Goodbye big-big boy

On the way home from Manitowoc Humane Society

I don't want to write this post.  I've been avoiding it all week.  It needs to be done. It's been a rather rough two weeks.  School started a week and a half ago (on a Weds.), and I was a sleepless mess after having to say goodbye to our Damon on Tuesday night.  It was fast and rather shocking.  Of course he was old and had several chronic health issues, but he was a normal fairly healthy old guy Sunday afternoon.  He was his normal giant-puppy self on our walk and fine after our return.  Around bedtime, he was upstairs drinking, and he stiffened and started to fall over. I was able to catch him and lay him down gently, while screaming his name and rubbing his face and neck. It was terrifying.  I thought he was dying. After a few seconds, which seemed much longer, he "came back" and seemed a little confused but normal.  We weren't sure what had happened or what to do.  We decided to watch him carefully after convincing ourselves that he just got overheated on the walk, it was hot and humid upstairs, and he probably just had a head rush.

We didn't really sleep that night, but he seemed okay--just tired.  Monday morning went well, so we were pretty encouraged that it was a one-time thing. Then it happened again Monday afternoon. We scheduled a vet appointment immediately and took him in. This time it was a little worse--he was out a little longer, and wasn't able to get up as quickly. We got bad news at the vet.  He had a small tumor on his heart that started bleeding.  The fluid/blood around the heart wasn't allowing it to have an effective ejection fraction, causing syncopy.  The tumor couldn't be removed, and there was no way to fix the heart, so his doctor put him on a beta blocker to try to help with the fast, irregular heartbeats in hopes of minimizing the syncopy.  He wasn't in pain or feeling unwell, so though it was devastating news, we thought we'd have weeks to months left with him at that point.

Adoption day - still on the way home

We left quite heartbroken but looking forward to really enjoying the time we had left with him.  Things got quite bad after that though.  By Monday night, he was having episodes almost every time he would stand up and move around for more than a few minutes.  He still wanted to go for his nightly walk and continue to enjoy his normal activities, but we had to follow him around and watch for the eyes to roll back so we could catch him to prevent any falls/injuries.  We realized then that his remaining time would almost certainly be a lot shorter than we had expected. At that point, we started full-out spoiling him. Everyone hung out with him, playing, massaging him, giving him his favorite treats (he got to eat a whole cantaloupe--his favorite food in the world, along with every other food he loved), throughout the night.  He did better through the night, and I kind of convinced myself that things were improving. In reality, it was because everyone he cared about was around him, and all the things he liked to do/eat were right there, so he didn't try to get up or move.  As long as he remained relatively inactive, he felt great.

Tuesday was rough. He was determined to conduct life as usual, but was progressively getting worse and was unable to get up and do anything on his own without passing out. We called the vet, begging for hope that it might get better or improve---perhaps we could up the beta blockers? Anything? Anything at all to buy some time? We brought him in to check, just to confirm that things were indeed worse and that nothing in the world would improve things for him.  By this time, his heart was working really hard, causing him to pant and become low on oxygen at times.  There's no way we could justify dragging this out until he felt miserable.  He was just starting to get uncomfortable physically, but his mind was still active, alert, energetic and puppy-like.  He couldn't accept that his body wasn't allowing him to jump up and greet everyone who entered the room.  It was time to let him go.

We had prepared for that likelihood when we brought him in, so the family had already said their goodbyes--we spent almost 24 hour wonderful hours with him, and we had packed a bag of his favorite treats and brought his cushy bed along.  I almost lost my courage, because he rallied when we brought him in.  For the first time since Monday morning, he was up, active, jumping around, and didn't pass out.  He didn't drop once from the time we told him he was going to the vet til the time we got into the room for the exam.  I again convinced myself that he improved and things had miraculously resolved themselves.  His heart exam indicated otherwise, though.  It was a lot worse than it had been the day before.  The tumor was leaking aggressively, and the fluid was really putting pressure on the heart.  He LOVED going to the vet, and it was probably just adrenaline and excitement and luck that allowed him to make that trip without dropping. The vet was very honest about his condition and reiterated that this would only continue to get worse, and it was time. He was totally right.  As hard as it was to let him go when he was still so happy and seemed a little better, it was infinitely better than waiting until he felt in utter misery and completely lost his dignity (he truly would rather die than potty in the house--he was such a good boy!).

He has THREE toys in his mouth!

He was quite cute, holding court in his room at the vet's office.  He loved the staff there, and they all came in to visit him and give him some love (and treats).  He lay in the middle of the room on his cushion, with his giant happy tail thumping, as his family snuggled with him and all of his Mt. Zion Clinic friends gave him attention and goodies.  He loved to show off by catching treats in the air, and had a great time consuming and entire package of Tofurky slices and various other treats.  We got quite a laugh out of the massive quantities of food he managed to consume.  It was quite impressive.  He ate until the happy drugs kicked in and he couldn't manage chewing any more.  We switched back to doggy massages then.  I know hearing is the last sense to go, so I whispered in his ear that we would go on "Damy-walks" and "Damy-swim".  Yes, I lied, but I'm okay with that.  He was a brilliant dog with a phenomenal understanding of human language. He knew the meaning of those words and phrases, and I wanted his last thoughts to be of his favorite things.  I think from Damon's perspective, his last 48 hours were pretty awesome.


We had a little over a year with our big boy.  It wasn't nearly long enough!  He was such a smart, fun dog.  He came with so many quirks, which I will never know the source of, and was fairly high maintenance.  He was totally worth it, though.  He was so kind and gentle--there was not a single moment he showed any signs of being crabby, aggressive, impatient.  He was happy and sweet to every single creature he encountered.  He was playful and had a zest for life, refusing to slow down even when his arthritic body had to be in pain.  He enriched every moment of every day that we got to spend with him.  He made us laugh every single day of his life.  He brought warmth and affection into all of our lives, every single day that we had him.  The dogs and cats in the house universally loved him, leaned on him, lay across him, and groomed him.  He's left a huge, gaping hole in our family, and we will feel that pain and emptiness for a long time.  Every member of this family is better as a result of loving Damon.

I know I've shared some of these pictures before, but they are among my favorites, and are how I want to remember him.

So... my normal semester-starting excitement was dulled a little by the emotional and physical exhaustion of the previous couple of days and the loss.  I was sleep deprived and struggling to keep it together.  I refuse to cry in front of a class--especially the first class!  I have another great group of students, some of whom I'm excited to see again, and some of whom I'm looking forward to getting to know.  

It's a little somber on campus this semester, with the current political climate and bloody budget cuts, our campus feels somewhat like a war zone.  We've lost some really good, really vital "soldiers", and there are many more on the chopping block.  Those are haven't yet lost their jobs are exhausted from picking up the slack (the work still needs to be done, though there are so many fewer bodies to do it) and looking fairly shell-shocked from losing so many compatriots.  It's quite devastating.  We were already a skeleton staff operating on a shoe-string budget, and now we've lost staff and money.  We are a small, tired, somewhat discouraged team, but we will stick together, prop each other up, and keep going.  We have to.  What we do is far too important to let some education-hating, oligarchs destroy it.  That's exactly their goal.  Affordable education for the non-elite is a terrible threat to their long-term vision, and as much as they are determined to permanently destroy us, I speak for the majority of us on our campus when I say we are willing to die keeping our institute the same high-quality educational opportunity that is has always been.