Loss & Meaning

Last year, I lived two separate lives. You are reading the second. 

I’ll never forget sitting on the chair lift next to my dad talking about how I have done in my career. How I had built my emergency savings to the point that we could cover any medical expense for our dogs out of pocket and justifying why I chose not to have pet insurance. 

How, “as long as the dogs don’t get cancer out of the blue” we were totally fine. 

This came up as that morning, my Great Dane, Norman, had yelped as I reached out to pat him on the head as I exited my bedroom. 

I was concerned about him but figured that he was either a) scared - he was adopted and screamed anytime he thought he was in trouble or b) may have chipped a tooth and would need to go to the vet. 

The yelping persisted and there was some blood on his gums that my girlfriend, Sydney, noticed so we took him in to get his teeth cleaned. 

He yelped getting out of the car, leaving me feeling slightly off. 

Later that day, we would get the all clear as he sat cowering behind me on a bench at the vet that was far too small for a 6’9” 250lb man to have a great dane pressed between his back and the wall behind him. 

Nothing to worry about, no concerns and a benign tumor removed from his chest—we lovingly called it his extra nipple. 

When we got to the car, he yelped again while jumping in. 

Shit, I guess he strained something but just to be safe so we aren’t wasting money treating him with pain killers, let’s get an MRI. 

Norman was terrified of anybody that was not us and we didn’t want to torture him through exposure to the vet and a short term large expense was more desirable than small ones that could add up to a larger total bill. 

Outcome?

Norman had a mass on his vertebrae crushing his spinal cord. 

Potentially an infection or cancer. 

I instantly was back on that ski lift eating my words. 

Post-dorsal surgery, prior to even sending in a sample, the neurologist confirmed it was likely osteosarcoma. 

What could we do? What treatment options are there? How can we help our sweet, sweet boy?

In short? We couldn’t. We could just prolong his death and suffering by taking him to the vet weekly for radiation. I mentioned he was terrified of the vet, right?

Did I also mention that I was effectively getting demoted at my job while this was happening? Not due to a bad job, simply because I couldn’t be hired for the job I had worked so hard to be an interim for. 

Or that we got Norman back on our third anniversary? With the hair between his front shoulder blades massively shaved off, revealing a 6” gash that was crudely stapled shut as a blatant reminder that we had limited time with him? As if his screams of agony didn’t tell us all we needed to know. 

They were bad at the vet but worse, much worse, at home. 

We were told two weeks but when he crumpled onto the floor the moment we got him inside, we instantly knew he wouldn’t last weeks. 

Happy anniversary! 

I’d proceed to stay up with him all night. Listening to his soft whining as he laid there, drugged out of his mind on pain killers but still very much feeling everything. 

I dreaded each time I had to take him to the bathroom. 

Getting him from laying on his neck with his butt in the air at the garage door while profusely drooling to the much more comfortable big barker dog bed was painful enough. Coaxing him to put himself in a tremendous amount of pain for a more comfortable spot to suffer. 

His walking was much worse than earlier in the week too. He was tripping over his front paws more and more, not able to control them and it terrified him. 

When I took him outside, he would pee and instantly try to lay down. 

I couldn’t let him. We’d be stuck outside and he would be too. Stuck. Shivering in pain. Whining. Crying. Not understanding what was happening to him. Eyes darting around, terrified. 

The last time I took him out was 3:00 AM. He bit me. Twice. 

Norman loved me with every fiber of his existence. For all he knew, he was put on this earth to be my best friend. 

He had nipped me in his sleep the day we got him—but the moment he knew he was safe with me, he never did it again. He never would have bitten me. 

Yet he had. 

Twice. 

That was all I needed to know the dire situation our sweet Normie boy was in. 

We couldn’t do this to him. 

So instead of celebrating, we mourned. We mourned when I called the vet to ask what time I could bring him in to euthanize him. On the drive that I intentionally made as long as humanly possible because how could I possibly drive straight to the vet to murder my best friend?

He got McDonalds and laid with Sydney in the back of my Subaru Outback. He couldn’t even finish a sausage egg and cheese McGriddle. What dog in their right mind can’t do that? 

But he wasn’t in his right mind. He was in constant pain. Losing my and more control of himself. 

When we couldn’t stand driving around, avoiding the vet any longer, we finally arrived. 

One thing to know about Norm is that he took the LONGEST pees ever. I mean, it would feel like 5 minutes and there would be a puddle that one of the radiation fish from the Simpsons could easily live in by the time he was done. 

And this would be his greatest pee ever. It was glorious. 

Picture this: 

You are driving down the road at 7:00 AM and you see the most disheveled looking couple you have ever seen, a 6’9” man and a 5’8” absolutely drop dead gorgeous woman, simultaneously hysterically laughing while sobbing—tears and snot pouring off their faces, as their absolutely fucked up, 140lb, Great Dane is being held up by the 6’9” man by way of a help em’ up harness because he can’t control his front legs, is already on his knuckles instead of his paws, and if he leans any further over will be face down on the ground peeing on his face. The 6’9” man is clearly bracing himself as he takes on more and more of the dead weight and the dog just keeps pissing. 

To be honest, if I was driving past that, I probably would’ve rubber-necked too close to the sun and hit a light pole. 

Thanks for that, Normie. 

I will never forget them physically dragging him away from me—him stubbornly protesting being taken from the back away from me to get the catheters in. Nor will I ever forget the relief on that man’s face when he saw me sitting on the couch in the death room. Those tail wags broke my heart. 

I once again proved that he could trust me. One last time. 

God that still makes me cry. 

Moments after, he laid down and I could see that he was ready. Ready to be done with the suffering. 

It took me forever to press that damn doorbell. To kill my best friend. 

