Dog Lived (and So Will I)

by Rhyne, Teresa J.

  Except a deceased mother.

  And then I realized it was like letting the genie out of the bottle. As long as I thought relationships were like my marriages, it was easy to think the alphabet life would sustain me. But now that I knew how good things could be, now that I knew love like that…now I could see how incomplete my alphabet was. I needed the letter L. I needed someone who really understood me and loved me anyway, even if his mother didn’t.

  I’d never even given Chris the chance to prove that last part.

  This time my sobbing caused Seamus to scurry off my bed and return to his own. I got up and wrote Chris a letter. I mailed the letter later that day.

  • • •

  Seamus’s chemo infusions would be done at the Orange County clinic of the Veterinary Cancer Center, which was only thirty miles from my home. I was now thankful I wasn’t driving into Los Angeles, closer to Chris. Also, I hoped by switching locations a new oncologist would be assigned to Seamus’s care.

  I would be taking Seamus in every Friday at first, then every two weeks, then every three. If I timed it right and missed the traffic, I could be home by two or three and still be able to get a little work in, too. Assuming Seamus was doing okay. The chemo effects would be felt most strongly in the second or third day following chemo, so by choosing Friday I could be home on Saturday and Sunday when the side effects hit. My plan was set. My focus was clear. It was all I allowed myself to think about.

  I slept fitfully. Seamus regularly jumped off my bed after I’d tossed and turned and woken him one too many times. I’m rarely early for anything, yet I arrived early for the first chemo appointment.

  The Orange County clinic was newer than the LA one, but it had the same great artwork, tinted concrete floors, and, most importantly, bowls of dog cookies placed liberally throughout. I signed Seamus in, and the vet tech showed me how to complete Seamus’s weigh-in. Once I finished his weigh-in (31.2 pounds) and marked the number down on the patient information sheet, I took a seat. Seamus alternated between jumping up into my lap and pulling me in the direction of the bowl of dog biscuits on the counter.

  I watched the other people and animals in the waiting room as they came and went. A golden retriever with a shaved hind quarter that was an angry shade of red, a mewling tabby cat in a crate whose human was dabbing her eyes and sniffing, a mixed-breed dog with three legs but a lot of energy, and, sitting contentedly at the feet of a preppy, middle-aged couple, a basset hound with no discernible signs of cancer. But, I thought, this is a cancer clinic. Like Seamus, that dog was here because of cancer.

  Cancer. I swallowed hard and turned my attention to a stack of magazines. I picked up a yachting magazine in which I had no interest and flipped pages without focus. I put the magazine back down and encouraged Seamus to jump up into my lap. I cuddled him close as I looked around the waiting room again, unable to think of anything else: all of these animals had cancer.

  Cancer.

  I fed Seamus more biscuits. I waited silently, not making eye contact with any of the other humans. I wanted to pretend all of these animals would be fine, and I didn’t want to hear anything different. Talking would have been too dangerous.

  “See-mus?” A young woman in turquoise scrubs approached us.

  “It’s pronounced Shay-mus,” I said. Seamus leaped from my lap and, tail wagging, approached the girl.

  “Oh. Shay-mus. That’s a great name.” She too wrote the phonetic spelling of his name on the chart and then gave him a biscuit. Seamus looked like I’d brought him to Disneyland for dogs. So far he’d experienced lots of other dogs, sitting in Mom’s lap, plenty of treats, and bottled water. He didn’t even seem to notice that his human, who in the past eighteen months had been divorced from one man and dumped by another, lost two dogs, spent thousands of dollars on veterinary treatment, and now would take numerous days off work for more time at the vet, was barely holding it together. No amount of treats was going to help that. But that was not Seamus’s concern. His concerns reached no further than the next pocket full of dog treats.

  The vet tech took us to an exam room. The sign on the door read “Seamus” in bright orange felt marker. Seamus sniffed out the jar of treats in this new room immediately and started howling in its direction. The tech laughingly indulged him with another biscuit.

