When Your Service Dog Is Too “Smart”….

OK, so now you know I’m writing and blogging elsewhere, although I still plan to do my service dog blogging (and related stuff) here until I can get my own domain set up. Except for today’s post, because it turns out that won’t work. So I’m posting it on my writing blog, SharonWachsler.blogspot.com. I apologize for the inconvenience. Future Gadget- and Barnum-related posts will be back here at After Gadget!

You asked so many great questions about my experiences as a service dog (SD) partner and trainer that it is taking quite some time for me to write all my answers. I am also still finishing Barnum’s training. Until now I wanted to wait to train him to open the outside door to let himself out because I wanted to make sure he was really solid on having his door-opening behaviors under stimulus control. Which leads me to today’s topic.

Two of you asked about my funniest or most embarrassing experience as a SD handler, and that brought to mind this story which I’ve posted at SharonWachsler.blogspot.com.

– Sharon, the muse of Gadget, and Barnum, SD/SDiT (who will hopefully know better)

Supporting the Bereaved: Light a Virtual Candle

As part of my series on support for people who are coping with assistance dog loss, I wanted to share a very simple resource that can be appropriate for a wide range of people and circumstances. I learned about it from Lymphoma HeartDog Angels list.

Gratefulness.org is an international website that allows you to light a virtual candle for any reason. It has an understated warmth that I find comforting and conducive to self-connection. You can light a candle for yourself or anyone else who is going through a rough time or a celebration, to let them know that you’re thinking of them, to commemorate an event, as a memorial, or for any other reason.

I have found it to be a simple, yet meaningful way to reach out. The reason I think it’s a particularly useful resource for assistance dog loss is that so often people don’t know what to say to someone who is grieving. Our culture has a hard time dealing with grief and death in general, and when it comes to deaths of nonhuman loved ones, it gets even more dicey. Add to that that often people who are sympathetic to pet loss don’t understand the differences between pet loss and assistance dog loss, and words can sometimes feel like more of a barrier than a bridge (though I am putting together information on what you can say or do when someone you know is dealing with assistance dog loss).

Meanwhile, if you are so inclined, you can light a virtual candle in honor of anyone or in memory of loved ones — your’s or others’ — that will “burn” for 48 hours. The website gives you a pause screen to reflect before you light the candle, and you can also include a note, as well as send the link to the bereaved if you’ve lit the candle for them.

Although there is never any word or gesture that works for everyone, lighting a virtual candle appeals to me for several reasons. First, lighting candles are part of most religious or spiritual traditions, so it can be an evocative offering for people across a wide range of religions and cultures. However, there are no prayers or religious or spiritual texts or symbols on the site, so for people who are atheists, it can still be a way of saying, “I’m thinking of you” without foisting unwelcome religious messages on someone who may not share your beliefs.

Also, since these are virtual candles, they are not creating products of combustion. As someone with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), I can’t be around real candles, and I don’t like it when people tell me they will light a candle for me because even if they are 100 miles away, I don’t want them to contribute to pollution in my name. But these virtual candles are smoke-free!

When I first heard about it, I thought it sounded hokey, but then when someone did light an online candle for Gadget, and I went to see it, I was moved. Not only is the site tastefully done, but the way the flames flicker is very realistic and calming, I find, and I like how the candles burn down slowly over a 48 hour period, so you can revisit the same candle as your feelings wax and wane. Mostly, though, it told me that someone cared. They cared enough to go and light the candle and think of me. They put something “out there” with Gadget’s name on it that I could visit. That is often what people want the most — to know that they, or their loved one who has died, matter.

– Sharon and the muses of Lady, Jersey, and Gadget

P.S. This is probably obvious, but in the case of some people who have lost a guide dog, a visual message, such as the candles at gratefulness.org, may not be enjoyable. However, there are many other ways of saying, “I am thinking about you, and I care.” I am preparing future posts on this topic.

Flashback: Of Grief and Relief

I originally wrote this post on January 2, 2010. It’s one of several unpublished posts I wrote in the wake of Gadget’s death. I keep finding these drafts that are basically finished, but for some reason, I didn’t think they were complete at the time. My thinking was so fuzzy back then, I’m not sure what I thought these posts needed.

In this case, the original title, “Admission of Guilt,” suggests a pretty clear reason why I hesitated to post it. I’m glad that I can now grieve Gadget without feeling guilty about the complex feelings I experienced during his last days.

– SW

When the End of the End Doesn’t End

Gadget’s final week was an extension of the previous six months, and the dreams seem to be an extension of what I lived in those end days.

For about four months I fought with my brain, my body, my heart, and my bank account to defeat his cancer. I researched. I cooked. I researched more. I took him for chemotherapy, acupuncture, chiropractic, and Chinese herbs. I pilled him constantly and myself just enough to keep my exhaustion and pain sufficiently at bay to always take him for a walk, to always go with him to chemo, to always make sure he got the right supplements and medications with the right meals. Those were the days of hope, when I thought we would have at least a year, possibly two, maybe three or more.

Then, he took a turn for the worse, and I realized he probably was dying. Next were the weeks it was clear to me he was dying, but not to him. Finally, in the last week or two, he was actively dying, which was like all the months before, but brutally amplified.

Everything was more. More stress and anxiety. More effort to ensure each meal was delicious and totally digestible. More pinnacles of hope and plummets into despair. More pills and monitoring symptoms and needle sticks — all requiring more vigilance around and around and around the clock. More cleaning up messes that smelled of his body shutting down. More desperation to make him as happy as I could with trips to the pond, walks, doggy get-togethers, and to soak up as much joy as I could, myself, in his still being alive because every time we had fun or peace, I knew, “This might be our last time. . . Or this one. . . . Or this one. . . .”

I couldn’t shed months of habits overnight, just because there was no longer any purpose to them.

The first morning after Gadget’s death, I rolled out of bed, adrenaline banging through me, and began checking his status before I even realized he wasn’t there. I was ready: Had I heard gasping? Did I smell vomit? Was it time for pills or fluids?

What I was not ready for each morning was the nothing. Not only wasn’t he on his bed, he wasn’t lying in a cool spot next to the window or on the bathroom tile. He hadn’t wandered off in search of one of my personal care assistants to demand food and attention (not that much demanding had ever been involved — more like just showing up!). But, my PCAs hadn’t arrived yet because I should still have been asleep. There was nobody there. So there was nothing to be done. And I didn’t know what to do with that at all, because for six months, there was always more to do. More to try, more than I could do, more that made no difference in the end.

After taking in the nothing, I’d cry and go back to sleep.

Sleep was very big on my agenda the first few days after Gadget died because, in addition to the insomnia I have as a symptom of my illness, for the previous months, I woke up constantly to care for Gadget. During the days, I spent all my energy on two things: Gadget’s survival, and my survival (in that order). From the moment I woke to the moment I’d literally pass out from exhaustion, I was in the survival struggle.

In fact, for the first 48 hours after Gadget died, I mostly felt relief. I slept. I finally didn’t have to manage anything. I didn’t have to struggle against and fear the worst anymore because the worst had already happened.

Near the end, we both grabbed sleep whenever we could.

I’m fortunate to be able to admit this. What’s given me the courage is hearing it from other caretakers of a loved one with a long, terminal illness. It’s actually pretty common. However, it’s not an admission everyone wants to hear.

A year ago, I didn’t want to hear it from someone else. On January 6, 2008, Norm, one of my best friends, died after two agonizing years of illness. He often said to me, especially near the end, that he wanted it to be over, that he sometimes felt like it would be a relief to die. This was hard to hear, but I was sympathetic. This was because, along with understanding how it feels to be mired in pain and illness, I was keeping a promise I’d made to him a long time before, though he didn’t know it.

When Norm got sick, I committed to listening to and supporting whatever he felt. My goal was to be unconditionally loving and nonjudgemental. I think it’s the only time in my life I’ve succeeded at that.

Still, I didn’t want him to die. So, when he did, I was shocked and grief-stricken. It was a pure loss, which is what animal bereavement experts say is usually the case when a companion animal dies. They say that our relationships with our animals are usually so entirely positive, without the resentments, grievances, and other negative complications of our human relationships, that the loss is often more painful than a person’s death. I have recently heard from others whose dogs died of cancer that their grief and suffering is worse than when they’d lost a parent, a sibling, or even a child.

Norm was a dog person. He also shared my gallows sense of humor. At his memorial, I said that Norm would appreciate knowing that, to me, his death was as upsetting as if he was a dog.

This was not true for his wife, who also is disabled and with whom I was also friends (though not as close). His death was a terrible loss and a tragedy for both of us, but she had spent two years of physical and emotional agony taking care of him. I was protected by the distance of the phone line. His death for me was pure sadness. For her, it was also a deliverance: a release from the horrors of watching him suffer brutally for so long, as well as a chance to take care of herself again and to regain some of the life she’d lost before he got sick. I couldn’t stand hearing this from her. Her grief was complicated, and mine was straightforward. I didn’t want there to be an “upside” to my friend’s death.

Since Gadget’s death, I have a lot more empathy for what my friend was feeling last year. I have been met with silence, confusion, and outright denials when I mention the part clemency has played in Gadget’s death.

When he was dying, I went to an online anticipatory grief support group. When I admitted, with some guilt, “Part of me just wants it to be over.”

The host said, “That’s because you don’t want to see him suffer. It’s a completely unselfish feeling.”

I said, no, it wasn’t entirely unselfish. Seeing him suffer was horrible, and that was certainly part of it. But, I said, I was suffering too. I was exhausted, a physical and emotional wreck. I’d dug deeply into savings that I live on. The toll was enormous and seemingly endless. I wanted it to be over for me, too. I didn’t want him to be dead — not truly dead — but I also wanted it to be over.

The host continued to maintain that my only thoughts were of Gadget’s needs. She refused to hear the part of me that was saying, “I can’t take this anymore.” I didn’t mention it again.

Of course, when it was “over” — what we think of as over, his body buried in the ground — it was not, is still not, remotely over. I got my two nights of sleep, but they were laced with nightmares for far longer. And the grief, in one form or another, goes on and on. I’ve been told that in some ways, it will never be over, a thought that is depressing, exhausting, and strangely comforting. I guess because it means Gadget will always be in my life, in some form, even when that’s only in grief. . . .

I reach out for him to feel where his fur should be. I look to the foot of the bed, where his head should be lolling over the side. I listen for his snore, rumbling over the white noise of the air filter. I glance instinctively to the door, the light switch, the pillow I’ve dropped on the floor, for him to shut the door, turn off the light, pass me the pillow.

At times, he feels beyond my mind’s reach.

For six months, I applied every life-affirming “treatment” I could. I didn’t just take him to chemotherapy every week, even when I could barely leave my bed the rest of the time. I didn’t only research and dispense herbs and supplements, create a special cancer-fighting diet tailored to his food allergies, consult a multitude of veterinarians and read multiple books on canine cancer. I took him on special walks — varied our routes, went to his favorite destinations (and pretty well killed my powerchair in the process). Even teaching him new service skills and relying more on his assistance felt like a blow against cancer, as if I was tethering him to life that much more tightly. How could such a necessary bond ever be broken?

More importantly, I tell myself that I still exist and matter. After more than eight years living as a “we,” a partner, an interdependent unit, an extension of another, I’ve become disembodied. The only thing that has ever been mine alone is writing. No matter how many people offer critique, proof or edit, type or transcribe, publish (or reject) a piece of writing, it is still a solitary act.

I was a writer before Gadget. After he entered my life, I often wrote to escape the demands of his training and exhausting exuberance. As the subject of some of my humor columns, I transformed scary, frustrating, or painful events with a wild young rescue into emotional release — and paychecks. Even when he curled up under my desk as I typed, the true connections happened in my mind. Writing has always been where I find myself, whether I want to or not.

– Sharon, the muse of Gadget, in the days before Barnum

May 12: Ugh

Lately, I’ve been feeling kind of blue, and while I have some pretty decent reasons to be depressed (the possible end of my relationship with Betsy; the possible end of Barnum’s service dog career; the random bouts of vomiting; the pain, exhaustion, and migraines; the fact that my outdoor powerchair is once again completely dead), I’ve been through worse. The weight of my gloominess seemed out of proportion to what is actually going on. It felt like the bad stuff felt worse than it really was.

Eventually, some pieces started to fall into place. I realized that a lot of it is grief.

