When I'm 64
I look at my ancient dogs and I begin to see what the future portends for all who grow old.
Bagel and Sampson.
I think they are like a million years old.
It seems like they have been around forever but it's actually only a little over 10 years; more like 15. These past couple of years, though, feels more like 20.
My presence in the house has been sparse since deciding to enter med school, with conjugal vistis every 6 months or so, followed by long intervals where I hear them grow old over the telephone. Each time I come back, they are greyer and slower and blinder. Their fellow cronies, dogs of friends who I catch up with when home, have all gone by the way of the dodo, their misery ended by a lethal injection. Yet, Sampson and Bagel have gone on and on and on, giving way too much credence to the Energizer Rabbit.
Bagel was always old, ever since we knew him. Fat and slow, he acted as if he was much older than he looks. Now his ears have turned musty grey and his entire muzzle up to around his eyes are a shade of white and his fur is falling out in chunks; I can donate it to make a wig for the hairless Chinese Crested. He lays down a little slower, his hips are a little stiffer and he doesn't come upstairs anymore, mainly because he has fallen down the stairs once or twice. He was always the moron. It took him several free falls down the stairs for him to realize that up the stairs was just a little unrealistic.
Sampson was more energetic and playful. We got him revved up one time that he picked up a 10-pound dumbell with his teeth. He'll run like a high speed bullet up and down the grassy patch outside the house and bark and holler at anything bigger than himself. He'll climb the stairs like a bullet too. You'll hear his little feet double up the stairs. Now, he can't see what's in front of him. He has few teeth left and he barks at the leaves rustling. When he climbs up the stairs, it takes him a full two minutes, laboring step by step, going by feel alone, completely blind. He can no longer come down the stairs without an airlift under the armpit.
And then there is the incontinence. They used to be able to hold their pee for eight, sometimes 10 hours or longer. Now it's a free waterfall. I go upstairs to put away the clothes and there is pee on the floor. I use the bathroom and come out, there's pee on th floor. I take them outside and come back in and there's pee on the floor. Seems like every second I am on my knees mopping up dog pee on the $12,000 Pergo floor. I have gone through, now, an entire roll of paper towels and rapidly making my way through the second.
And just recently, ProPlan has decided to increase my misery by discontinuing their brand of Senior Small Bites Diet so that we have to feed them the other senior diet and I have poop to clean in addition to the pee. And I'm not talking nice formed dog poop but more like the bloody, colitis kind of dog poop, times two.
I am sighing as my old dogs get older and are using the living room as their personal toilet. It's early in the morning and if it weren't for me being around, the pee and the poop would have stayed and crusted until Mitch came home, some 10 hours later in the afternoon.
I am thinking bad, end-of-life thoughts. I'm thinking: how on earth are we going to sell the house with animal damage difficult to hide? I'm thinking isn't there a magic wand I can use to make everything brand new again?
I'm thinking now whereas before, the animals were my life and I cleaned up poo and pee for a living. As I move on into a different phase of life, my priorities are changing; old things giving way to new ones.
Is this how things will be when I get old? Is this what my caregivers will say as their lives move onto a different plane, their priorities change? Probably.
Reality is harsh. For now, my dogs are still way too happy to be visiting St. Peter. They're still begging for scraps when we bring home dinner. They're still running around, they're still barking at strangers. Even though I was close to strangling the two of them this morning, I know that their time is not now. Hopefully, they will both go in their sleep because neither one of us will be able to make that final decision without having to take some heavy duty antidepressants. But if they keep on peeing and pooping on the floor, I may give them some antidepressants....
That is how I would like to go, hopefully, with some dignity and not wearing a diaper or attached to a respirator. For now, I will continue to watch Sampson walk into walls when he doesn't hear the sound of your voice and Bagel as he walks around in circles, pacing and staring into space and, of course, cleaning up pee and poop and then I will sue ProPlan for collateral damage.
"When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now,
Will you still be wiping my butt with turpentine,
Pooping, peeing, hearing me whine?
If I'd vomit my dinner at three, would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?"
Bagel and Sampson.
I think they are like a million years old.
It seems like they have been around forever but it's actually only a little over 10 years; more like 15. These past couple of years, though, feels more like 20.
