Note # 30 – 10:37 p.m. at the Emergency Vet Hospital

 

Everybody who loves their pet ends up here, don’t they?

My partner Mariann is cleaning up the dinner dishes and I am taking Gavin for his evening constitutional – he didn’t want his food this morning and was lethargic, not himself.  He had pancreatitis this summer and I’ve been worried about him since then. I lean down to clean up after he’s done his business and I see a bit of blood, just a tiny bit, but by the time we’ve walked home, I know we probably should go to the emergency vet hospital and have him checked out.

It’s a tense drive there.  Mariann and I are both tired, closing in on exhausted. It’s been a long, trying few weeks (months?) and we’re done in. Our friend Sonia emailed us earlier in the day to tell us that she’d had to have one of her beloved Belgian Malinois put down last night.  Cancer in his spleen.  It was brutally sudden – they’d had no idea he was even sick and they are simply gutted with grief. The news hit me like a punch and it was a struggle to pull myself together enough to face a day with my students.

And now here we are, driving through the foggy night, our tiny family of three, sad, on edge.  A little afraid.

We check in at the reception desk and then I call our lovely friend Ali, who is a vet, while we wait to see the emergency hospital’s vet. Ali is getting used to frantic calls from me lately – she’s always so reassuring, she always says, let’s not panic yet, let’s check him out. I wonder if she knows how much it helps, just to hear her voice?

God, we love our dogs.

We wait.

There is Finn, a West Highland Terrier with a rash.  He’s panty and agitated and won’t settle. His owners walk him up and down, take him out, back in, then out again.

Emma, a big, old black Lab, stands stoically watching all the dogs come and go.

Hamish, a Scottie with an ear infection, whose dad is holding him, wrapped in blankets.

A parade of cats, each of them outraged at the indignity of being held captive in a carrier, ferried through a waiting room full of dogs.

All of them with their panicked, tired humans.

Eventually we are ushered in to see Jackie, the vet tech, who is friendly and reassuring and kind.  We go back to the waiting room.

An older woman and her adult son are there – she’s gotten tragic news, we all know it – we’ve all been her.  Some of us avert our eyes to give her privacy.  Some of us offer tender sad smiles.  She is absolutely shattered.  The vet techs and receptionists handle her with firm kindness and her son never leaves her side.

Two big guys walk in. They are muscular and dressed all in black and in any other context, might be a little bit intimidating. They stand soberly in line, waiting their turn.  One of them is picking up the ashes of his dog – I recognize the light blue box they give him, I’ve picked up one of those boxes before.  The guy’s face dissolves a bit as he accepts the box and his buddy walks him out to the parking lot with an odd sort of formality, like a funeral procession into the cold Ottawa night.

Season four of Brooklyn Nine Nine is playing softly on the television. It’s Netflix, so it’s going to play forever.  I wonder for a minute if this is what hell is like…an endless loop of witnessing other people’s suffering while a sitcom plays in the background.

We wait some more.

A priority case comes in – a Dachshund who gave birth to four puppies yesterday but who is in distress and is having trouble breathing.  Jackie, our vet tech swoops in, takes the sweet dog from the girl’s arms and disappears into the back with her.  The girl who brought the dog in looks so young, maybe early twenties, she’s driven all the way from Cornwall and she’s by herself which is breaking my heart a little.  It’s all I can do not to go over to her and put an arm around her, tell her it will be okay.  She’s crying so hard, she can’t get her name and telephone number out to the receptionist. She’s got a box with her, stuffed with towels.  It’s the Dachshund puppies.  Jackie comes and whisks them away to be with their mom.

I go outside and walk around a bit.

Through all of this, Gavin remains remarkably calm, moving from my lap to my Mariann’s and back again, sometimes sprawling out on the waiting room settee between us, snuggled in Mariann’s coat. When there is a lull, one after the other, the vet techs come over to rub Gavin’s belly, or feel the velvet softness of his ears. They tell him he is so handsome, so sweet.  He accepts their adoration with his characteristic air of noblesse oblige.

Mariann and I pass the time, propping each other up, and then finally, the vet sees us.  She is kind and reassuring and I know what sort of night she’s having, but she takes her time with us and patiently answers all my questions.

Gavin gets a thorough examination, some tests, some IV fluids, a prescription and home care instructions.

It is very late when we drive home, our tiny family of three, me at the wheel, Gavin on Mariann’s lap.  He falls asleep before we get home.

God, we love our dogs.

P.

P.S. Godspeed, Lobo.