Circle of Life. Let’s face it. It’s not pretty and always has the same ending. I try not to dwell on that too much but it’s always lurking since my diagnosis and remission. I am also very well aware that having pets, we go into it, knowing that eventually we say goodbye to them as they cross over to the Rainbow Bridge.
My Bichon, Frosty, has never really been the beacon of health but we really thought he’d be here well into his teens. At two years old, he was diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Disease and his body would attack proteins as though they were pathogens. This would result in extreme gastric upset. As a result, he wound up being a geriatric vegan bichon, and it was manageable with the occasional dietary indiscretions. He always bounced back with some help from us.
When he took ill last month, I knew it was different. His behavior was different. Ultimately, he had kidney failure and there was no way of knowing it was coming and his health was unraveling for who knows how long. That’s sobering. We learned to care for him and it was hard…for all of us. We were told that if there was still some function, we might be able to manage it, giving him a few more months. There were numerous pills as well as subQ fluids. He was hospitalized for fluids to flush out his body and we hoped it would help him. The plan was for treatments twice a week. It only helped for a few hours at a time. It was a team effort to try to help him but kidney failure is not reversible. I knew what was coming.
The pills, the needles, the IV bags reminded me too much of my own mortality and I didn’t like it. Knowing he was dying and trying to hold on to hope was difficult. Hope is what propels me forward and watching him, made me stop. Losing him made me stop. He was my best buddy for 12 years and life felt empty without him. Hope was hard. It was fleeting.
The husband introduced new hope with talks of a new puppy. The right one would find us and we would know. My heart ached day and night but slowly, I was becoming more hopeful. We researched any breed we would meet and had it narrowed to three mixes and registered on various rescue sites. And then we saw a Chihuahua and were smitten. We read all we could and tried to find the negatives and there were none, so we started looking for a Chihuahua mix, full of hope and light. Names were bounced around and suddenly; we were all excited again. We were making plans and that made it real.
A little litter of the cutest little Chihuahua pug mixes became available and I put in an application, not expecting to hear anything. I heard a whole lot of something, and it was all good. The right one found us. Tiny and sweet, with beautiful little eyes and sweet little woof and wag, she came to our house. She literally walked in and decided she would be ours and we would be hers.
In my head, nothing is more symbolic of hope than babies. Baby anything...kittens, puppies, calves, piglets...you get the idea. Little Lexi Rose is a rescue from a local organization but honestly, she rescued us. She saved me and bought in renewed hope and a reminder that life goes on, time heals and there’s always good things around the corner…full of hope and promise…