My presence in the house has been sparse since deciding to enter med school, with conjugal vistis every 6 months or so, followed by long intervals where I hear them grow old over the telephone. Each time I come back, they are greyer and slower and blinder. Their fellow cronies, dogs of friends who I catch up with when home, have all gone by the way of the dodo, their misery ended by a lethal injection. Yet, Sampson and Bagel have gone on and on and on, giving way too much credence to the Energizer Rabbit.
Bagel was always old, ever since we knew him. Fat and slow, he acted as if he was much older than he looks. Now his ears have turned musty grey and his entire muzzle up to around his eyes are a shade of white and his fur is falling out in chunks; I can donate it to make a wig for the hairless Chinese Crested. He lays down a little slower, his hips are a little stiffer and he doesn't come upstairs anymore, mainly because he has fallen down the stairs once or twice. He was always the moron. It took him several free falls down the stairs for him to realize that up the stairs was just a little unrealistic.
Sampson was more energetic and playful. We got him revved up one time that he picked up a 10-pound dumbell with his teeth. He'll run like a high speed bullet up and down the grassy patch outside the house and bark and holler at anything bigger than himself. He'll climb the stairs like a bullet too. You'll hear his little feet double up the stairs. Now, he can't see what's in front of him. He has few teeth left and he barks at the leaves rustling. When he climbs up the stairs, it takes him a full two minutes, laboring step by step, going by feel alone, completely blind. He can no longer come down the stairs without an airlift under the armpit.
And then there is the incontinence. They used to be able to hold their pee for eight, sometimes 10 hours or longer. Now it's a free waterfall. I go upstairs to put away the clothes and there is pee on the floor. I use the bathroom and come out, there's pee on th floor. I take them outside and come back in and there's pee on the floor. Seems like every second I am on my knees mopping up dog pee on the $12,000 Pergo floor. I have gone through, now, an entire roll of paper towels and rapidly making my way through the second.
And just recently, ProPlan has decided to increase my misery by discontinuing their brand of Senior Small Bites Diet so that we have to feed them the other senior diet and I have poop to clean in addition to the pee. And I'm not talking nice formed dog poop but more like the bloody, colitis kind of dog poop, times two.
I am sighing as my old dogs get older and are using the living room as their personal toilet. It's early in the morning and if it weren't for me being around, the pee and the poop would have stayed and crusted until Mitch came home, some 10 hours later in the afternoon.
I am thinking bad, end-of-life thoughts. I'm thinking: how on earth are we going to sell the house with animal damage difficult to hide? I'm thinking isn't there a magic wand I can use to make everything brand new again?
I'm thinking now whereas before, the animals were my life and I cleaned up poo and pee for a living. As I move on into a different phase of life, my priorities are changing; old things giving way to new ones.
Is this how things will be when I get old? Is this what my caregivers will say as their lives move onto a different plane, their priorities change? Probably.
Reality is harsh. For now, my dogs are still way too happy to be visiting St. Peter. They're still begging for scraps when we bring home dinner. They're still running around, they're still barking at strangers. Even though I was close to strangling the two of them this morning, I know that their time is not now. Hopefully, they will both go in their sleep because neither one of us will be able to make that final decision without having to take some heavy duty antidepressants. But if they keep on peeing and pooping on the floor, I may give them some antidepressants....
That is how I would like to go, hopefully, with some dignity and not wearing a diaper or attached to a respirator. For now, I will continue to watch Sampson walk into walls when he doesn't hear the sound of your voice and Bagel as he walks around in circles, pacing and staring into space and, of course, cleaning up pee and poop and then I will sue ProPlan for collateral damage.
"When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now,
Will you still be wiping my butt with turpentine,
Pooping, peeing, hearing me whine?
If I'd vomit my dinner at three, would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?"
posted by Hello, this is McKWong MD at 11:46 AM
1 Comments:
Leelian had her precious dog, Xiao3 Xiong2 (Little Bear), put down by the infamous "lethal injection" this Chinese New Year... and it is suppose to be the Year Of The Dog... how ironic... Some blamed it on her dad's new car plate, 9944, which when spoken in Hokkien, is "Doggie Die".
The only comfort that we get out of this, is the knowledge that "Little Bear" is suffering no more.
"Little Bear" was in a catch 22 situation, according to the vet, having problems with both the heart and the kidney... so medication for the heart will worsen the kidney problem and vice versa...
We wish both Bagel and Sampson have a good time peeing and pooing in their proper place, not everywhere. :-)
Love,
Ric
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