The first wave hit when I got a recent batch of books on tape through the Library of Congress Talking Book Program. (I love the Talking Book Program — if you have any sort of physical or cognitive print disability, definitely check it out.) On the same day, two books arrived, bringing with them an emotional sock to the gut.

One book was U Is for Undertow: A Kinsey Millhone Mystery, by Sue Grafton. The other book was Fearless Fourteen (Stephanie Plum #14) by Janet Evanovich. Both of these are the latest installments in series, so I was excited to see them in the catalog. I didn’t think at all about how I’d feel when I started listening to them.

My former best friend, who “broke up with me” a few months ago, introduced me to the Stephanie Plum series. They are really funny books. They literally make me laugh out loud. Probably the only other author who does that is David Sedaris.

When I was reading a Stephanie Plum book, I’d call my friend, and we’d talk about our favorite parts, reciting lines to each other. It was always fresher in my mind than hers, because she got print books, from a regular library, so she could read them as soon as they came out, whereas it usually takes at least a year for them to be recorded. But still. Forever more, I will associate the characters, the New Jersey accents and locales, and the ridiculous situations of the Stephanie Plum books with my friend who I love and miss and will never speak to again.

I had to make her anonymous for this public blog.

The other book is even more heart-breaking, in a way. My dear friend, colleague, mentor, and former boss, Norman Meldrum, liked the Kinsey Millhone series. Norm got very ill in May, 2007, just a couple of months before I was diagnosed with Lyme disease.

My friend, mentor, colleague, activist Norman Meldrum, with Beatrix Underfoote

It was actually in May that he ended up in the hospital with what turned out to be multiple pulmonary embolisms, caused by a medication he was on for one of his disabilities. It took the doctors a long time to figure out that that was what was wrong, though, because almost nobody ever gets multiple embolisms and survives. For the first two hospital stays, the doctors thought it was some form of treatment-resistant super-severe pneumonia.

In fact, the friend who stopped speaking to me lost her husband to one pulmonary embolism in the space of an hour, a few months before Norm went into the hospital. Norm’s doctors and nurses all told him, again and again, how lucky he was to be alive. That got old really quick. Particularly because not too  long after all these pronouncements about his luck, he was dying a slow, agonizing, painful death.

When I found out Norm had been in the hospital and almost died, I was shocked. Then I got Lyme. Then Norm went back into the hospital. Then I got sicker.

We both kept getting sicker and sicker, until around two years later, I began to turn the corner, and Norm died. During most of those two years, I’d call him at the hospital or at his home, and we’d talk until one of us was too sick or tired.

Almost never was I able to speak to Norm using my voice, because I developed vocal-cord apraxia due to Lyme and babesia. So, when he was in the hospital, I called him by HCO relay, which was a real pain in the ass. A lot of the time, there were technical issues and garbling, but Norm was very patient. I sent him a TTY to use when he was at home, and he was one of the very few people in my life who was willing to use it. Unfortunately, by the time I had a TTY to send to him, he was usually too sick to operate it.

The irony is that we had such a close, loving relationship, even though we’d only ever spent time “in meatspace” twice. All the rest of our communication was by email, and then, when we both got so sick, by TTY relay.

The worst irony is that I started to get better right after he died. At his memorial service a few months after he died, I attended by speakerphone. I hadn’t known if I’d be able to speak for myself, so I had written what I wanted to say and emailed it to someone else, in case they’d need to read it. But I was able to speak. I actually felt guilty about that, because I hated that I could talk about him, but I hadn’t been able to talk to him.

I miss him so goddamn much.

It’s not just that we both read the same author, either. It’s that this was a series (starting with A Is for Alibi), and the last book that came out while Norm was alive was T Is for Trespass. I read it before him, and it gave me the creeps.

The book is about an older man who is abused and gas-lighted by his attendant. At the time I was reading it, Norm was in and out of the hospital a lot. He was at other people’s mercy a lot. When he ended up at one of the worse facilities, I worried about how they were treating him.

As it turns out, I should have been more worried than I was. This “nursing home” that Norm went to before he died was not a place he chose. He had to go for his insurance to pay for his previous round of hospitalization, and though he knew he’d be dead soon, he didn’t want his wife and children financially destroyed by his medical bills. I had a feeling things weren’t good there, just from the limited things we managed to say when I managed to speak to him. But I wasn’t able to talk to him there more than once, and briefly, which worried me, in itself. The staff seemed really weird about giving him a phone. I didn’t like it, but there was nothing I could do.

I found out after he died that the staff there abused him. They taunted him, told him he wasn’t really sick, that he was faking, while he was dying. They’d put his wheelchair too far away and make him try to get to it on his own. They’d pretend they were going to support him and then, whoops!

He worked so hard to get out of that place. I knew it was bad, that he wanted desperately to leave, but I didn’t know how bad. My stomach turns over whenever I think of it. I feel such helpless rage.

I was already thinking of Norm when I read the previous book in this series, and I said to him, “You might not want to read this. It’s pretty intense.”

Then, he read it, and he said it didn’t bother him.

Then he ended up in that hell hole of a nursing home. Then he went home, we talked a couple more times, when he could barely stay on the phone a minute, and then he died.

A happier time, May 2003: Norm, Gadget, and I congregate in Augusta, Maine, long before Norm's emobolisms, my Lyme, or Gadget's cancer.

Now the series  has continued without him. That’s the part that really gets to me. Here’s “U,” and next will be “V” and on through “Z,” and Norm won’t be around to read any of them.

So, here I am in the lovely month of May, with trees budding, the birds returning, the days getting longer, and May is the month that I got bitten by the tick that gave me Lyme. May is the month Norm started the long, slow process of dying.

Then, two years later, May 12, 2009, Gadget was diagnosed with, and started chemotherapy for, lymphoma. He actually went into the emergency vet on May 9, a Friday. Something looked wrong with Gadget’s eye, and I went debated whether he should go to the ER or not. It seemed worse, it seemed better, then it seemed worse again.

My voice wasn’t working, and I couldn’t get out of bed. I remember having a long conversation with Betsy by TTY about it, because she didn’t understand what was so worrisome, and why I was debating taking him to the ER versus waiting and taking him to his regular vet on Monday. I didn’t like sending him without me. I have had bad experiences with vets screwing up because I couldn’t be in the hospital with my dog. Like the vets who misdiagnosed Jersey’s glaucoma repeatedly, costing her one of her eyes.

But, eventually I decided he needed to go. I talked to the ER by relay ahead of time and told them all my questions and concerns and asked them to call me as soon as they’d examined him. Then, my PCA did take him to the ER, and they called me by relay and said, “It’s a good thing you brought him in. Gadget has lymphoma.”

Though I love this picture of him, I can't help but notice the ring around his iris, part of the change to his retina, vestige of lymphoma.

Because I was on relay, the vet couldn’t hear me crying. I was totally in shock. They ran thousands of dollars of tests to determine for sure that it was cancer and to stage it, and to rule out other diseases (which turned out to be important, because Gadget had an extremely high Lyme disease titer, which we were later able to treat). Even though the results wouldn’t be in until after the weekend, we took the next available appointment with the oncologist that they had, which was Tuesday, May 12.

On Monday, May 11, I called to find out if the needle aspirates showed lymphoma, and they said they did. I had already started researching canine lymphoma the previous night. I went to our first oncology appointment armed with a dozen questions. Even though the vet answered them all very thoroughly and kindly, I really had no idea what I was in for.

As with Norm, at first Gadget seemed “lucky.” He responded to chemotherapy right away. He went into remission within a few weeks, and — combined with treating his Lyme disease — he seemed to have been granted a reprieve. He was working and playing — and eating better than he ever had in his life!

The birthday boy awaits cake. This was a very good day.

Then, luck took a turn for the strange — Gadget got a second cancer, mast cell cancer. Initially, it was deemed cured by surgery, and then, like Norm, one thing after another started going wrong. In fact, like Norm, the problems showed up in his lungs, with what seemed to be pneumonia. Then it turned out to be more than pneumonia — pneumonia caused by mast cell cancer raging throughout his body.

Then, it just became a matter of trying to take the best possible care of him I could, until the end. Sometimes it seems like life is just a long series of losses, a war of attrition. Or maybe it’s just the time of year.

I keep telling Barnum he is not allowed to get sick. He is not allowed to die.

– Sharon, the spirit of Gadget, who was ready to go, and Norm, who was ready to go, and Jersey, who was ready to go, and my anonymous friend, who didn’t tell me the reason, and Barnum, warm, furry body and wet tongue and beating heart and possible SDiT

Carol, Lily, and ? . . .

Today’s post is not about me. I apologize for interrupting the discussion of what’s happening with Barnum, but this is important and time-sensitive. I will get back to Barnum and me shortly.

Today’s post is a conversation I had with Carol, whose service dog, Lily, a twelve-year-old American Pit Bull Terrier, died of lymphoma four months ago. This is not just the story of Carol and Lily, but of Carol’s resilience, and the lengths she has gone to to overcome Lily’s death and work toward regaining her sense of safety and independence.

Angel Lily

Carol and I found each other on the Lymphoma HeartDog Angels list, which is a listserv for people whose dogs were battling lymphoma and have since died. Carol and I are the only two that I know of whose heartdogs were also our service dogs (SDs). Carol’s disabilities are depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and agoraphobia.

To read today’s post, please visit my new blog, aftergadget.com. While that blog is not yet fully set up with all its features, it does have today’s post on it, with photos, captions, and Carol’s moving story.

We are having problems with our internet connection that often prevents me from getting to aftergadget.com, so if you post a comment, and it takes a while to show up, it’s likely because I haven’t been able to access the site to approve comments. Thank you!

– Sharon, the muse of Gadget, Barnum (SDiT?), Carol, and Angel Lily

How I Sleep (Or Don’t) – A List, Part 1

Recently I looked up the topic for the December edition of the Disability Blog Carnival and discovered that it related to sleep.

“Hm,” I thought. “Didn’t I write something about sleep at some point?”

I searched all my blog posts (published and draft form) using the keyword “sleep,” and discovered this blog — in draft (unpublished) form. I wrote it the second week of February 2010, three months after my service dog, Gadget, died, and two weeks before Barnum, my puppy, arrived. I don’t know why I didn’t post it then, because it was pretty much done.

Actually, I do have some idea, now. I recently read a list of signs and symptoms of grief, and a big one was inability to focus or to finish simple projects. That’s been happening to me for a year, and I’ve been feeling guilty about it, wondering what the  heck was wrong with me that I couldn’t function even though, physically, I’m overall doing better. Now I realize it was probably the grief and not necessarily under my control.

Now I’m having grief-induced inability to sleep because of the anniversary of Gadget’s death, and another recent loss unrelated to dogs, which I will post about . . . eventually.

Of course, my sleep changed drastically once a puppy arrived on the scene. There was the oh-so-fun sleep deprivation due to puppy care, which I don’t think I documented — possibly due to being too busy and sleep deprived.

Reading this post now feels so strange. There’s so much I’d forgotten, or maybe blocked out. Reading about it brings it all back so clearly and painfully, like the night Gadget vomited all over the house. I can smell it when I read it. This might seem like a strange thing to say, but I’m glad I wrote about it and saved it, because that was a critical turning point in Gadget’s life and death.

It’s important for me to remember what it was like then so I can better understand who I am now. Also, every piece of memory of Gadget’s life is precious to me, even the bad ones.

Of course, I’m compelled to write another post about how I’m sleeping these days, which I have started. . . But who knows when I’ll finish? Hopefully in time to submit it to the carnival. Meanwhile, here’s a chronology of how I slept — or didn’t — in the months, weeks and days before Gadget died, and then after.

February 13, 2010

Recently, Andrea Martin of It’s Time to Get Over How Fragile You Are told me that she often posts lists, because she likes to read lists, herself. I agree. Lists are soothing. They are a way to organize the world. I’d already started another post that was essentially a list, and now I feel I have permission to write more.

I’ve had insomnia since I got myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)/chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS) in 1995, and since then, there have been variations on that theme, such as an even more extreme sleep schedule caused by chronic Lyme disease, which led some friends and I to call ourselves “The Vampire Girls.” Yes, I’m a vampirette.

Gadget’s dying and death caused further sleep changes. Here they are.

