What can I say?
Roxey lingers. She has not eaten at all since Wednesday, and she barely ate then. Mapping out the topography of her skull is easier now that the fat pads have disappeared. It is also easier to tell the changes that have been taking place for likely so long, easily hidden beneath the abundance of her fur: the mass beneath her left eye and running along the side of her muzzle, protrusions not of bone--it can't be of bone--across the top of her head. Walking is difficult now, and her breathing has become erratic. Sometimes it is loud and labored and rattling; other times it is so quiet and shallow that it's easy to believe she's slipped away. There have been a few additional nosebleeds but nothing to match the amount of the first on Tuesday night. She's moved about more today. I can't bring myself to hope that it signals a rally, only that she grows more uncomfortable. If the decisions were mine to make, I think I might choose differently, but she is my parents', especially my father's.
This is harder than I thought it would be, given that I have never been as bonded to her as I have the others. She suffers, and that is enough, but this also brings up memories, resentment, and unaddressed issues regarding my Lady's death, and I don't know if that's a scab I want to rip open publicly. I also keep having to remind myself that 10 years is not a bad--or at least not an uncommon--age for a dog her size. Lady was euthanized a month shy of her 16th birthday, Fred is to all appearances still going strong at a new 14, and compared to that, 10 seems so young.
The others know, I think. There is always a cat near her, as if they take rotations. The other dogs leave her undisturbed, and when she is up and tottering about, Mason reigns in his natural enthusiasm to such an extent that he is like a completely different dog.
And life goes on, sometimes painful, prickly, and stuffy-headed touched by tears, and other times by laughter, but it keeps going, regardless.
This is harder than I thought it would be, given that I have never been as bonded to her as I have the others. She suffers, and that is enough, but this also brings up memories, resentment, and unaddressed issues regarding my Lady's death, and I don't know if that's a scab I want to rip open publicly. I also keep having to remind myself that 10 years is not a bad--or at least not an uncommon--age for a dog her size. Lady was euthanized a month shy of her 16th birthday, Fred is to all appearances still going strong at a new 14, and compared to that, 10 seems so young.
The others know, I think. There is always a cat near her, as if they take rotations. The other dogs leave her undisturbed, and when she is up and tottering about, Mason reigns in his natural enthusiasm to such an extent that he is like a completely different dog.
And life goes on, sometimes painful, prickly, and stuffy-headed touched by tears, and other times by laughter, but it keeps going, regardless.