A few weeks ago I was afraid Cricket was on the edge of life, diagnosed with kidney disease, struggling to walk, knocking into things. We started giving her subcutaneous fluids on the off chance that it would help extend her life, and it’s actually working. Though in order to give her the fluids we have to medicate her with a combination of gabapentin and ACE, which makes her woozy for hours. At times, she seems like a wraith, her feet slipping out from under her, not even protesting when the needle slips under her skin.
Ideally, she would have gotten used to the whole procedure by now, and she wouldn’t try to pull off the muzzle, or lift up her head to get away from the needle. Ideally, I’d never have to give her any calming meds at all and she would just accept the fluids as a necessary evil and get it over with and get back to living her life. But then she wouldn’t be Cricket, and all of this effort is to make sure she gets to be Cricket for as long as possible.
Every day, at the beginning of all of this, I was afraid she was going to die overnight, and when she actually woke up in the morning, and ate her breakfast, I was surprised, and afraid to be hopeful. But with each day she seems to improve a little bit. The meds make her into a rag doll, yes, but then the next morning, after she’s slept it off, it’s like she’s been brought back to life, refilled with her fluids and her spirit, and ready to sniff the whole world again.
It’s still nerve-wracking to watch her skin fill up with the fluids. I even worry sometimes that her neck is going to explode (I’ve seen too many movies), and I worry that I’m going to put the needle in the wrong place and puncture something vital. I was worried for a while that I was inserting the needle the wrong way and causing scar tissue to form because I could feel these quarter-sized bumps under her skin and I was afraid I would run out of loose skin and not be able to give her the fluids anymore, but then the bumps started to dissolve, and that worry, at least, went away. So much of this is trial and error and the circumstances seem to change every day. It feels like a magic trick each time she wakes up in the morning and walks and barks and eats and acts like herself, but a magic trick that is unreliable and hard won.
I’ve been thinking about my friend Teddy, the miniature poodle, who died from kidney disease a few years ago. His death came as a surprise, at least to me. He hadn’t been diagnosed with the disease ahead of time, and by the time they caught it he was too far gone to be helped by fluids or anything else. When Cricket was diagnosed I was afraid it would be the same thing, and every day, even though I knew her case was different, I expected the same results.
Some days are better than others. Every once in while she has a bad night, her breathing is shallow, she pees on the floor because she can’t get to the wee wee pad in time, or she’s not up to climbing the stairs, but other days she seems to be getting better, growing stronger, and enjoying her life.
I was telling myself that I just needed Cricket to reach her sixteenth birthday, but now that she’s accomplished that goal, I need more. I need to feel like I did everything I could possibly do for her. I need to not have any regrets, and not feel like if only I had been stronger or smarter or kinder or more loving, she would have lived longer.
I’m also doing my best to make sure Ellie doesn’t feel left out, and gets extra hugs and scratchies and treats to make up for all of the attention her sister is getting. But when Cricket feels better she goes back to taunting Ellie, so then I feel guilty for taking such good care of Cricket and, at the same time, I feel guilty for not taking good enough care of her.
The thing is, Cricket isn’t giving up. She doesn’t think sixteen years is enough, even if each day is a little harder than it used to be. And if she’s going to be this stubborn, then I guess I’m going to have to be stubborn too.
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
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