surviving the storm without her

The wind howled most of the night last night--we kept expecting the power to go out, but it never did.  We were lucky.  The storm I kept comparing it to was Isabel, which came through in Sept. 2002 and downed nearly 100 trees in my county.  We couldn't walk more than a block without seeing a downed tree--several of which had fallen on houses.  My theory is that all the weak trees cane down during Isabel, because we haven't had many fall since then, even during the past summer's derecho.

We lost power at about 5:10pm  (a Thursday), and I was so nervous about a tree falling on our (new) house that Raven and I slept in the basement that night.  I guess dogs know when there's danger, and they instinctively seek the lowest level.  But often she wanted to leave the house when there was a storm, especially when there was lightning or related electrical outages.  One evening she and I were walking in the snow during the Snowmageddon season (2010), and saw a small electrical explosion followed by a power outage in a nearby neighborhood.  As we got closer to home, it was clear she did not want to go back inside.  Somehow (I think) she associated the electrical burst with the indoors, and felt safer outside.  I kept telling her she was safer inside, but she didn't listen.  So I finally dropped the leash and walked toward the house by myself.  Even though she was a willful dog, she didn't like being alone.  So when she saw I might leave her outside by myself, she came toward me and went back in the house.  Where we were safe.

she would have been scared

Everyone's talking about the coming storm--Frankenstorm.  Torrential rain, power losses, howling winds.  It's like she knew it was coming, and knew she wouldn't make it through.  She developed a fear of lightning and thunder as she got older, and then eventually even the sound of rain spooked her.  It would be the middle of the night, and we would hear a loud scratch on the bedroom door.  Not the small, continuous scratches the cat makes, but one long claw scrape.  I would let her in, and she would jump on the bed and stay with me until the danger passed.  It was the only time she ever slept in our bed--when she was afraid.  When she became ill and couldn't get up, I worried about how she would let us know she was scared, if she couldn't climb the stairs.  Sometimes she couldn't be consoled even when she came upstairs, so my husband would go down and stay with her on the first floor, where she normally slept.

One time when we lost power, I had been using my George Foreman grill, and the grill beeped just before the power went out.  Raven became scared of power outages--maybe because they were generally accompanied by wind and rain--and as a result became afraid of electronic beeps.  She associated the beep with bad things--wind and rain and noise and darkness.  So every time I used a cooking device that beeped, I had to reassure her that everything was OK.  I wish I could reassure her now.

osteopenia

Back to aging--I got the results of my dexascan; my bone density has declined from what it was 2 years ago.  The results went to my ob/gyn and my GP--I got a call from the GP's office first, saying there was no need for me to take medication but that I should continue to take vitamin D supplements.  So I was surprised when I spoke with someone at my ob/gyn's office, who said I should take Boniva once a month.  The GP was supposed to call me this afternoon so I could discuss this conflicting advice with her, but she didn't call. I don't want to take Boniva, so won't.  But I guess I should have a dexascan annually now instead of every 2 years.

With everything I do--walking, yoga, pilates, weight lifting, stationary bike--it's disappointing that I'm still losing bone density.  Guess I won't know if it would be worse if I didn't do all this stuff.

sad walk

I didn't walk her in the mornings, my husband did.   But I wanted to take a walk through some of the streets we used to travel.  We learned a lot about our neighborhood on those walks, since we moved here 10 years ago.  That house was torn down; this one did a big renovation that took months; they have a dog; that guy yelled at us for letting Raven sniff his flowers.  It was a sad and lonely walk without her.  And most people out walking had dogs.  Luckily, I didn't run into any of the "dog people" we would run into on our walks.  We're dreading seeing them and having them ask where Raven is.  I practice saying "she's in doggie heaven" but I don't think I'll be able to say it without crying.

When I got home I scrubbed and hosed down her crate and ramp.  We're saving these items for the next dog.  I've already washed her blanket and beautiful green coat, and put away her collars as mementos.  No one else will use those.  And some items I had to throw away--old Nyla bones, chewed-up towels, scruffy tennis balls, peed-on rugs too big to clean.  And then there's her chair.  We talked about getting rid of it once she was gone--she went on it so many times, I stopped trying to clean it.  But it sits there--I'll wait for my husband to say something, since he's the one who said we should throw it out once she was gone.  I don't think he's ready to do that yet.  All of the things I've done have been when he was out of the house.

So I guess I'll have to figure out a different walking routine.  I'm thinking between 5 and 6 pm--after I finish my flute practice but before I have to start dinner.  That's when I walked her when I was working full time.  Not a long walk,  just one to tide her over til the longer after-dinner walk.  I just don't want to run into anyone.  Not yet.

She's home

We brought her ashes back home today; I held the box on my lap and cried as we drove away from the vet's office.  But she's home now, with her family.  This past week I kept staring at the empty place where her crate had been, and wanted to make it less empty.  I took the furniture off the area rug and moved the rug so some of the empty space would be filled in.  But it still looked cold and empty.  So I searched different web sites and found a nice accent table from Pottery Barn to fill a corner of the area.  It looks nice--I added an artificial flower arrangement; my son thought it was a memorial to Raven.  I guess it is.  The place that cremated her took a print of her paw, so I placed that on the table in front of the flowers.  But her urn is on the mantle, along with the urn of my first cat, Casey, who died 4 years before we got Raven.  Raven's urn is black with white steaks, just like she was when she got older.  She's home.

She's gone

I almost sent her back to the shelter--she seemed to be too much to handle.  She bit all the time--very sharp bites--and chewed everything.  The shelter suggested feeding her ice cubes or carrots that had been in the freezer to give her things to chew on.  Worked until the ice cubes and carrots ran out.   She ate two TV remotes, my leather cellphone cover (remeber those?), and chewed holes in blankets and in our leather chair.  The day after we brought her home from the shelter, they called to say they thought we should know she bit someone at the shelter.  I'm not sure what we would have done if we'd known that before we brought her home.  But we had her now, and I tried.   But I felt wimpy giving up on her, so we stuck with it--through chewed fingers and furniture, ruined toys and shredded blankets.  Through near-missses and not-so-near misses with other dogs and people she thought looked threatening.  As an adult she was very protective of us, her family, and kept pretty much everyone who came near the house at bay.  But she loved her walks--miles and miles.  Even as her arthritis grew worse, and through two hip replacements (the doggy equivalent thereof).  I always felt safe with her.  And as she got older, we had to comfort her as she grew fearful of lightening and anything that beeped.  But to the end, she tried to protect us.  Despite not having eaten or barely moved from her bed, she got herself up and ran to the door to bark at the mailman for what would turn out to be the last time.  (I managed to stay dry-eyed until that last line.)

And now she's gone.  She was ill for only 5 days--we and the doctor thought her lethargy and lack of appetite was due to her worsening arthritis.  Last Monday she had great difficulty getting up, and didn't have much of an appetite.  The doctor gave her a cortisone shot and prednisone pills, and we hoped they would make her feel better.  Took a few days, but she did seem to perk up--ate from her bowl, and went on her usual morning, afternoon and evening walks.  Not as far as she often would walk, but good walks nonetheless.  And still on the lookout for every scrap of food she could find.  But then Friday she wasn't moving again.  When I tried to hand-feed her, she took a few bites, then turned her head away from me when I tried to get her to eat more.  Like she was trying to tell me she was fading away.  We planned to take her to the vet again on Saturday if she didn't seem better by the morning.  But she never made it.  And instead on Saturday morning my husband made the sad, final trip to the vet.