Gadget Is Sick, but Not Dying

• I go to sleep after massaging him, loving him up, pilling him.
• I wake up to pee throughout the night and morning (because I go to sleep late and wake up late), and every time, I check on him, pat him, give him some supplements or medications.
• If I can, I go back to sleep.
• If I can’t, I rest, take supplements and medications, and try to get myself as functional as possible to be able to take him for a walk.
• If it looks like it might rain, I try to get a weather forecast to take him for a walk before the rain, because powerchair electronics can get fried by rain, and Gadget doesn’t like thunder.
• I get between five and seven hours of sleep. Since I need ten to function decently, I build up a sleep debt.
  

  A cool spot on the floor.

Gadget Is Going Downhill

• I give him pills on at one- or two-hour-interval schedule all day, every day.
• I snuggle him, cry on him, rub his ears, tell him it will be okay, we will get through this.
• Eventually, either he or I decides he should get off the bed. When he decides to get off, it’s because he feels hot all the time now, and he prefers to lie on the cool floor, by himself. I ask him to get off when I can’t stand the (physical) pain of him touching me or moving the bed anymore.
• I stay up trying to eat or take meds or write my PCA to-do lists for the next day until I literally pass out — see below — because there is so much to do to take care of Gadget, I don’t get to the other stuff.
• I can’t turn my mind off. But my body takes over, and I lose consciousness propped up, pen or water or medication or food in hand or on my lap, glasses on my nose.
• When I wake up, I’m confused. Why am I sitting in a wet spot? What time is it? Why is there food on my legs?
• Once the confusion passes and I realize I passed out from exhaustion again, spilling my water bottle, dinner, pills, etcetera. I clean myself up and check on Gadget. If it’s a good time, I give him a supplement or medication.
• I put my hand on his heart to feel it beating and reassure myself.
• I sleep less than six hours a night.

We're tired (but I try to hide it for the camera).

Gadget Is Definitely Dying

• I do most of the above, except that everything gets harder as hospice progresses.
• I give him pills on a one- or two-hour-interval schedule all day, every day.
• I snuggle him, cry on him, rub his ears, tell him it will be okay and cry because I know it won’t be.
• He gets off the bed before I want him to.
• Sometimes I go to lie with him on the floor, but that interferes with the coolness he has sought of lying alone on the floor (no longer on one of his dog beds), so he gets up to move to a cooler spot.
• If he wants something I’m eating before I go to sleep, I invite him on the bed and let him finish my plate. For once in my life, I don’t have much appetite anyway.
• I still pass out trying to deal with the things I couldn’t get to because all my energy has gone to Gadget.
• I wake up multiple times a night to check on him (and to pee, and to put away or clean up whatever has spilled or was perched on me when I lost consciousness).
• Near the end, he sometimes vomits during the night. In the beginning, I leap out of bed at the first sound to move his or my bedding out of the way and to clean up.
• Later, I am too sick. One night he vomits at least twice that I know of — it is the smell that wakes me — but I’m so exhausted, I literally can’t move to clean it up. I check that he’s okay and go back to sleep. My morning PCA tells me he has vomited all over the house. This is a few days before the end.
• I add anti-nausea shots to his routine, and he feels better. He eats again. He doesn’t throw up.
• I still check for vomit every morning.
• I sleep two, three, five, eight hours. Sometimes, if Gadget’s most-loved PCA is here, I can nap an hour or two during her shift. Normally, I’m completely unable to nap.
• At the end, the nights are bizarre. Two nights in a row, he wants to go out at 2:00 in the morning. I go out with him, and he wanders to the edge of the yard. I open the gate, and we go for a meandering walk. I’m wearing slippers and no coat.
• The last night, it is well below freezing. Gadget is always hot now, and he wades into a pool by the side of the road, breaking through the layer of ice to get to the water. Then he can’t get out. I get in to help him, my leg going numb, and I am stuck, too. I have believed the stories about mothers lifting cars off their infants. I believe my body will do anything I require to save Gadget. Betsy comes looking for us and hauls us both out of the water. There is more to this story, but I will tell it another time.

At the end, even in frigid weather, he waded in up to his armpits.

After Gadget’s Death

• The first two nights after Gadget dies, I fall asleep, and sleep deeply, for the first time in months.
• Then, the death dreams start.
• Eventually, those fade.
• I awake looking for him every day.
• Sometimes I wake up crying for him. Then that fades.
• Eventually I only look for him sometimes. When he’s not there, I feel a weak blow of sadness, then I distract myself.
• I stay up much too late, even though I don’t have a good excuse anymore.
• I can’t bear to go to sleep, because the room is so alone and empty.
• Not just the room: I am alone and empty. There should be a Gadget here, and there isn’t, and I keep putting off sleep because my day feels unfinished — there was no goodnight massage, no chat or murmurs, no hand on his moving chest.
• The room is too quiet, all the time. There is no breathing or snoring or barking. There is no sound of the door handle turning at 10:00 AM when Gadget’s favorite PCA arrives. She just arrives, and I sleep through it, until she enters the room, and then because of the too-quietness, her tiniest noise wakes me.
• I notice the empty, and it makes me fitful.
• I start napping again. I get migraines, or I’m just exhausted, and I go to sleep for a couple of hours. I wake up at the time a reasonable person would go to sleep (11:00 PM, 1:00 AM, 2:00 AM) and then I’m awake till dawn.
• Someone from the job I left because I was too sick and grief-stricken to function, harasses me by email and phone. I wish I had my protective, loud, lion-heart in our den.

I pass out with my stuff around/on/under me

When I Cry

• Normally I don’t cry, but when I do, it’s at night, before sleep.
• I like to be alone to cry.
• I feel closer to Gadget when I’m alone, because I see him, and there is nobody who can get in the way of my vision of him.
• Tonight, I fell asleep at 9:00 PM, which is about seven hours before I normally fall asleep. Lights on, stuff strewn across my bed, no dinner or night-time meds administered, I just pass out.
• My PCA leaves without brushing my teeth, because sleep is so hard to come by, we don’t want to wake me up.
• I woke up at 11:00 PM anyway.
• I started thinking about this list I wanted to write, this blog, and of course now I cannot fall back asleep.
• It’s 2:00 AM. It will likely be several hours before I fall back asleep.

The gist

• I used to wake up to someone who was overjoyed that I was awake.
• No matter what kind of mood I was in, how I felt, what the plans were for the day, my waking up was exciting. It was an event.
• It’s difficult to fall asleep surrounded by absence. It’s beyond difficult to go to sleep knowing there is no one to wake up to.

Gadget's smile.

* * * *

Back to December, 2010, almost a year later.

I know I’m behind on comments, but I really do love and appreciate them. I’ve just been bogged down in, well, grief. But I will respond!

-Sharon, the muse of Gadget, and Barnum (someone to wake up to)

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Black-Bottom (Custard) Pie

I know a recipe for pie doesn’t seem to have much to do with the usual themes of this blog, but I’m posting it anyway because (1) it’s an awesome recipe that I semi-created, and (2) it tangentially relates to my loss of Gadget (and Barnum manages to make a cameo in the pie pics), and (3) my life has been kind of rough lately, what with the downturn in my health and the anniversary of Gadget’s death, and other emotionally difficult stuff (that I discuss at the end), so sharing one of my favorite recipes is a nice distraction.

Warning: This is no recipe for wimps! You either need to have a good arm (your’s or someone else’s) or some cool, labor-saving kitchenware (like electric beaters), or both, to make this pie. It’s been a few years since I could make this pie on my own (and even then, it required “a good day”). Usually what I do is “oversee” the baking. This means I tell Betsy or a PCA what to do, and they do all the actual stirring and lifting and measuring (and especially whisking!), and I watch and direct.

I’m a control freak when it comes to baking, so I periodically stick my hand in and make sure it’s just how I like it. For example, I take charge of adding certain ingredients (especially light-weight ones). Ironically, my controllingness involves me tossing in a lot of the ingredients without measuring them, because I like to use more of some things (chocolate and vanilla, for example) than the recipe really calls for, and I don’t want to bother with measuring. I generally eyeball most ingredients, actually.

Black Bottom Pie and Me

Black-bottom pie is a fantastic pie, unlike any other, in that it is so much better than pie normally is. For one thing, it has chocolate in it. I see little reason to eat dessert if it doesn’t have chocolate in it. Sugar is just a vehicle for chocolate delivery, in my opinion.

Almost equally importantly, it doesn’t have a normal pie crust. Regular pie crust has neither chocolate nor sugar in it, so it is completely pointless. I am not typically a fan of pie. Can you tell?

I made my first black-bottom pie when I was twelve years old, using a recipe my mother found in that year’s Boston Globe. It was one of three “not-your-typical-Thanksgiving-pie” recipes. I never tried the other two because once I made this one, I knew I’d reached pie nirvana, and there was no point in seeking further. I have been baking black bottom pie for Thanksgiving every year since then. That’s a lot of pies! (I won’t say exactly how old I am, but the Globe recipe is from the early 1980s.) I still use the newspaper recipe, even though it’s become difficult to read because it’s completely fallen apart; it’s torn, folded, blurred, and faded, as well as smeared with egg and chocolate, etc. I piece a lot of it together from memory, which is another good reason to post the recipe here. It will be saved from obscurity and the ravages of my recipe drawer.

The G-F/Dairy-Free/Food-Allergy Aspects

The original recipe was not in any way hypoallergenic or gluten-free. I made the adjustments myself, over the years, as I became allergic to more and more foods. I also tweaked it to conform more to my particular tastes. As you will see, if you have food allergies, you can modify the recipe to avoid anything that might be problematic, except eggs or sugar.

The way I make it, every ingredient (except gelatin, because I’ve never found that in organic form — if you know of an organic brand of unflavored gelatin, please post in the comments!) is organic, except the eggs, which are free-range. Chemical food makes me really sick, so it’s not an option for me to eat non-organic. I haven’t written “organic” in front of every ingredient, but if you have the money and the access, do yourself and the planet a favor, and buy organic.

I’m very fortunate that I can currently eat eggs, as long as they come from truly free-range, nontoxic hens, because custard absolutely requires eggs. I can’t eat factory-farmed eggs, and I don’t even do well with organic eggs. (This site explains the difference between organic and truly free-range eggs. Note: The second part of the explanation is in an uncaptioned video.) I get my eggs from a local teenager who has truly free-range, nontoxic hens, and they are awesome.

The crust recipe below also has nuts in it, which are a very common allergen. I am allergic to all nuts to some degree, but some more than others. However, I can “get away with” certain nuts on occasion. If you are allergic to nuts and can’t risk it, just make a different kind of crust. The best kind is chocolate-cookie crumb crust or graham-cracker crust. In fact, those are the traditional black-bottom pie crusts. Or you can make a regular pastry pie crust, too. It’s very easy to make a fast, gluten-free traditional pie crust with just a mix of g-f flours, canola oil, water, and salt. I’ve done it many times, just by converting the 5-minute crust recipe in The Joy of Cooking by substituting “pastry flour” with equal parts rice, millet, and tapioca flour instead. I don’t even roll it out; I just mix it right in the pie plate and press it into shape with my fingers.

Crust

A true black-bottom pie crust is made from chocolate cookies. As the name suggests, this gives the pie a black bottom. I have yet to find a chocolate cookie I can tolerate that would work for pie crust, so I use a nut crust. The nut crust has two bonus features: (1) It’s easy. (2) It’s tasty and retains its crunchiness longer than regular crust. I originally got the recipe from my friend Emily, a nutritionist and allergy gourmet. Then I lost it, so now I kind of wing it. You have been warned.

Crust Ingredients:

• Hazelnuts (because they are the most delicious nut on the planet, but you can use any nut you like)
• Rice flour (because I tolerate it, but you can use another type of flour if you want)
• Millet flour (ditto)
• Oil (I use coconut oil, because it tastes awesome and has healthful properties which are maintained at high heat, but you can use canola or any other vegetable, nut, or fruit oil you tolerate)
• Water
• Salt
• Vanilla extract (because everything’s better with vanilla) (optional)
• Cinnamon (ditto) (optional)

Crust Assembly:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Grind up nuts (in a food processor or blender) until they’re somewhere between the consistency of coffee grounds, sand, or a fine dust. It’s up to you how crunchy or floury you like it. I use enough nuts to end up with about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of “nut flour,” but I use an extra-big pie plate. If you have a smaller pie plate, make less.