  “He’s so cute.” She bent down and rubbed his ears. Seamus turned around to give her more to rub and looked at me with eyes that said this was the greatest place ever.

  “The doctor will be with you in a moment,” the tech said, smiling as she left us alone in the exam room.

  The door opened, and my face fell. It was Dr. Sorority Chick, still on the case. She was down to business immediately. No cookie. No eye contact with me or the dog. She focused on the chart in her hand as always.

  The other veterinarians that were part of the Cancer Center all seemed to make concerted efforts to connect with Seamus—whether by petting or the tried-and-true “get to a beagle through his stomach” method. And then they were equally intent on showing compassion to me. Except Dr. Sorority Chick, who seemed intent on getting out of any room I was standing in as fast as she could. When she gave me his prognosis, her tone of voice was no different than it was when she told me the restroom was down the hall on the right. We didn’t seem to be able to communicate with each other. And then there was the fact that she had lied to me about the New York pathology report—a simple fact we were both aware of. Now I was supposed to endure Seamus’s entire chemo protocol with her?

  She examined Seamus without saying much and then, “The tech will be in to get him, and they’ll take him back to draw his blood. Then we’ll give him the infusion. You can wait here or in the waiting area out front.”

  Not wanting to be with people and other pets sick with cancer and possibly dying, I said, “I’ll wait here. How long will it be?”

  “About twenty minutes, depending on how he does.” And she was gone. Depending on how he does?

  Moments later, Missy, a short, blond, heavyset tech, came into the room and immediately bent down to pet Seamus. And she slipped him a cookie. “Do you want me to take his blood draw here? So you can stay with him?”

  I hate needles. And the sight of blood makes me nearly pass out. “Yes. I’d like to stay with him. Can I stay with him during the chemo?”

  “It’s usually best if we do the chemo in the back hospital area. We need to keep him calm and still, and if he sees Mommy, he might not be.” She got the needle ready and positioned Seamus on the floor. “Here, just hold his head toward you and pet him or talk to him. This will be quick.”

  I didn’t watch. I held Seamus’s head so that neither of us had to look at the needle.

  “Okay, give him a kiss and we’ll take him back now. Are you going to wait here?”

  “Yes. I’ll wait here.” I tried to be brave for my dog. “Bye, Seamus. You’ll be fine. Cookies when you come out.” I’m pretty sure he understood the cookie part. I’m also pretty sure he was a lot braver than I was.

  I thought chemo would take hours. I don’t know why I thought that, but it seemed so serious. And yet in just about a half hour, Seamus came bouncing back into the room, tail at full mast and swaying. He was pulling Missy along behind him.

  “He did great,” Missy said. “We had to shave his leg there a bit to get to the vein we needed. The bandage is from where the butterfly catheter was inserted. You can take that off tomorrow.” The bandage was neon green. Seamus looked a little jaunty wearing it. I gave him his green cookie, and he ate it quickly.

  “So far, no appetite loss.”

  “That might not start for a few days.” She handed me his leash and gave Seamus a head rubbing. “He’s a sweetie.” Seamus sniffed her face in appreciation.

  We made our way to the front desk, Seamus trotting along beside me, stopping to sniff at every door
way that might have a jar or a trash can with some treats in it. The Vinblastine chemotherapy, blood draw, evaluation, and all of the prescription medications, together with the ominous-sounding “hazardous waste disposal” charges, came to $236. And we had nine more treatments to go.

  Seamus and I headed home to spend a Friday night alone…waiting, with my instructions in hand. Since much of the information was conflicting—chemo caused a lack of appetite, but the steroids he’d be on to control nausea may increase his appetite; chemo could cause diarrhea, but steroids caused constipation; chemo would make him tired, but the steroids might give him an energy boost—I had every possible product, supplement, and home remedy for every possible reaction. There was nothing to do but wait. It was not unlike going to a horror movie where you know the bad guy will show up and terrorize the main character, you just don’t know how or when. But this was real—Freddy was not an actor; Freddy was chemo.