The existential crisis that gave me was wild. 

In whatever form, I hope I get to meet my boy again. 

But I doubt that will happen—and I hope for his sake that we don’t only get one life because that would be fucked. He didn’t deserve to die early. 

---

We had a trip to Oregon scheduled two weeks later that we went on after my many sleepless nights filled with the torment of questioning the meaning of life and the question of if I would ever get to meet my dog again. 

This trip was a planned engagement. An engagement that I was even more sure of after what we had just endured. 

The day before we left for our wedding trip, Hank, our Neapolitan Mastiff, would stumble around. He was clearly confused and panicked. 

This had happened before. I had never gotten confirmation but it had happened a few times and I suggested to the vet that it was vestibular disease and this seemed likely. 

We dropped him off at a board and train program with his new buddy, Truman, as we prepared to travel internationally. Iceland, Ireland, and the UK instead of planning out a wedding? Hell yeah! 

I informed the trainers of what had happened and that it should be of no concern. 

The last stop of our trip was in London and we stopped at a tapas restaurant when I got a call.

“Hank has been having accidents in his kennel and should pause his training, can you pick him up?”

“I’d love to, but that is physically impossible. Hank never has accidents. We will get back early but can you please take him to the vet? I’ll cover anything.”

Guess who couldn’t eat their tapas?

Another call.

“We think he is suffering from heart failure, he needs to be transferred to the ER.”

Another.

“He is suffering from heart failure. We are treating him but he could die at any moment.”

Hank—you have been a stubborn bastard your whole life. You better be stubborn enough to wait until your mom and I get home before you die. The next flight home is $20k and we need to have enough money to pay for all of this. We have to wait another day. 

“He’s recovering well but could still die at any moment.” 

We got home and went straight to pick him up. 

I knew his stubborn ass would wait until he could see us. 

Right ventricle failure, he will be on tons of meds but could live 6-12 months. 

Enter two of the most painful weeks of my life. 

Though stubborn, Hank was an amazing dog. So easy and just loved our company. It was rare for him to have accidents and if they happened, it was my fault. 

Hank on diuretics was a completely different dog. I was reliving a different version of the hell I experienced with Norman but instead of watching a seemingly lifeless dog, my dog was yelling at me all the time because his heart rate was insanely high and he needed to pee all the time. 

By all the time I mean that I couldn’t sleep because I would take him out to pee and 30 minutes later he would be summoning me to take him out again. And again and again. I accepted that I was just going to have to clean up pee because there was no way in hell I could function at work if I was sleeping in 10-20 minute intervals. 

When Hank finally kinda sorta stabilized and wasn’t freaked out or needing to go to the bathroom all the time, we thought he had entered the 6-12 month window. 

Until he was falling over one evening again before I went and got a haircut. 

Shit. 

Syd hung out with him and we talked while I was on my way there. I was adamant that I wanted to take him to the vet to see if this is something that we should expect.

Oh—this was on the snowiest day of the year so far during the heaviest part of the snow. 

So after a drive that took forever so that we could actually make it to the vet they told us the obvious, “he is in heart failure.”

No shit, Sherlock. I had the cardiovascular specialist send everything over and have been dealing with this for weeks. Everyone in this room knows that. 

But the tone. The tone killed me.

“We know that. What do you mean?”

“Even if you put him in intensive care, he probably won’t make it through the night.”

What. the. FUCK.

Two dogs? One year? This was supposed to be a great year. Who wrote this bullshit plot? 

Instant snot and sobbing. It hadn’t even been a month. 

But we had to be there. Had to let him know how loved he was by being with him until his very last breath. We would NOT let there be another opportunity for him to die without us. 

Back to the death room. The same death room we were familiar with from March, 7 short months earlier. 

And guess who was in charge of ringing the damn bell?

Hank gave me a small wag but the dude was on another planet. He was pacing around and barely eating cookies. Like, real cookies. With chocolate chips… This dude loved food but I had been giving him so much medication for the last month that he stopped trusting me to feed him. 

Yeah. That hurt. 

How do you put down a dog that so clearly wanted to live? We sat in the death room for hours. Hank wouldn’t lay with us. Even when we asked. 

That was how I knew it was his time. He was never one to ignore a request. Even less of one to pace around a room for longer than a couple minutes. 

No hysterical laughing this time. 

It took even more will power than last time to ring the doorbell. 

Who murders two best friends in one year? Wouldn’t want to get on that guy's good side….

Hank finally acted normally in his final minutes, after they sedated him. Then, his 150lb body went limp. He took his last breath. 

Still. 

SnnnnnooooooOOOOOOOOrrrrrRRRRRTTTTTTtttttttt.

Our dead dog, the one who wasn’t allowed to sleep in the bedroom because he snored so loudly, snored one last time. 

Picture this: 

You are in the vet waiting room and just watched a crying couple walk into the death room, tears streaming down their faces. Two hours later, you hear them hysterically laughing and sobbing—you can picture that mix of tears and snot on their face. 

Hank left us our final funny memory with him. 

Then his back leg started kicking. 

Dude. When I tell you, this dog is stubborn. His whole life and even in his death. This dog was stubborn.

We know it was just leg spasms but still… Normie didn’t do any of that. 

For both, I snuggled them until their bodies were cold and there was no chance they were in there.

I tucked Hank in one last time and wouldn’t see him until he was neatly wrapped in a gift bag. 

Did I want the extra special urn? 

Fortunately, I had existential crisised myself out earlier in the year but I tell you what—walls start feeling a lot tighter when the perpetual sound of snoring ceases to resound. 

But hey, at least Truman was now fully trained? We were married. An awesome trip was behind us. Oh, and I got a promotion!