past

The Lotster is on a drip at the vet - she has a raised urea level again, which means kidney failure. In one way she's not as bad as last January, when she literally didn't eat or drink or wee for 24 hours at one point and was very lethargic. She's still able to eat a bit, able to urinate and walk around. But she's skin and bone and seems worn out.

Last night she had another semi-collapse after walking upstairs.

Afterwards, we  put her on our bed and got into bed ourselves and watched her. She was breathing faster than usual and in a slightly laboured way. At one point I thought she might stop breathing. But she didn't.

It's hard to know how far to push it, trying to get her better again. She's seven months older than last time, which in dog years is a long time. She's weaker, muscularly, than she was then.

We're trying the drip but although our vet wanted to keep her in overnight on a drip, we said no. We don't want her spending what could turn out to be her last night away from home, in a cage at the vet's. We'll try the drip and see if that bumps her out of kidney failure again, but if it doesn't, we'll have to face facts - she's at the end of her relatively long life.

The main thing I keep thinking about is time passing - time passed. Memories crowd in and I think, that's over. We'll never do that again, go there again, with her. Once she's dead, we won't see her again, ever. It's the neverness of that which is on my mind today - I think it chimes in with my feelings over the past month about people I know who've died, my mother, how long there is never to see them again. When I'm 80, will I remember what Lot sounded like when she yodelled? Will I remember coming in to the house and her sitting up to greet me, with her bat ears raised? There are already so many things I don't remember about her as a young dog, as it's been so long since she could race out of sight and out of earshot.

When I'm 70, I'll think about walking my small son to kindergarten, with two dogs who are long dead, and it will all be in the past.

Comments

[Girl About Town]

I know what you are saying because I have thought the same thoughts you are thinking. Just the other night I was thinking to myself it has been 13 years since my beloved Nanna died, but if I live to be 80 that's nearly another 40 years that I won't see her. And it really gets to you, doesn't it?

But you know what, no matter how much time passes after we lose loved ones (be them humans or our animal friends), they are always in your heart, and always there in the back of your memory, even if there are things about them you can't consciously remember.

I had a cat called Tammy who I absolutely adored, who passed away when I was 14. I'm 41 now and my conscious memory quite honestly can't recall her that well, even though she was one of the most loved animals I ever had. But every now and then, I will still dream of her, and when I dream of her it's in perfect detail, and my memory is perfectly clear, and it's then I realise, she is NOT gone from me at all - she's still there, still in my heart, and still in my mind.

They are always with you, even when you think they're not.

I hope the next few days and weeks are as kind to you and your Lotster as they can be.

[Suze Oz]

The drip brought her urea level down to normal so she looks brighter, more alert. But she's still weak - when she walks, she looks like she could collapse easily. So although we are very happy to have her home with us tonight - and she's up in bed now - I don't feel confident that she is going to recover this time. We're on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, both feeling very emotional and teary - there are so many memories and associations and I can hardly remember life before Lot, especially as she came to us not long after we came to Australia.

[Elsewhere]

Oh dear. I've been going through the same thoughts about the Lenster, because he was always so real and present to me as an animal: he had so much personality. Now I wonder if he's drifting away from me... I feel tempted to memorialise him in writing, if only for myself.