The day I dreaded most came this year: Tax Day 2024.
And not for reasons you’d expect.
We always file our taxes early, like January or February. You know, in case we somehow owe three million dollars to The Feds that year and need a few weeks to scrape the money together.
In late March, Two Percent had begun showing signs like his end was near. He wasn’t eating, he was lethargic. He was in a constant state of discomfort, it seemed like. I mean, he was almost twelve.
Looking back on it, I don’t know how we didn’t notice these signs sooner. There had been instances throughout his eleven years where he’d get sick and not eat. He periodically would have stomach issues and wouldn’t eat unless my husband hand-fed him. (Matt, of course, was happy to oblige.)
We finally got him into the vet on April 15. Matt took him because he didn’t have class, but he promised to call me with the doctor’s findings.
I didn’t expect to get the phone call I received on my way home from work that day, at least not delivered in an unexpected manner.
I don’t remember Matt’s exact words, but they were full of steely resolve — something about immediately needing to go to the vet because the doctor needed to talk to us about Tooper. His tone was chilling…I thought for sure in a situation like this, Matt would have been a sobbing, sniveling mess. I’m probably projecting. As we drove to the vet’s office, he gave me a slice of the news: they had found a giant, bleeding mass on Tooper’s liver, and the prognosis was bleak.
Tears were flowing freely down my face as we walked into the waiting room. We were hurried into an exam room, where the doctor had explained the situation in further detail. We could rush him to the emergency vet’s office for surgery. It would be costly, and due to his age, the vet was not confident that he would survive the procedure.
Our other option was euthanasia.
If we chose the latter, we could schedule it the next day. He could come home with us and spend his last night at home. Or we could put him to sleep while we were there that evening.
We’ve not been known to spare expenses on our dogs — to the extent that we are periodically judged for it, especially in our childlessness. But in my heart of hearts, I knew we couldn’t justify a surgery that potentially would not be successful.
And had we decided to bring him home for the night, I’m not sure what sort of rash, drastic thing I could have been capable of. How could we prolong his suffering? And what good would it be to delay the inevitable?
Less than an hour after I had gotten that fateful phone call, Tooper’s lifeless body lied on a soft blanket draped across the floor of the cold, clinical exam room. Quiet and peaceful as ever. I think I was in shock, and wavering between severe guilt and relief that he was no longer in pain. I expected him to sigh one of his deep, decompressing sighs. I expected him to twitch, even yip, as he was known to do in his dreams. But he was gone.
Even now, I probably would rather owe The Feds three million dollars and undergo an audit every year for the rest of my life if it meant Tooper could live a healthy, pain-free life for the next 100 years. And while I don’t regret the decision we made as his loyal, loving guardians, my heart still aches for him in a way that I never would have imagined. I’m not sure that ache will ever abate.
At some time soon we will adopt again — if Opal is amenable to it. She is so freaking weird. I think Tooper would want for us to do it. He was such a friend who loved other animals deeply. He would want another once-unwanted animal to live the life we gave him.
Anyway. There’s no point here. No moral of the story, other than dogs are such strong evidence for the goodness of God’s creation. Especially Tooper.
musings of an everywoman 