Pour the nut flour into the empty pie dish. Add the other flour. I use about 1/8 to 1/4 cup of each, for a total of about 1/4 to 1/2 cups g-f flour. This depends, again, on the size of your pie plate and whether you want your crust really nutty crunchy (less flour, more nuts) or more like a standard pie crust (more flour, less nuts). (If you want to use a gluten-free flour mix or other types of flours, instead of the rice/millet combo, that’s fine, too.)

Add 2 to 3 tablespoons oil and a roughly equivalent amount of water and 1 teaspoon vanilla. You want just enough liquid to get all of the flour moist. Stir it around, and if you need more moisture, add a bit of oil and/or water. When it’s all moist, pat it against the bottom and sides of the pie plate until it’s relatively thin and even all the way around. Sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon on it.

Put crust in the oven for 10-20 minutes. I usually check it at 10 minutes, then watch it and check it every few minutes after that. Generally, it’s done at around 15 minutes, but if yours needs to stay in longer, don’t panic. It should get just slightly darker tan/brown than its original color. Basically, it should be dry and hard (but not like a rock). If it’s still moist or soft, it’s not done. If it’s brown or black, you burned it. Try not to do that.

Once it’s done, take it out and leave it somewhere to cool. Turn off the oven. You’re done with the baking part. (That was the easy part.) Often I bake the crust one day and do the filling the next, to spread out the work.

The finished pie. Note the deep dish crust!

Incredibly Awesome Filling (Layers of Chocolate and Vanilla Custard)

Filling Ingredients:

• 2 ounces dark chocolate
• 1/2 packet (1/2 tablespoon) plain gelatin (The only brand I know is Knox, but do tell if you know of another!)
• 1-2 tablespoons water
• 5 eggs
• 2 tablespoons rice flour (or whatever flour you tolerate)
• 2 tablespoons millet flour (ditto)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups milk substitute (see directions for your options)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Filling Instructions:

Break up your chocolate. I like Green & Black’s 70% dark. If you like intensely dark chocolate flavor, use more than 2 ounces. If you’re more of a “milk chocolate” flavor person, definitely use less (1.5 ounces or so). I often end up using close to 3 ounces, because I’m a chocaholic.

Put the chocolate on a plate, and put the plate over a pot of gently simmering water. Not a pot with boiling water, just gently warm the chocolate so it melts. If you have a double boiler, I suppose you could use that, but I’ve never used one, so I can’t give you tips. You can also just microwave the chocolate, only be careful that it melts evenly and you don’t scorch it. Set chocolate aside.

Put the water in a teacup or somesuch and pour the gelatin on it. Set it aside.

Separate out the first 3 eggs. I suggest cracking them one at a time into a bowl that you use only for separating your eggs, so if you get some yolk in your whites, or if one of the eggs is bad, you haven’t ruined all the others. You want to end up with five yolks in a large mixing bowl and three whites (without any yolk “contamination”) in a smaller mixing bowl. I usually use the remaining egg whites to make meringues with, or I did when I was less disabled. Now I usually just fry them and eat them with breakfast or give them to the dog. Both Gadget and Barnum love(d) raw eggs. When Gadget had cancer, I fried the white and gave him the shell and yolk raw. Barnum gets it all raw. (Warning: Raw egg causes horrific dog farts!)

Speaking of dogs, Barnum apparently felt I couldn’t let another post go by without him. When I put the pie on the floor to take a picture of it for this post, he came over to investigate (of course — Barnum is Mr. Curiosity). So, we played “pie zen.” Barnum approached the pie, I said, “Leave it,” and he laid down next to the pie, with his head on his paw, looking away, clearly realizing there would be no chocolate custard deliciousness for him. It was so cute, I had to take a picture.

Barnum practices pie zen.

Whisk the egg yolks with 1/2 cup of sugar. (Don’t use the rest of the sugar yet.) Add the flour. If you can tolerate regular (wheat flour), just use 3 tablespoons of that (and count your blessings, dammit). If you are gluten-free, and you have a g-f flour mix that you normally use for baking, use 4 tablespoons of that (and consider yourself relatively lucky). If you’re like me and you can’t tolerate most forms of starch/flour, just use whatever combination you like of those that adds up to 3 or 4 tablespoons. A mixture is usually better for baking g-f, which is why I use both millet and brown rice flour, but if you can only tolerate one form of flour, that is fine, too.

Add enough of the milk substitute — I usually add about 3/4 cup or more — to make “a thin mixture.” (Again, if you’re not allergic to dairy, you can use actual cow’s milk — and consider yourself really lucky.) (Dammit!) If you can tolerate soy, I recommend soymilk, as it’s the closest thing to milk in taste and ratios of fat and sugars and such. Other options are almond milk, rice milk, hemp milk, or water. I can’t tolerate milk substitutes other than rice or hemp (or water). I use hemp milk because, even though it gives the vanilla custard an ever-so-slightly hempy taste, it’s thicker and more milk-like in its ratios of fat, protein, sugar, etc., than rice milk, which is pretty much just water and sugar made from rice. Plus, once you have all the various flavors melding together in the pie, you really cannot taste the hemp. (This is not just my opinion, but that of everyone who has tasted my pie.) (And no, hemp milk does not contain THC, so you cannot get high on it!) But, you can make this with rice milk or water. I’ve done it, it just takes longer during the whisking stage to thicken because there’s less fat, and therefore it’s also a little less rich and luxurious (but still good!).

Scald the remaining milk-substitute in a pot on the stove. “Scald” just means heat it on medium-high until right before it boils. You don’t want to burn it; that would be “scorching” it. I used to get those two terms mixed up. Then take it off the heat.

Pour the milk-substitute very slowly over the yolk mixture, mixing constantly. The best way to do this is to have one person pour the hot liquid while the other one stirs, but if it’s just you, you can just pour a little on, stir stir stir, pour a little on, stir stir stir. The reason you want to mix them very slowly is that if you just dump a lot of hot liquid onto the yolks, they will cook, and you’ll get scrambled eggs. If this happens, you might still choose to eat it (as I once did), but it’s very disappointing — trust me.

Now, take the yolk/liquid mixture and pour it back into your saucepan. This is where the work comes in! Whisk it constantly over medium heat until it comes to a boil and thickens suddenly.

Some important notes:

(1) Why must you whisk constantly? Because if you don’t, it will either burn, which will ruin it completely, or it will (again), turn into scrambled eggs, which will also pretty much ruin it, though it’s still edible if your standards are low, like mine. This is also why you should have your rubber spatula in hand to periodically scrape the sides and bottom, otherwise those parts will cook or burn in a way we don’t want.

(2) How will you know when it comes to a boil and thickens suddenly? It will boil (bubbles will form, pop, pop, pop), and then it will really, truly thicken, and become like custard/pudding. It’s exciting when this happens! How long it takes depends on your ingredients, your stove, and I don’t know what else. Sometimes for me, it’s just a few minutes, and sometimes it seems like it takes forever. (It takes longer if you, a chronically ill, fatigued person, do it, than if a healthy, energetic person does it. That’s been scientifically proven.)

When the above magic occurs, reduce the heat to low and continue whisking constantly for two minutes. By that time, it should be really thick and custardy. If you’re not sure, keep whisking it on low for another minute or two.

Remove the pan from the burner and add your vanilla. Pour half of the custard back into your mixing bowl from whence it came. If you’re like me, you’ll actually pour a bit more than half into the mixing bowl, because this will become the chocolate custard part, which is my favorite part. Also, we’re going to do something that will increase the volume on the vanilla custard part, so using more for the chocolate part makes it more even.

Anyhoo, divvy it up however you want and then add your melted chocolate to the part that’s in the bowl. Once it’s all smoothly mixed in, pour it onto your baked, cooled pie crust. Smooth it over, set it aside.

Add the gelatin (which will have hardened into a little gelatenous glob) to the still-warm custard in the pot. Stir it until all the gelatin has melted. Set it aside.

Add the pinch of salt to the egg whites and beat them on the highest setting on your mixer, until they form soft peaks. Use a clean rubber spatula around the sides to make sure all the egg whites get beaten. Turn off the mixer and add the leftover sugar. (Remember that 1/4 cup of sugar you didn’t put in the egg yolks? Now its time has come.) Turn the mixer to max again and beat the whites till they are glossy and stiff.

Use the biggest rubber spatula you have (it’s okay if it’s the same one you used on the egg whites) to gently fold in a big spoonful of the custard into the egg whites. Then, take the egg whites and gently fold them all into the vanilla custard. Do this until no more white patches show. Then pour this on top of the chocolate pie, which should be firm by now.

Final Touches

At this point, you can either pop it into the fridge, call it a day, and go rest, or you can try to make your pie even more impressive. The simplest way is to make swirls or waves in the vanilla custard and/or shave some chocolate over the top, or sprinkle it with the same type of nut you used in the crust, or something like that.

My only decoration this time was chocolate shavings on top. I didn't even bother making swirls in, or scalloping, the custard.

The original recipe I have calls for a third layer, which is whipped cream. If you’re going to go for a third layer, you should do this part right before you serve it. Either way, you can make the rest of the pie either the day before or the same day you intend to eat it. It just needs to chill in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours for the vanilla custard to set.

If you can tolerate real whipped cream, I will refrain from saying how I really feel about that, except that you can find a recipe for making whipped cream pretty much anywhere (hint: heavy cream, sugar, vanilla, whip it).

When I used to tolerate soy but not dairy, I made tofu whipped cream, which is quite lovely on this pie, too. It ends up being more of a sauce than a “standing up on its own” whipped topping, so I recommend not pouring it on as a third layer, but having it on the side instead (When Harry Met Sally reference!) so that you or your guests can spoon it onto their own wedge. Again, I’m not going to provide the recipe for this, because it would require me to get up and find my tofu cookbook, and I can’t eat it anyway. Hint: You use the soft or “silken” type of tofu for this. I’m sure you can find the recipe elsewhere. Try a vegan dessert site. It’s really easy. It just requires tossing all ingredients into a blender or food processor or mixer and going “whirr.”

The  Gadget and “Other Things” Tangent

What does pie have to do with facing life after the loss of my service dog? This is sort of like the game, “Six Degrees of Separation.” The connection is that Thanksgiving used to be my second-favorite holiday (Passover was my first), which I celebrated, since 1993, with my two best friends, and all of our friends, roommates, and lovers of the time. They were very dear to me, and I have many happy memories of Thanksgivings with a rotating procession of our lovers, roommates, and friends — and my rotating food allergies, and my various cats and dogs that came and went — but these two people were constant. And we called ourselves our “family of choice,” and they meant the world to me.

My life stabilized, as did theirs, with the same partners attending each year. I settled firmly into the service dog way-of-life, and Gadget was a central part of holidays for me. This was especially true after I became much more functionally disabled, due to Lyme disease and coinfections (other tick-borne disease), contracted in the summer of 2007. I relied on Gadget a great deal for my day-to-day functioning, and for a holiday, which required extra functioning, that was even more true. At some point, I began a tradition of feeding Gadget a bit of the Thanksgiving meal, especially turkey. I know this is a serious no-no for a service dog, but when you’ve been partnered for many years, you learn what you can let slide without dire consequences. I enjoyed being able to indulge him on a festive occasion.

Then my life started falling apart, in November 2007, right around Thanksgiving, due to Lyme. I lost a lot of function, I was in excruciating pain and other forms of bodily discomfort all the time, and I developed a lot of psych symptoms (that I was not aware at the time were psych symptoms). That made Thanksgiving a hard time of year for me.

Then, people started dropping out of my life. Some died, some had difficulty with the physical aspects of my illness — including my speech disability — but most were alienated by my altered personality, or a combination of the physical and psychological effects the new illnesses had on my life.

One of the people who dropped out was one of my two best friends. I am still in contact with the other, but only just barely, by email. We are hanging on by our fingernails, trying to see if we can rebuild what was lost.

So, last year, as Gadget was dying of cancer, Thanksgiving was looming. I felt very bleak about this upcoming “holiday” that felt like a gaping wound of all I’d lost — except Gadget. Gadget was still with us, and even though I knew he was dying, I desperately hoped he had another couple of weeks left.

It felt like the most ill-named holiday ever. Except that I was terribly thankful for the few people in my “inner circle” (Betsy, my parents, a long-distance friend I talk to on the phone, and another whom I email) who had not abandoned me, and I was grateful for Gadget. I was grateful that we had had some special months when he was in remission.

