicine to keep him approximately pain-free but not knock him out totally. There is no reason for him to stay around if he is in so much pain that he can’t do anything but stay knocked out on drugs.
The cancer has grown, and is finally showing in his face. His right eye is weepy and is being pushed sideways, the right side of his face is swollen by the tumor underneath the bone. He has trouble opening his mouth, though he eats just fine. I am softening his food so that he can eat without chewing, which he does whether I soften it or not.
He rode into town with me yesterday, insisting on going, pushing his way out the door and bolting into the cab of the truck. He’s too wobbly to make it down the steep, twisty stairs that lead to my teaching room. He can make it up just fine, but down is another story. And he’s too heavy for me to carry.
Scott might take him with him next time he snowplows because one of the things Stevie loves most in the world is trucks, and especially riding in trucks.
Every time I leave him to go somewhere, I’m almost hoping that he will die in his sleep while I’m gone. He’s 17, at least, and for a rottweiler/doberman that is extremely aged. He has lived a long and very happy life, at least since I got him around age 3. Previous to that, someone tried to make him into a fighting dog, and someone, maybe the same someone, shot him in the heart with a handgun. Luckily the bullet lodged close to his heart, perilously close, but not in it. I never knew about it until he was sick once and had an X-ray. When I went to pick him up the receptionist said, “Well, of course you know about the bullet in his heart.” All matter-of-factly, as if this were normal. I just about fell over! “I don’t have a gun, we aren’t those kind of people!” I exclaimed. Later the vet showed me, and gave to me, the X-ray. I still have it.
Stevie has had dogs and people to play with. Lots of cuddling and love. He rode the Alaska Highway, making the trip from Albuquerque to Fairbanks. He even visited Dawson City and Whitehorse.
There are many things to say about Stevie, and I am going to wait until later to write more. But be warned: I’ve had to make those sad phone calls to the vet, to find out how much it will cost to end Stevie’s pain. He is going to be cremated, because there is nowhere to bury him that belongs to me, and because the ground is frozen. Keeping him until Spring, frozen on the front porch is too gruesome to even consider.
He’s still here though. He follows me around the house, he visits me as I write at the computer, and still wants to ride in the truck. He’ll be around for a little while longer.
