Ave atque vale, Grendel

Grendel runs in his sleep.  On his bed, on the couch he has labored to ascend, on the floor.  I watch him   His legs move with remembered strength, strength sapped by age  and arthritis and the long ravages of Lab genetics.  I like to think he feels the grass beneath his feet, the breeze kicking up his ears, his now grizzled jowls flapping, as he chews up the distance, flying across the ground.  I watch him twitch, legs pumping, tail in motion, an occasional yip or growl for some imagined prey, a rabbit, perhaps, or a squirrel.

In those moments I remember watching him when he was young, over twelve years ago.  He ran with dedication and limitless energy, as he played with the friends along his walk route—Ralph the Dalmatian, his first friend and first to go, or Gus the German shepherd, his most common playmates.  I remember him before the first twinges of pain in his hips, before the X-ray that showed dysplasia so clearly that no one needed to explain (as well as the furniture tack he had somehow swallowed) just why, after ten minutes of hard play he would draw up short.  At ten months, still a puppy, going under the knife for a bilateral femoral head ostectomy.

Pause, for a moment, to consider that surgery.  In it, the heads of the femurs, the ball of the ball-and-socket hip joint, are removed, the ends of the joint sutured so that, over the years, scar tissue can form a false joint.  After the surgery, I could see why they needed to go.  The surgeon (thank you for making it possible for Grendel to walk another twelve years) showed me the heads and where they had been polished smooth and shiny against the hipbone.  Then pause to wonder that a scant forty-eight hours after returning home, fewer than four days out of surgery, Grendel arose under his own power onto wobbly legs, indomitable.  This is the constant.  No matter what, Grendel will not be defeated.

He recovered quickly, and though he was never as fast as when he was a puppy, he moved confidently, his hips equal to any task he asked of them.  But those hips, I knew, were always going to be the thing, a suspicion confirmed as with advancing age, his arthritis became apparent.  In so many other ways, Grendel has been extremely healthy.  Indeed, the last three years or so have been his healthiest.  He has been largely free of the bothersome ear infections that came so regularly, free of the occasional intestinal parasite.  But at the same time, there was a steady diminution of his ability to get around.  It's been close to two years since he jumped up on the bed.  He struggles to get on the sofa.  Climbing stairs is best attempted with a sling (although there are times when he decides, dammit, he's going to climb the stairs).

I resigned myself to the likelihood that, when the end was upon us, when it was time to give him the last kindness, freedom from pain, that it would be the hips that killed him.  Then, with a new exercise regimen, he began to get stronger.  He would still never jump on the bed, climbing the stairs was still a bad idea, but the muscle he began to build on his backside made getting up easier, made longer walks possible.  I began to dream that, as he approached his thirteenth birthday, I might look forward to a year or two remaining, provided his health held.

Provided…

Then, the diagnosis.  I took him in for a dental cleaning, hoping to cure the vicious halitosis he had developed.  The call came, while he was on the table, and with it the report of the huge tumor in his mouth.  Followed by the oncology report and the diagnosis of cancer, a pigmented malignant melanoma, fast-growing.  

The options: four weeks of radiation, followed by chemo and palliation, with a potential for six months' survival; or, treat the pain until the suffering becomes too much, and have him with me for perhaps two or three months, maybe much less since this was highly aggressive.  

The decision is easy to make once I take myself out of the equation.  Treating him with radiation, having him undergo daily sedation for four weeks, subjecting him to radiation burns in the hope that it would shrink the tumor, would only be for me.  He might live six months, but the first two and probably the last one or two, would be agony.  To gain time for him, at the cost of so much pain, would not be a kindness.  Only by letting him go, by treating the pain, until he no longer enjoys life, until the only thing left is to grant him the release from suffering he cannot ask, can I honor him.

Grendel has been my companion for nearly thirteen years.  I was twenty-eight when he entered my life and I will be forty-one when he leaves it.  He has been my friend, loving me at my very best and at my very worst equally.  All he has asked is food, comfort, love.  When I got the word I dreaded, when I was bawling, wailing, like I hadn't since I was ten and my first dog died, he tried to comfort me.   

He tried to comfort me.

In one of the examination rooms at my vet's office (thanks, guys, for seeing Grendel through his entire life—it can't always have been easy dealing with me) there is a sign.  It reads, "We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare.  In return they give us their all.  It is the best deal man has ever made."  If we are very lucky, we have this gift for many years, but the price we pay is that at the end we must positively act to end their lives, to put an end to suffering.

This relationship is so finite, and that is what makes it so powerful. 

I will try to make his last days special. I will pamper him with attention and food until he no longer seems to enjoy life. And then, sometime sooner than I ever imagined, I will make a call. I will sedate him so that his last sight is his home and the people who love him, and there are so many, so that the last touch he feels is comforting.  When he is asleep, I will take him to the vet and she will inject a drug cocktail that will stop his heart and he will be gone.  Will Rogers once famously said, "If there are no dogs in heaven, then I want to go where they went."  I don't believe in heaven; I know I'll never see my Grendel again.  But there's something true in the sentiment.  Dogs help make us human and, if we pay attention, humane.  I will treat him at the end as though I'll have to answer for it because it is the last kind thing I can do for him, whether he registers it or not.

After that I will never look into his brown and inquiring eyes, eyes that always seemed to understand more than they should, again.  I will never stroke his muzzle, now grown white from its original jet black. I will never feel the rise and fall of his ribcage or hear him snore as he naps on the couch beside me.  I will never be lashed by his tail.  I will never have my feet bathed by his spotted tongue or have my nose nibbled in his excitement at greeting me.  I will never come home to see him lift his head, perk up his ears, and the joy of our reunion spread across his body.  I will never be offered the tribute of a slain stuffed animal. I will never be exasperated by his incorrigible begging.  I will never see him chase (and I hope capture) prey in his sleep.

He will not even be a furry memory, a dimly-known black shape, to the unborn child I await with his step-mom (thanks, Serena, for helping us through).

This, ultimately, is the cost of the exquisite companionship, the unconditional love, I received for almost thirteen years.  The bill is coming soon.

It is a bargain at many times the price.