Betsy’s and my parents were scheduled to come for Thanksgiving, which was the first time that had ever happened, and I was grateful for them coming to try to cheer and support Betsy and me during a hard time. Most of all, as T-day loomed, I fervently hoped that Gadget would be alive, so that I could be thankful that we still had each other. I wanted so much to feed him some turkey and stuffing and squash, to drop my hand down to pet his head between rounds of gluttony. I felt that being able to say I was thankful for Gadget’s presence would help diminish the feelings of loss that otherwise overwhelmed me.

Gadget did not make it to Thanksgiving. He died on Thursday, November 19, and Thanksgiving was exactly a week later, Thursday, November 26.

I was desolate. I tried to be cheery for my family’s sake. I don’t know how well I succeeded. I’m not sure, but I think I made a black-bottom pie, despite it all.

Before we ate, I set up a little plate for Gadget of turkey (without bones) and stuffing and gravy and veggies, and I put it on the floor near where I was eating. Sort of like putting out a cup for Elijah on Passover. I felt embarrassed about it. The only person I’d told what I was doing was Betsy. She kept trying to get me to put less on the plate, I guess because of the waste. I don’t know what our parents thought of me putting a plate of perfectly good food down on the floor for no one. Later, when I had to throw it out, I really didn’t want to. It was an effort, like the rest of the day — a series of forcing myself from one task to the next.

This year, I’m not celebrating Thanksgiving. Betsy’s driving down to spend the holiday with her mom and her cat. I’m going to spend it with Barnum, trying to ignore that the holiday exists. I’ll probably try to get a lot of training in — or a good, long walk, if my chair and I are up to it.

However, my parents wanted to do some sort of Thanksgiving-esque thing with me, so this past weekend, they came out with turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing (all made without stuff I’m allergic to), and I made black-bottom pie, just like old times. I only cried once, the food was good, the people were kind, and I just tried to get through it and not think too much about Gadget and all the others gone from my life.

One good distraction was Barnum. He has to learn table manners, because normally I eat in bed, so he didn’t know he shouldn’t come circling around the delicious-smelling table. Betsy helped out a lot by finding ways to distract him that didn’t involve food when I was eating. Barnum’s very entertaining when he’s playing.

The best part of the meal was the black-bottom pie. After all, it has chocolate in it.

That’s what it all comes down to. Despite all this turmoil and loss, two things haven’t changed: Black-bottom pie is awesomeness in a glass dish, and the person I usually find the easiest to deal with in a social situation is the dog.

I would close by saying “Happy Thanksgiving,” except that that would feel dishonest, because I don’t feel happy about it. I think I have come to a place of moderate acceptance, and that’s pretty damn good, considering.

Instead, I say, “Happy Black-Bottom Pie.”

May your dogs not attempt to steal turkey bones. May those you love show up in body and spirit. May your custard thicken suddenly and spectacularly.

-Sharon, the must of Gadget, and Barnum (Pie Zen Master)

The Last Night: Under the Stars

A year ago today was my service dog, Gadget’s, last day. This post is about Gadget’s last night — which was adventurous, unique, and, ultimately, serene, all in one — much like Gadget was, himself.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we had already known for over a month that Gadget was dying. I had never been in the position before of nursing an animal through a long terminal illness and deciding in advance to euthanize at home. Most of my animals had died naturally. In a couple of cases, they died in accidents. The only animal I’d euthanized at home was my cat, Ferdinand, who, seven years ago, had very fast-moving pancreatic cancer. I made the decision in haste and realized too late it was the wrong one. I was haunted by terrible guilt. Only recently have I started to forgive myself for how Ferdinand died.

With a similar situation looming for Gadget, I worried a great deal about how I would know it was “time,” and when I did make that fateful decision, if it would be the right decision. His illness, especially near the end, was grueling, but the idea of losing him was unfathomable. The thought of taking the life of my partner, my beloved, my best friend, an extension of my own self, was sickening. I hoped he would die on his own, quickly and peacefully. I kept handy the number of a vet who made house-calls, and then I tried not to think about it.

As soon as it became clear we would have just a few weeks together, I dedicated myself to making that time the best it could be. A big part of this was taking him to the pond. Fiske Pond is a town-owned public park less than a mile from my home. It consists of a medium-sized pond with a trail all the way around, along with other trails, forests, and fields of grass. When he was doing well, we walked there and back. When his energy started to flag, a PCA drove us in my van.

Upon arrival, I’d let him off-leash, and he’d run and run and run, his ears flopping. We zoomed along the paths (the few that were minimally powerchair accessible) and down to the water. He always waded in — usually up to his armpits — for a drink. This was a source of amusement for Betsy and me because generally Gadget refused to drink water from a bottle or bowl unless he was practically in danger of heat exhaustion. In fact, he could be panting like all get-out, and I’d offer him water in the van right before we got to the pond, and he wouldn’t touch a drop. But no matter the weather or temperature or length of his coat, he always wanted to drink pond water.

Right out here is where the water tastes best. . . .

“Mm, pond. . . .” Betsy and I would intone, mimicking Homer Simpson, when Gadget lapped up the filthy pond water. We joked that we should bottle it and sell it to city dogs, because obviously pond water — this pond water — was the best-tasting water. “L’Eau du Pond” was my favorite name for our imaginary company. However, we both conceded that the bottled water would never be as good as the real thing, because obviously it tasted best only if you were standing in it up to your armpits. Or maybe it was just easiest to drink that way, without having to lower your head.

All of the pictures in today’s post are from visits to the pond. It was gorgeous there, year-round. We called it “The Happiest Place on Earth.” (No theme park could ever hold a candle to the myriad smells, the other dogs, the swimming, the running, the number of trees to mark.) We meant it was his happy place, but really, it was Betsy’s and my happy place, too, because Gadget was so jubilant there — and he was so gorgeous when he ran — that I was filled with joy just watching him. We both went as fast as we could over the bumpy terrain, up and down the hills, pushing our limits, reveling in the freedom neither of us had access to much of the rest of our lives.

Even in his last days, Gadget races ahead of me at the pond.

Gadget knew that if I put his orange vest on him, it was recreation time — either a walk or some other fun outing. If I told him to get in the van in his orange vest, he was thrilled, because that meant the pond, for sure.

The orange coat signals adventure!

However, he generally already knew we were headed there because he knew the word, “pond.” We had to be careful never to say it unless we were about to go, because we didn’t want to raise his hopes falsely. We had a lot of conversations like this:

Sharon: I think I’m going to take him out soon, to the you-know-where. Do you want to come?

Betsy: To the p–

Sharon: (Interrupting) Shh!

Betsy: (Looking around for Gadget) To the P-O-N-D?

Sharon: Yes!

Betsy and I got quite silly about winding him up during his last year of life. If you said, “Pond,” around him, he would race around, bouncing and whining with anticipation. Thus, we developed “The Pond Song.” I don’t remember how it started, but one day Betsy or I discovered that if one of us howled just the right note, Gadget would join in. We encouraged him to turn the whine into a howl, and soon after announcing a trip to, “The pond! The Pond! The POND!” We’d all be howling, “The Pond Song.”

In the days before I got Lyme disease, Gadget used to help me swim. Then I was too sick, until the summer before he died, when I managed to get in the water, if only to wade and play fetch.

As cancer started to take its toll, I was consumed by nursing him, night and day. Taking him for walks, feeding him his favorite foods, giving him his medication, and making sure he was comfortable in any way I could. When nausea first struck, and he didn’t want to eat, I gave him an anti-nausea medication that brought back his appetite. Eventually, when he was eating and drinking less, I gave him subcutaneous fluids. I checked on him constantly, night and day.

He seemed to be uncomfortably hot most of the time. He took to lying on the coolest spot on the floor instead of on his dog bed. He didn’t like to cuddle for more than a couple of minutes before he’d move to a new, cool spot. He drank a great deal. More than ever, he wanted to be at the pond. He still lit up when we arrived. He ran around, sniffing and marking. But he headed into the water with a swiftness and purpose that he’d never shown before. No matter how cold it was — even on days it was well below freezing — he waded all the way in and drank. Often he would go back in repeatedly to cool off and drink more.

Gadget cools off and drinks the ultra-delicious pond water.

He became slower, and his appetite was more unpredictable. He seemed very tired, and sometimes didn’t wander far in the yard before lying down. The last full meal he ate was a portion of his regular homemade food, followed by fried egg and French fries off my own plate, with us both on my bed. Eggs had become a staple — one of his favorite foods; my surefire way to get him to eat anything was to mix an egg into it. That night, he stopped licking my plate when there was still egg on it.

The next day, he didn’t want his food. I managed to tempt him with just fried eggs, yogurt, and cottage cheese, which I spooned into his mouth. He was more interested in eating something if it came directly from me than if it was on a plate or in a bowl. I bought vanilla ice cream, because I’d read that sometimes it was the only thing a sick dog would eat. Sure enough, the following day, all he wanted was frozen yogurt or ice cream, and even those I had to first put a dab on his tongue before he got the taste for it.

It was clear that Gadget’s time was coming, and Betsy and I frequently discussed when I would know it was time to call the vet. I really, really didn’t want to call the vet, but I also didn’t want to keep him living past the point he was ready to die, due to my cowardice and fear.

However, Gadget kept telling me he wasn’t ready. He wanted to go for walks. Sometimes I’d let him out to pee, and he’d head down the ramp to the gate and wait. I’d just let him out and follow him. Most of his walks around my home were off-leash anyway, because there was hardly any traffic, and Gadget knew to sit at the side of the road when a car came by.

Gadget once sussed out a surprisingly wheelchair-accessible trail that we followed into the woods around the pond.

In those last couple of days, even if he sometimes wandered and then seemed to collapse with weakness, so that I became scared he’d not be able to stand again, he always did; and if we went for a walk, he perked right up. His step was bouncier and quicker. He became alert to the smells, sights, and sounds around him.

In fact, two days before he died, my mother came to spend the day because we thought it might be his last; that morning was the first time he had laid down outside and then had trouble regaining his footing. However, when I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk, he did. My mother, Betsy, and I put on our coats, and we put on his orange vest and headed out. We saw a neighbor and told him Gadget was dying.

“He sure doesn’t look like he’s dying to me!” he said.

“Well,” I said, trying not to cry, “he is.” What I should have said was, “That’s because he’s Gadget.”

We moved along slowly, so he wouldn’t feel rushed. We turned around after a short time because we didn’t know how much strength he had left. He wanted to keep going.

That night, around 2:00 A.M., I let him out to pee before turning in. Although he’d been wobbly and unsteady that day, he went to the gate. He wanted a walk. It was bitterly cold, and I wasn’t wearing a coat, but he wanted to go for a walk, so we went. I just followed behind him. This was different from how we had walked even a week before. Normally, I raced along as fast as my chair could go, and Gadget was free to stop and sniff or mark something, and then come roaring past me before stopping to enjoy another roadside attraction.

However, I didn’t know how far he could safely go, and I didn’t want to push him beyond his limit of enjoyment or safety. I was concerned, too, that if he collapsed, I didn’t want to leave him alone in the dark while I went home to get help. Nevertheless, I let him lead the way, and when we got to a gully at the side of the road that was often filled with water — a vernal pool in the spring, and the equivalent in fall if it had rained a lot — he waded in. We’d had a wet fall, so the water was up to his belly. He drank and drank.

I was afraid he would have trouble getting back out, so I moved toward home and called him. To my relief, he made it out of the pool and followed me home.

The next day, he didn’t want to eat. Not vanilla ice cream, not anything. He didn’t show an interest in anything, except . . . the pond.

“You wanna go to the pond?” I asked him. And he tilted his head, lifting his ears. He definitely wanted to go. We put on his orange vest, and he headed right to the van.

At the pond, he was slower than usual, but he was steady, and he definitely enjoyed himself. We knew it was most likely his last time. We had already decided that I would probably call the vet to come the next day. I was still unsure, though. I kept hoping Gadget would somehow give me a sign. I didn’t know what to look for. Seeing him enjoying himself there, but so not himself, was bittersweet. I knew bringing him had been the right thing. I knew he wasn’t yet ready to go. I just didn’t know when I would know, or how.