  Once home, Seamus drank water (with me anxiously watching to see if he drank an unusually large amount or not enough), ate his dinner, and curled up in his bed for a nap. Which is pretty much what he did on every Friday night until Food Guy arrived.

  There would be no Food Guy that night. Instead of cheese and crackers and wine, I made a late-night snack of boiled chicken and rice especially for Seamus and only Seamus. I got the fireplace going and curled up on the couch with a good book and a great dog and stayed there until early morning.

  Chris called on Saturday afternoon. “I got your letter. And I want to talk about it, very much. But first, how is Seamus?”

  “He is doing really well so far,” I said.

  “Good. I’m glad. And how about you? How are you doing?”

  “I don’t think I’m doing as well as the dog, actually.”

  “Me either. I was hoping we could talk in person. I was hoping I could come out tomorrow.”

  I petted Seamus and blinked back tears. “Yeah. I think that would be good.”

  It had been a long eight days.

  Chapter 9

  BATTLE ON

  Seamus picked his head up, eyes widened. He leapt off the couch, raced through the laundry room, and slipped out the doggie door charging full speed to the front gate. His frantic howl calmed in seconds, and I heard him grunting and whimpering in pleasure.

  Chris was in the courtyard, bent down petting Seamus, who had curled his body into Chris’s lap.

  “Welcome back,” I said.

  “Hi.” Chris stood, and we looked at each other over Seamus for an awkward moment.

  “Come on inside.”

  We settled on the couch in the den, facing each other but not touching.

  “I’m glad you sent me the letter.”

  “Me too. And I’m glad you called.”

  Another uncomfortable silence.

  “I guess I should start…” I said.

  “Maybe.”

  “I should start by apologizing. Again, I guess. I mean, I hope you understood my letter was an apology.”

  “Part of it was. And part of it was asking me to explain.”

  “Yeah. That’s true. I’m sorry and I’m confused. I was going to start with the part where I’m sorry.”

  “We can start with where you’re confused. Because I really need you to understand something. This has nothing to do with what my parents told me to do. I did not come over that night intending to break up with you at all. I was not—I am not—listening to my parents or doing as they instruct. This honestly had nothing to do with what they want.”

  “Okay. The timing just made it even harder to take. I have mother issues; I know that. It’s hard for me to think I’ll ever win.”

  “I understand that. I understand what it looks like. But really, everything just started snowballing out of control, and before I knew it, I felt like I had no choice. Like my parents were demanding I be one kind of person—this corporate drone with a perky little wife and kids, spending weekends with them at their club—and that isn’t me at all. And you were demanding I be something else, or, I don’t know, accusing me of being something else. And I realized I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted. I thought I should be alone to figure things out for myself, with no one pressuring me.”

  “I didn’t mean to be pressuring you. I was scared, so I got defensive.” I wanted to touch him—to hold him—but I didn’t.

  “I know. That’s what I mean. You didn’t believe in me either. You’re so caught up in all the shit from your past that you don’t give me any credit. You just assumed I’m like everyone else. And that kinda hurts. I couldn’t take everybody telling me who I am. And everybody’s wrong.” He adjusted his seat, turning toward me but moving farther away. “But I don’t know what’s right.”

  We sat, looking at each other, still deep in our own misery. I wanted to work this out. I wanted our relationship back. I wanted Chris back. Was he saying he still wanted to be alone? Did he still need to figure things out?

  “You’re right. You’re right. You didn’t deserve that. I wish I could have been there for you, and I acknowledge that I wasn’t. I’m really sorry. I am.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Again, we quieted, still inches that felt like miles between us on the couch.

  “I know that it isn’t fair that I just assumed you’d be like everyone else in my past. It’s really, really hard for me. But I learned a lot in this last week. I learned what I had to lose.” I took a deep breath, sucking in air and courage. “I don’t want to lose you. I can do better. If you’ll let me try again.”

  An hour passed. Maybe two. Or just minutes. I didn’t know.