Again, that night, when I let Gadget out to pee before bed, he went to the gate. Betsy and I debated whether we should take him to the pond. We weren’t sure what he wanted or what he was up for. We decided that I would just let him lead me, and Betsy would follow us in the van in case we needed a ride to the pond. She needed to get dressed in warm clothes.

It was twenty degrees out, after midnight, as Gadget made his way, and I followed. When we came to the fork in the road where we normally went right, toward the pond, he took a left. Again, he headed for the vernal pool. This time, I was concerned. He had experienced several episodes of difficulty getting up that day, and I was alone with him at night, in the cold and dark. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I knew he was going to go in, and I wanted to stop him, but I didn’t. I don’t know if I told him no and  he ignored me, or if I even had a leash with me or not. I’m pretty sure I didn’t, or I would have been able to stop him.

All I remember was the layer of ice over the leaf-filled clear water of the roadside pool, and Gadget wading into it, breaking through the ice and entering the water like it was a cool embrace. I was increasingly scared that he would not be able to get out.

I was right to be scared. When I called Gadget, he couldn’t get out. He didn’t flounder or sink, but he tried to climb up the bank and then gave up. He just stood there in the water up to his chest. He was very still.

At this time last year, I was not very mobile. I had improved vastly from the previous year, when I was almost never able even to get out of bed, even to go to the bathroom. However, I was still largely unable to stand or transfer myself or do anything beyond the one walk a day we took. Even that — riding in my powerchair — was something I had to push myself very hard to do. In fact, a couple of weeks after Gadget died, I crashed very hard for several months, perhaps because I overextended so long and hard to care for Gadget.

In other words, I was not in any condition to pull a wet, 75-pound dog out of a mud-bottomed pool. But there was no way in hell I was going to leave Gadget in that freezing water. I was trying to decide what to do when my van appeared. It was Betsy. I was so relieved.

I told her that he was stuck, and we’d have to pull him out. She was not happy about this. I tried pulling him out by the collar, without success. I didn’t have enough leverage. I put one of my legs in the icy water, shoe and clothing and all, up to my thigh. Then we were both stuck. I couldn’t get him out, and I didn’t think I could get myself out, either. I called to Betsy, urgently, to come help me get Gadget out of the water. She had to step into the pool, too, with both legs, which she was extremely unhappy about, and she lifted him out. Then she helped me out.

“I think he wants to go to the pond,” I told her.

It had seemed like an outlandish scheme so late at night, with a dying dog, but nothing really felt normal — or abnormal — anymore. We stood there in the road, wet and shivering, debating whether to go to the pond or not. We decided the first thing we all needed was to get warm. Then we would decide.

I sent Betsy ahead to get Gadget home and dry him off and warm him up. She had to lift him into the van because he was too tired to jump in. I didn’t want to slow us all down by using the van’s hydraulic lift to get my powerchair in and out. I rode my chair home, feeling extremely cold as I willed my slow chair to go as fast as it could. Mostly my mind was on what we would decide — about everything — when I got back.

When I arrived, Betsy had brought towels out to the van to dry Gadget off and bundle him up. He was on his dog bed and seemed to be okay. Betsy and I were both freezing.

If we were going to the pond, I didn’t want to bring Gadget inside. I was sure that his adventure in the icy roadside gully, combined with trekking from the van to the house and back, would wear him out beyond a possibility of going to the pond. If we were going to go, we needed to go right away, so Gadget could stay put until we got there. Regardless, Betsy and I needed to dry off and get into warm clothes.

I still couldn’t tell if it was a good idea to go or not. Yet, by now I was certain this was Gadget’s last chance to go to his happiest place on earth. We decided we would go, and if he seemed interested when we got there, great. If not, at least we would have given him the option.

I didn’t want Gadget to be alone in the van, so I went in the house to towel off and put on dry clothes, while Betsy watched over Gadget. Then I went to the van — blessedly warm and dry — to stay with Gadget while Betsy went in and changed. We were both equipped with flashlights this time — and a leash.

When she came back out, it was 2:00 in the morning. I asked Gadget again if he wanted to go to the pond, and this time he clearly indicated that he did. He looked more interested and engaged at the word, “pond,” than he had all day.

So we drove to the pond, Betsy and I wondering if what we were doing made any sense at all. When we got there, Betsy unloaded my chair (the one that did work with the lift), and we opened the side door. Gadget popped up and leaped out of the van! Apparently, we had made the right decision!

The sky was clear and full of stars. The air was crisp and dry and cold.

Gadget trotted ahead of us, all dog, sniffing everything, his nose to the ground. He marked his favorite bushes and trees to mark. Yes, he was moving more slowly than he had a month before, a week before, but if he wasn’t galloping, he was definitely trotting, sometimes running. He was happy.

Betsy and I were happy and sad, cried and watched him and talked a little. We looked up at the sky.

Then I saw a shooting star. I pointed it out to Betsy. Then there was another. She saw it, too. I wished on the star that Gadget would die that night in his sleep. I don’t really believe in such things, but it was my heart’s desire. It’s just what popped into my head, without any thought. (It turned out the shooting stars were meteor showers; I hadn’t known there were to be any that night.)

Gadget was in his element, and we followed behind. Betsy and I both felt a sense of peace and rightness. We agreed that I would call the vet in the morning. It was time. A last night at the pond was the right way for Gadget’s life to end.

We did not allow him to go to the side of the pond where we usually went, where there is a steep drop-off he could have taken to get into the water. Instead, we went around to “the swimmers’ beach,” which had sand and a gradual drop-off for safer wading. We were nervous about letting him go in, but we did. Gadget walked into the water, and there Betsy saw another shooting star above him. I told her that I knew things were going to be okay. When we called him from the water, he did come back. No more beach rescues.

When we got back to the car and loaded Gadget in, he settled right down in his bed. Betsy and I had already told each other we had felt a peace descend on us when we stood at the beach and looked up at the stars. Now, Gadget seemed to be exuding an aura of peace and tranquility, too. The restlessness I had sensed in him during the past week, and increasingly in the last couple of days, was gone. For whatever reason, he seemed ready, too.

Gadget did not die in his sleep that night. I slept very little and checked on him often, but he continued, resolutely, to breathe, though somewhat labored.

In the morning, we called the vet and said that we hoped he could meet us at the pond, as that was Gadget’s favorite place, and we wanted him to die where he was happiest. We told the vet we weren’t sure if we’d get him there or not.

In the early part of the day, I asked Gadget if he wanted to go to the pond, and he showed interest. But when we let him out, he wandered over to the side yard, not a place he normally goes, and as usual, we followed him. The trip around the house to the other patch of lawn appeared to have been all he could manage, and he sank down in the grass. I asked Gadget if he wanted to go to the pond, and he didn’t respond. That’s when I knew, absolutely, it was time.

Betsy and I sat on the grass, patting him and talking to him, scratching his favorite spots — behind his ears, under his chin, in his armpit. His last great effort came when the vet arrived. Gadget jumped up and barked at him. If you’d only seen him in that moment, you’d never have known he was sick. That he was dying.

Then he folded back into the grass. The vet explained what he would do — use an intramuscular injection first that was a combination sedative and painkiller, which would make him lose consciousness — and then give him the lethal injection which would stop his heart. Gadget went limp in Betsy’s arms immediately after the first shot. Unlike my cat, who had lingered and was clearly not ready to go, Gadget went immediately. He was definitely ready to die. Although I wasn’t ready to lose him, he was ready to go. He was tired, and he’d had his last great adventure.

His last great adventure.

A year ago today was my service dog, Gadget’s, last day. This post is about Gadget’s last night — which was unique, serene, and adventurous, all in one — much like Gadget was, himself.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we had already known for over a month that Gadget was dying. I had never been in the position before of nursing an animal through a long terminal illness and deciding in advance to euthanize at home. Most of my animals had died naturally. In a couple of cases, they died in accidents. The only animal I’d euthanized at home had been eight years ago, when my cat, Ferdinand, had very fast-moving pancreatic cancer. I made the decision in haste and realized too late it was the wrong one. I was haunted by terrible guilt. Only recently have I started to forgive myself for how Ferdinand died.

With a similar situation looming for Gadget, I worried a great deal about how I would know it was “time,” and when I did make that fateful decision, if it would be the right decision. His illness, especially near the end, was grueling, but the idea of losing him was unfathomable. The thought of taking the life of my partner, my beloved, my best friend, an extension of my own self, was sickening. I hoped he would die on his own, quickly and peacefully. I kept the number of a vet who made house-calls handy, and then I tried not to think about it.

As soon as it became clear we would have just a few weeks together, I dedicated myself to making that time the best it could be. A big part of this was taking him to the pond. Fiske Pond is a town-owned public park less than a mile from my home. It consists of a medium-sized pond with a trail all the way around, along with other trails, forests, and fields of grass. When he was doing well, we walked there and back. When his energy started to flag, a PCA drove us in my van.

Upon arrival, I’d let him off-leash, and he’d run and run and run, his ears flopping. We zoomed along the paths (the few that were minimally powerchair accessible) and down to the water. He always waded in — usually up to his armpits — for a drink. This was a source of amusement for Betsy and me because generally Gadget refused to drink water from a bottle or bowl unless he was practically in danger of heat exhaustion. In fact, he could be panting like all get-out, and I’d offer him water in the van right before we got to the pond, and he wouldn’t touch a drop. But no matter the weather or temperature or length of his coat, he always wanted to drink pond water.

“Mm, pond. . . .” Betsy and I would intone, mimicking Homer Simpson, when Gadget lapped up the filthy pond water. We joked that we should bottle it and sell it to city dogs, because obviously pond water — this pond water — was the best-tasting water. “L’Eau du Pond” was my favorite name for our imaginary company. However, we both conceded that the bottled water would never be as good as the real thing, because obviously it tasted best only if you were standing in it up to your armpits. Or maybe it was just easiest to drink that way, without having to tilt your head.

All of the pictures in today’s post are from visits to the pond. It was gorgeous there, year-round. We called it “The Happiest Place on Earth.” (No theme park could ever hold a candle to the myriad smells, the other dogs, the swimming, the running, the number of trees to mark.) We meant it was his happy place, but really, it was Betsy’s and my happy place, too, because Gadget was so jubillant there — and he was so gorgeous when he ran — that I was filled with joy just watching him. We both went as fast as we could over the bumpy terrain, up and down the hills, pushing our limits, reveling in the freedom neither of us had access to much of the rest of our lives.

Gadget knew that if I put his orange vest on him, it was recreation time — either a walk or some other fun outing. If I told him to get in the van in his orange vest, he was thrilled, because that meant the pond, for sure. However, he generally already knew we were headed there because he knew the word, “pond.” We had to be careful never to say it unless we were about to go, because we didn’t want to raise his hopes falsely. We had a lot of conversations like this:

Sharon: I think I’m going to take him out soon, to the you-know-where.

Betsy: To the p–

Sharon: (Interrupting) Shh!

Betsy: The P-O-N-D?

Sharon: Yes.

Betsy and I got quite silly about winding him up during his last year of life. If you said, “Pond,” around him, he would race around, bouncing and whining with anticipation. Thus, we developed “The Pond Song.” I don’t remember how it started, but one day Betsy or I discovered that if one of us howled just the right note, Gadget would join in. We encouraged him to turn the whine into a howl, and soon after announcing a trip to, “The pond! The Pond! The POND!” We’d all be howling, “The Pond Song.”

As cancer started to take its toll, I was consumed by nursing him, night and day. Taking him for walks, feeding him his favorite foods, giving him his medication, and making sure he was comfortable in any way I could. When nausea first struck, and he didn’t want to eat, I gave him an anti-nausea medication that brought back his appetite. Eventually, when he was eating and drinking less, I gave him subcutaneous fluids. I checked on him constantly, night and day.

He seemed to be uncomfortably hot most of the time. He took to lying on the coolest spot on the floor instead of on his dog bed. He didn’t like to cuddle for more than a couple of minutes before he’d move to a new, cool spot. He drank a great deal. More than ever, he wanted to be at the pond. He still lit up when we arrived. He ran around, sniffing and marking. But he headed into the water with a swiftness and purpose that he’d never shown before. No matter how cold it was — even on days it was well below freezing — he waded all the way in and drank. Often he would go back in repeatedly to cool off and drink more.

He became slower, and his appetite was more unpredictable. He seemed very tired, and sometimes didn’t wander far in the yard before lying down. The last full meal he ate was a portion of his regular homemade food, followed by fried egg and french fries off my own plate, with us both on my bed. Eggs had become a staple — one of his favorite foods; my surefire way to get him to eat anything was to mix an egg into it. That night, he stopped licking my plate when there was still egg on it.

The next day, he didn’t want his food. I managed to tempt him with just fried eggs, yogurt, and cottage cheese, which I spooned into his mouth. He was more interested in eating something if it came directly from me than if it was on a plate or in a bowl. I bought vanilla ice cream, because I’d read that sometimes it was the only thing a sick dog would eat. Sure enough, the following day, all he wanted was frozen yogurt or ice cream, and even those I had to first put a dab on his tongue before he got the taste for it.

It was clear that Gadget’s time was coming, and Betsy and I frequently discussed when I would know it was time to call the vet. I really, really didn’t want to call the vet, but I also couldn’t let him die before he was ready.

Gadget kept telling me he wasn’t ready by indicating he wanted to go for walks. Sometimes I’d let him out to pee, and he’d head down the ramp to the gate and wait. I’d just let him out and follow him. Most of his walks around my home were off-leash anyway, because there was hardly any traffic, and Gadget knew to sit at the side of the road when a car came by.

In those last couple of days, even if he sometimes wandered and then seemed to collapse with weakness, so that I became scared he’d not be able to stand again, he always did, and if we went for a walk, he perked right up. He became alert to the smells, sights, and sounds around him. His step was bouncier and quicker. I just followed behind him. This was different than how we had walked before. Normally, I raced along as fast as my chair could go, and Gadget was free to stop and sniff or mark something, and then come roaring past me before stopping to enjoy another roadside attraction.

However, I didn’t know how far he could safely go, and I didn’t want to push him beyond his limit of enjoyment or safety.

The turning point was when Gadget no longer wanted to eat anything — not even ice cream. He had also become unsteady on his legs and sometimes had to collapse where he was to rest before getting up again.

Well, for a dog like Gadget, if you can’t run, and you don’t want to snuggle, and especially if you don’t want ice cream, there isn’t much left. This happened Friday, November 18, 2009.

Further, Gadget was my most beloved of any animal (17 mammals, one reptile, hundreds of fish) I’ve ever had, including my previous service dog. He was my assistant, my heartdog, my partner, my beloved, my best friend, my other half.

Gadget’s Cancer Journey, in Words and Pictures

In May, 2009, my service dog, Gadget, was diagnosed with lymphoma. The next day, we started chemotherapy. We went to the vet every week for his treatments. He died six months and one week later, of mast cell cancer, on November 19, 2009.

Although I was totally wrapped up in his care, aware of the tiniest details that shifted from day to day. After he died, I was shocked by what I saw in some of the pictures in his last months. The photos so clearly recorded not just moments in our lives, but when Gadget shifted from living with cancer to dying of cancer, even though I wasn’t aware of the shift when it first occurred.

At the beginning of our cancer journey, changes in appearance were largely superficial. His left eye, whose abnormal appearance had brought us to the vet, never expecting the cause would be lymphoma, retained a subtle, but distinctive, ring around his cornea, even after it was otherwise asymptomatic. It didn’t affect his vision or cause him pain. It wasn’t something a stranger would notice, but I, who had looked into those eyes every day for eight years, always saw it.

Though I love this picture of him, I can't help but notice the ring at the edge of his iris, vestige of lymphoma.

His coat, which had been a wiry, gray/silver brindle, also changed. He lost his harsh outer coat and was left with just the soft undercoat, which became a uniform charcoal.

Gadget laughing at life, before cancer struck, his coat in its full Bouvier glory.

However, during the first few months of our battle with “the beast,” these outward changes remained meaningless to me. Gadget went into remission right away on the Madison-Wisconsin chemotherapy protocol, and he showed every sign of being happy, feeling great, and not being aware he was sick.

He loved his new homemade cancer diet of meat, eggs, and vegetables, all drenched in salmon oil. He didn’t even mind the gazillion supplements that were mixed into his food.

More importantly, he and I spent lots of time together, just enjoying life and letting him be a dog. We went to the pond, his favorite place, every day that I could get out of bed to take him. His favorite time to be there was Friday at four o’clock, when his doggy play group met.

Gadget and Tessa take a break from playing to cool off and have a drink.

Gadget, Cider, Tessa, and Shay (Tessa's person) head home after a good romp.

He even had his first (and last) birthday party, which he truly enjoyed. He was thrilled by the great food, the guests (canine and human), the games, and all the attention.

The birthday boy awaits his cake.

Bobbing for Biscuits (homemade liver cookies!) was just one of the joys of the day.

Then, in September, he developed a little bump on his neck, below his right ear. It grew so rapidly that I saw and felt it change on a daily basis. From my recent crash course on canine cancer, I knew this was a very bad sign and suspected a mast cell tumor (MCT). Indeed, that’s what the needle aspirate proved it to be. While battling (and winning against) lymphoma, Gadget had developed a second form of cancer. I was surprisingly unfazed when we received the news. I was ready for it and was simply impatient to get to treatment and cure, for MCTs, if caught early and excised completely, are usually considered cured. We scheduled him for surgery.

The aftermath of surgery was a nightmare, unlike anything I’d ever experienced with an animal that had gone under the knife (including when my previous service dog, Jersey, had lost an eye to glaucoma). Gadget had to spend the night at the hospital — the only time we were ever separated for a night. Betsy went to visit him and said he was crying the whole time. She spent hours trying to comfort him, even sleeping in her car in the parking lot when the staff asked her to leave for a while.

The next morning, I couldn’t get there fast enough to bring him home. I sat impatiently in my powerchair outside, waiting for him to be brought out. Carol, my PCA, reported that Gadget was still crying as they unhooked him from his tubes and bandaged him for discharge. We thought Gadget was in emotional distress, that he would perk up as soon as he saw me.

When he emerged, the side of his head and neck were shaved, with a huge incision that stretched from just below his right ear to the bottom of his neck, almost a foot long. I had been prepared for that and got over the shock quickly. Moreover, I was pleased with how neat the stitching was and how well the wound appeared to be healing. The skin was already fusing. What I was not prepared for was that Gadget was still moaning in pain, even when Carol brought him outside and he saw me.

Gadget wailed and groaned, unlike anything I’d ever heard. He only stopped when the van’s engine turned over, and we backed out of the parking lot. At that point, he sighed and rested his head in my lap — as he usually did on the way home from chemo. He knew we were reunited and going home, and that seemed to calm him. I thought we’d gotten over the worst.

He rode with his head on my lap, a comfort to us both.

Again, I was wrong. When we got to the road, he started moaning again and didn’t stop. He cried, continuously, throughout that day and night.

It was torturous. I barely slept. His cries grew louder and louder, until he was practically screaming.

I kept calling the hospital, pleading for help. They suggested increasing dosages of his antihistamines and pain medications, which made a minor difference for short periods. But he grew increasingly restless and agitated.

Finally, a vet tech heard him screaming in the background during a phone call.

“Is that him?” she asked, aghast.

“Yes!” I said, caught between relief that someone there finally “got it,” and frustration that it had taken so long for the staff to respond to my desperation. I had already called them, beside myself, described his wailing and pacing, several times. Had they thought I was exaggerating?

Having heard Gadget’s distress “in person,” the tech had a new sense of urgency in her voice as she put me on hold to consult with a doctor. She came back and said it was possibly the lidocaine patch he was wearing on his foot causing a bad reaction. She said that some animals didn’t tolerate the drug and became agitated and restless, in which case the wailing was not from pain, but from this bad reaction. We didn’t know if this was the culprit, but I was desperate enough to try, even if it would mean having to take him back to the hospital for intravenous pain medication instead. I cut the patch off his foot and tried to clean the area as best I could. I was in such a hurry to get the damn thing off that I had forgotten to put on gloves, which I’d been instructed was necessary to prevent me from getting dosed with the drug, myself. It was only when my fingers started tingling and I felt the beginnings of numbness and nausea that I remembered and quickly gloved up before continuing. The tech had told me it would take several hours for the drug to leave his system completely, so I might not notice a change in him for quite a while.

Within a couple of hours, Gadget was much calmer. I was limp with relief as his wails receded and he was finally able to rest. I gave him more of the other pain medications, and soon he was comfortable. He still had to wear the Elizabethan collar, but he was serene again. The results came back from the pathologist — the tumor was a grade two malignancy that had been removed with clean margins. The oncologist said we should consider him cured. At the time, hearing the word, “cure,” made it all seem worth it.

I don’t have any pictures of the little lump that required such a huge incision, of Gadget’s abject misery, of him bumping into doorways and furniture while wearing the E-collar. I was too busy taking care of him to think of documenting it. Besides, we tried to take pictures of happy times, the times we wanted to remember. The MCT was just a “bump” in the road, he was cured, and I didn’t look back.

Betsy began to take many more pictures in the couple of months that followed, pictures that reveal a Gadget who never returned completely to how he’d been before. New problems kept cropping up — all seemingly unrelated. A limp caused by arthritis in his toes. A very bad cough (which, again, his specialist did not take as seriously as I thought she should). And then, another bump. This one was on top of his head, next to his left ear.

Gadget still looks "normal" and engaged, sniffing Betsy's breath. However, he was starting to get a little "quieter" at this time, and only a few small patches of his coat shows its gray, wiry brindling; the rest is the soft, charcoal undercoat he was left with at the end.

I showed it to the vet at his next chemo appointment, and she said it was nothing to worry about, just a wart. However, the “wart” grew and changed very quickly. It became crusty, then opened and oozed. I knew — though I desperately hoped I was wrong — that it was another MCT. Sure enough, when the vet next saw it, she was not so blithe. She also was more attentive to my concerns about Gadget’s cough, which had become a severe hacking that kept us both awake the previous night.

Gadget’s doctor aspirated the lump and took chest x-rays. The x-rays showed a small something, which the oncologist had not expected, but she thought it was likely not serious. However, she was unsure, so to be on the safe side, she sent them to a radiologist for a second opinion.

When she called me with the results it was one blow after another: The lump was another MCT, and the chest x-rays showed an enlarged lymph node, and a small area of pneumonia and a consolidation in one lung.

That was the first time I broke down with the vet. Until then, I had tried to be organized, clinical, and in control. I took notes, I reported, I researched, I instituted protocols. However, when I found out about the new tumor and the abnormalities in Gadget’s lung, I couldn’t hold back the tears.

“Are we just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic?” I sobbed. “Is there any point in continuing?”

The vet was extremely sympathetic. I could tell she felt terrible delivering so much bad news. She said she did think it was worth continuing to treat because overall Gadget still had a good quality of life. While it was possible that the lung abnormalities indicated a return of lymphoma or a spread of mast cell cancer, it was also possible that it was simple pneumonia and would respond to a strong antibiotic. It seemed worth it to try the antibiotic and see what happened.

The antibiotic did help — right away. The vet and I were overjoyed. Gadget’s cough went away, and for a few weeks, I thought we’d dodged a bullet. I knew he had another tumor growing on his head, but I was waiting to decide whether to put him through surgery again until his lungs were totally cleared up. I believed we were still in the fight.

At this point, I found out later, Betsy and my friends and family all realized that Gadget was dying. I didn’t. His appetite was good, he was eager for walks, he still wanted to work, he ran wild at the pond.

Yet, there was the occasional time his appetite wasn’t quite as robust as before, so I gave him his supplements in peanut butter, instead of mixing them into his food. And yes, there was the very slight limp that arose from too much running to be aware of. But he was still active, still wanted to work and play, still seemed happy. I was too deeply immersed to see the pattern. Or maybe I wasn’t ready. Probably both.

The pictures tell a different story. We have a lot of them from this period onward, taken by Betsy. She tells me I asked her to take more pictures of him. I don’t remember doing that. Subconsciously, I wanted to capture the time we had left, but I didn’t let myself think of that.

We're tired (but I try to hide it for the camera). Normally, Gadget would have been much more excited to be allowed on the (new) couch.

Then, at the end of October, Gadget’s cough came back, and suddenly we were finding little bumps all over him. They were tiny, and if we didn’t already knew what we knew, we probably wouldn’t have worried about them. But by now, the writing was on the wall. We mapped them to bring to his next appointment, and counted 17 in all.