  “I’m sorry I freaked out,” Chris said.

  “Freaked out and made the bad decision to break up with me?” I smiled, hoping he’d understand I was trying to lighten the mood, not confirm my dictatorship. And hoping I was right.

  “Yes. The really bad, no-good, terrible choice to break up with the best thing that ever happened to me.” He looked straight at me.

  I moved my trembling hand to his thigh. “So, maybe we can try this again?”

  He put his hand over mine. “I’d like that very much.” He leaned in and kissed me. I never knew there was such a thing as tears of relief until then.

  Soon though, Seamus howled to break it up. At least he gave us ten seconds.

  We both laughed, and Seamus took that as his cue to join us on the couch. He wiggled his way in between us and leaned back, exposing his belly for a good, long rub.

  “He looks good,” Chris said.

  “Yeah, he’s done better than I have.”

  “Better than me too, I’m sure.” Chris kissed the top of Seamus’s domed head.

  “If you need to talk more, I promise to just listen.”

  “Maybe later tonight.”

  “In the hot tub,” we said in unison.

  That evening, we agreed to a few ground rules, starting with better communication and no assumptions. We’d stand firm as a team in the battles we knew we had ahead with his family and Seamus’s cancer. We also agreed that the holidays would have to be carefully handled. I was not welcome at, nor was I willing to go to, his parents’ home. I wasn’t up for the sort of frosty politeness that would occur even under the best of circumstances anyway. We agreed Chris would be spending Christmas Eve with his family and I’d stay home caring for Seamus. Christmas Day would be all ours, but we hadn’t made any specific plans. Everything was tentative.

  In the days following, I was able to take Seamus out for his normal morning walks. He still raced out to the garage with me and loudly howled his insistence that I not leave him alone. He still inhaled his kibble in mere seconds, and each evening he mashed up against me, reared back, and pawed at me until I rubbed his belly for a sufficient amount of time. Even though from all appearances Seamu
s underwent his first chemotherapy with no more side effect than a voracious appetite that resulted in some weight gain and, conversely, a little diarrhea, I was still anxious about taking him to his next chemo appointment.

  His appointment fell on December 23.

  This particular December had already been a heartbreaking disaster for me. December 23 and a second round of chemotherapy could not be a good combination. Common sense told me that the side effects would be cumulative. Just because he was fine the first time didn’t mean the second time would be easy.

  As I left with Seamus for his appointment, Chris left to meet his mother at her therapist’s office for therapy of another sort, something he’d agreed to in our week apart. His mother felt this would improve their communications, and Chris felt like he should try, though he was every bit as leery of his appointment that morning as I was of mine.

  At the veterinary oncology center, I still could not look at the other pets in the waiting room. I knew now that the bassett hound I’d seen before that didn’t look like he had cancer was probably just like Seamus was now—a chemotherapy patient with poison coursing his veins, battling for his life. This time, I took Seamus outside to wait, letting the receptionist know where we’d be when they needed us. I paced up and down the strip of lawn by the sidewalk with Seamus alternating between sniffing the grass and looking back up at me expectantly. Through the glass doors I saw the receptionist waving at me to come back in.

  The visit improved immediately when I was told Dr. Sorority Chick was on vacation and Dr. Roberts, the owner of the clinic, would be seeing Seamus. The weigh-in showed Seamus now weighed thirty-four pounds—a four-pound gain since this all began.

  After liberal dosages of cookies, fifteen minutes in the hospital area without me, a neon orange bandage on his leg, an extra green cookie, a prescription for Tagamet and Zantac, and $190.55 in airline miles, we were finished. There wasn’t even traffic on the way home. The second round of chemo was over, and the drive was longer than the procedure. I pressed the garage door opener and let out a deep breath as I pulled into the garage. The moment I put the car in park, Seamus began his happy howl: I’m back here! Don’t forget me! I’m here! Take me with you! Aaaaaarrrooooooooo!! Noooooooooooooooow!!!