The night before his appointment, he became somewhat lethargic, and his abdomen suddenly swelled. We took him to the vet the next morning, knowing something was terribly wrong. The vet took one look at him, and I could see defeat. She listed all her concerns. She wanted to do an ultrasound, and if there were internal abnormalities — if he had come out of remission — to take needle aspirates. It was not an invasive procedure — it was relatively quick and required no sedative or anesthesia. A needle aspirate was less painful than a blood draw. I readily agreed. We had been down this road at diagnosis.

The results were bad, but inconclusive. His internal organs were riddled with cancer — misshapen and discolored, with numerous tumors throughout his abdominal cavity. What we didn’t know was whether it was lymphoma or mast cell cancer. It was not a typical way for lymphoma to come back, but lymphoma could do almost anything. However, the vet said it was also not completely typical of MCT.

It made a difference to me to try to find out which cancer it was, because if this was a lymphoma relapse, we could try a chemotherapy rescue protocol. There was reason to hope he might respond well to that, as his lymphoma had responded so well to chemotherapy in the past. However, if it was MCT, there was very little to be done by this stage. The doctor sent the cells she’d aspirated to the pathologist to try to get a determination of what we were dealing with.

Again, the news was bad. The cells were large, round cells, highly dysplastic (abnormal due to advanced cancer). Because they were round cells — which both lymphoma and MCT have in common — and because they were so abnormal (without nuclei), the pathologist couldn’t be sure which cancer it was, but he was leaning toward MCT. I asked Gadget’s doctor what her opinion was, and she also said MCT, though she couldn’t be sure. I was devastated.

We decided on one last chemo attempt — a drug that could work for either MCT or lymphoma and was totally noninvasive because it was given orally, as capsules. By this time, I knew nothing would save him. I just hoped it might beat back the cancer enough to make him feel better. The vet even agreed to pill him outside in the parking lot, so he wouldn’t have to be separated from me (or me from him), and he wouldn’t get smelled up by the chemicals inside the hospital and need a bath when he got home. This was also his introduction to Pill Pockets, which he loved, and which I came to rely on for many pillings during the remainder of his life.

I switched to hospice mode — palliative care. My goal was to keep him comfortable and happy for as long as possible, at home. No more trips to the vet. He got to eat whatever he wanted. He didn’t have to take supplements or meds, unless they would make him feel better. On prednisone, the end-stage treatment for canine cancer, Gadget perked up, his appetite came roaring back, and I tried to do everything I could to bring him joy.

Since his favorite activity was going to the pond, especially to play with the other dogs, we set up a special play group for him. I thought it would probably be his last — his abdomen was grossly distended and he was wobbly and tired.When I met my friends and their dogs in the parking lot, we didn’t know what to expect, and I was teary and frightened, grateful for their love for Gadget and support of me.

Gadget surprised us. He had a terrific time. He had always had a rather obnoxious crush on a yellow Lab named Cider, which he expressed by trying to hump her. Sure enough, Gadget took off — a little slower than usual, but just as game — and mounted Cider, who easily wriggled out from under him. We all laughed. I quoted Monty Python in Gadget’s honor: “I’m not dead yet!”

Visible from this angle is Gadget's shaved, bloated abdomen, which did not keep him from playing, swimming, and trying to put the moves on his favorite blonde (on the right, waiting for her cookie).

As it turned out, Gadget enjoyed two more play groups before he died. He was slowing down, but he still liked eating and going for walks.

Gadget near the end, obviously tired.

Eventually, his only true passion and excitement was in going to the pond. When it became too far for him to walk there, Betsy or a PCA drove us. As soon as he jumped out of the van, he’d be off, sniffing and marking, then heading down to the water — no matter how cold it was — to wade in up to his armpits and drink and drink.

Even in his last days, Gadget races ahead of me at the pond.

So it was that his last great adventure, the night before he died, took place at the pond. A night that was both wild and serene, when the weight of decision was lifted, and we shared a truly special experience. But that’s a story for another post.

Looking at these photos of Gadget when his spark was beginning to fade is painful and confusing. Partly, I feel the simple and terrible sadness of seeing him when he was less than himself.

Partly, it’s the questions these pictures raise: Was I so focused on treatment and care that I lost sight of what he needed most? Was I still holding on for him near the end, or for myself? Was he happy those times he rallied and seemed to be enjoying himself, or was he just putting on a good show? It all comes down to the question, should I have released him sooner?

Yet, when I try to imagine doing any of it differently — the chemotherapy, the supplements, the alternative treatments, the weeks of hospice — I can’t see making other choices. I have absolutely no doubt that without the chemo, he’d have died within weeks of his lymphoma diagnosis, a couple of months at most. Chemo was good to him; he almost never had any nausea, lethargy, or other side effects. In fact, we often stopped at the pond on the way home after a treatment for a run and a dip. We had several months of our working partnership and loving companionship, thanks to chemo. I can’t fathom missing that whole, beautiful summer of soaking up every joyous, precious moment with him.

Obviously, if I’d known that the MCT on his neck was just a tiny manifestation of a many-headed hydra that was taking over internally, I wouldn’t have put him — or myself — through the hell of that surgery. But I couldn’t have known. And at the time, surgery seemed like such a quick, clean option — one with a much higher likelihood of success than the half-year of chemotherapy we were slogging through for an 80 percent chance for an additional six months of survival.

Even at the end, when I knew he was dying, how could I have robbed him of his play dates, of his cherished treats and meals, of his pride at opening the refrigerator or my bedroom door, of all the time he spent letting himself be loved? How could I have killed him before I absolutely knew it was his time?

I couldn’t have done it any other way.

The pictures tell a story, yes, but they do not tell the story. They can’t tell the whole story. And neither can I. Gadget was the only one who truly knew what he was experiencing, and I could only guess and interpret then, and I can only question and yearn and remember now.

I let go. I remember. I yearn.

I remember. I yearn. I let go.

I yearn. I let go. I remember, again.

I don’t regret any of my choices, but I yearn. I yearn. I yearn.

-Sharon

Please share your memories and mental snapshots of Gadget in the comments.

A Year Ago: Re-Post, in Memorium

Gadget died shortly after noon on November 19, 2009. I am working on a post about his last night, which was actually quite beautiful, strange, and special. It was sad, but not depressing. Aspects of it were actually joyous, funny, and a little bizarre! I hope to post it by the 18th.

Today’s post is a reprint of the first After Gadget post, because it captures so much of what I was going through when I was mourning him afresh.

On the anniversary of his death, Betsy and I will plant daffodils on Gadget’s grave. The bulbs were given to us by a neighbor as a bereavement gift last year.

We will also partake in other rituals, including reading the notes and cards we received last year.

To add to those words, I request that those who knew Gadget, or were touched by him in some way in his life, via internet or youtube or in real life, please post your thoughts and memories about him in the comments section here during the coming week. Or how any particular blog postings about Gadget have affected you.

This community means a lot to me. Your words would mean a lot on our day of remembrance.

Thank you so much.

Peace,

Sharon and the muse of Gadget

BEGINNING AFTER THE END

(First published December 26, 2009)

Here are some numbers:

On November 19, 2009, Gadget, my Bouvier des Flandres service dog, died of cancer. That was five weeks and three days ago. He was nine-and-a-half. We waged war against the cancer for six months. Depending on who you quote, from one-in-four to one-in-eight dogs in the US will die of cancer this year. So, we are in good (or rather, bad) company.

But this blog is not about numbers. It’s about surviving a devastating loss that most people are very sympathetic to, yet few really understand – the loss of a service dog.

It’s about a dog who liked to chase squirrels, slam doors, and let himself out when he wasn’t supposed to. He loved stinky things like cheese and liver — and long-dead carrion! — and me. We shared a fierce, deep, quiet love.

It’s about celebrating him, mourning him, finding ways to live without his love and without his practical assistance. It’s about the emotional and physical journey of grieving a star of a service dog while beginning the raising of a new pup. It’s a place for others who have, or will, experience a similar loss to find comfort and joy.

We fell asleep together.

Why start this blog now?

Why not the day after Gadget died? From a practical standpoint, that probably would have made more sense, but nothing about death is practical or neat. Until now, I’ve been too much in shock to do much of anything. I still am in shock most of the time. In fact, right now, writing this blog is the only thing that does make sense.

Why This Blog?

First of all, it’s a way for me to grieve and make sense of this loss. I’m a writer, and so far I haven’t found a way to “cope” that feels like it works. Writing about Gadget, sharing his life and story with the world, seems like the natural path. I’ll share my feelings and my memories of Gadget as a joyful, loving spirit; as a working partner; as a teammate in training and creative problem solving; as a playmate and clown; as my means of survival. In words, in photos, in video. Fortunately for you, he was beautiful.

Gadget last winter.

I also hope that for you, if you’ve gone through a similar loss, this will help you grieve, too. Grief in all its forms is welcome here: numbness, anger, denial, sadness, loss, relief, questioning, or whatever you feel.

There are very few resources that I’ve found for grieving the death of an assistance dog.

There are groups who understand the loss of a beloved pet dog. I belong to one such listserv, and it has been a lifeline. The people on it are loyal and open and funny and kind. I love them.

Still, some parts of my loss are unlike theirs. Tonight, for example, I had a lot of trouble getting out of my bedroom because I couldn’t open my door. And I couldn’t call for help because I’m often nonverbal. If Gadget was still alive, not only would he have opened the door, he would have been happy to open it. It would have been fun for him, a game. He would have wondered, “Will I get some liver for this?”

When people help me, even when they are doing it because they love me or they’re being paid to help me, or both, they are never thrilled to do it. Sometimes they are resentful, frustrated, irritated. Sometimes they’re not bothered at all, but I worry that they are, anyway.

When I cry over the loss of Gadget, it’s not just his soft fur, his wet nose, his deep brown eyes, his beating heart against mine, it’s also how much physically harder and more limited my life has become. How much more dependent and scary. His death has created so many layers of aloneness in my life. Some of these layers of aloneness are common for pet bereavement, but some are unique to assistance animal loss.

Sometimes it is even hard to get support from others who have lost service dogs. There are groups for assistance-dog partners who are grieving, but they may be small or inactive. My guess is that unless one is in the midst of grieving, it is too painful to be exposed to the topic. That emotional wound could reopen at any time, because — if we’re fortunate — we will outlive our assistance dogs, again and again. The choice to be a life-long service-dog partner is as Kafkaesque as it is fulfilling. Few who have escaped the black hole of that loss want to be reminded of staring into the abyss again.

This will be a refuge to cry, to remember, to distract yourself, to laugh, and to find little ways — or big ways — to move on. All forms of sincere emotion are welcome here. There is no wrong or right way to grieve. There is just emotion that moves through you, that rises and falls like waves, and the process of surviving loss.

The loss of an AD is not just that of the heart, but of love, companionship, independence, safety, and partnership.

The Coming Attraction

I will be getting a puppy in several weeks whom I will train to be my next service dog. The puppy is due to be born in a week, January 1, 2010.

Looking back necessitates looking forward, and vice-versa. Even as I mourn Gadget, I prepare for his successor. Training the new dog in a Gadgetless home will be part of my mourning process.

Here, you can join me on my journey as a severely and multiply disabled first-time puppy raiser!

It seems a ludicrous, risky undertaking. Even healthy people find puppies exhausting! Yet, I’d always planned for a puppy this time around, instead of adopting an adult or adolescent, as I’ve done in the past. I thought Gadget would be here to help train the pup, as his predecessor helped train him. Now it is just us humans to raise the pup, and me much more disabled than when I trained my previous SDs. Still, I am full of hope.

I am excited and nervous. I already anticipate the joy and frustration, the weariness and triumphs, and how it will take everything Gadget taught me to be very, very, very patient to get through two years of raising and training to get a working service dog again. A dog whom I am sure I will love and come to rely on, but who will never be Gadget.

There can only ever be one Gadget. He wasn’t my first service dog, but he was and for forever will be my best. (I think!)

I wish you’d gotten to know him as I did. But here at After Gadget, you will know him a little. Thank you for joining us in this journey.

Peace,

Sharon and the spirit of Gadget, forever my Muse

P.S. I welcome your thoughts and feelings on my journey or on your own journey — whether you are facing a current loss or have lived through it in the past. Leave comments below.

His last great adventure.