A Snail's Space: Events # 6: Blaze

If you are just joining, my past few blog entries have been an explanation, of sorts, for the 3-year period of time during which I wrote nothing. If you’ve been following and wondering when the heck I was going to continue with my “Series of Unfortunate Events”, I confess that I’ve been stuck. I’ve been avoiding writing this one. In fact, there is something even irritating about having to write it. I don’t know to whom or to what my irritation is directed, but I cannot deny it is there.

Blaze died. There is nothing beautiful I can write about it. It was horrible. He was thirteen. Selfish me for wanting more time.

He had arthritis badly in his left front leg and I could tell he was developing it in other joints, as well. For years we tried to keep him as comfortable as possible with daily doses of anti-inflammatory medication and, when it seemed the pain was particularly acute, we’d give him tramadol. One day last June, I noticed a big bulge on his left front leg. We took him to the vet the next day and were told it was a hemangioma. I had never heard that word before.

Our options were to euthanize him then or euthanize him later. Basically. I don’t mean to blame the vet. We love our vet, but the choices seemed unnecessarily stark. The problem was, we didn’t know yet, what the path forward for a hemangioma entailed. We were mercifully ignorant.

The vet explained that the tumor would eventually rupture and then we would have “a bloody mess on [our] hands.” That didn’t seem so horrible. We’re scientists. We’d seen plenty of blood in our time. The vet explained that most people choose to euthanize their pet at that time, but some choose to go forward with wound management. That didn’t sound so bad. So, we have to clean and bandage his wound, so what? As long as it was not harmful to Blaze, that would be okay, right? The vet warned that the wound could become smelly. Oh, that’s okay. We don’t mind dealing with that. As long as Blaze is comfortable and we aren’t doing him harm, we want to pursue the wound management route. So, we loaded Blaze up in the car and the three of us drove home in silence.

Over the next few days, his tumor grew from the size of a quarter to about the size of a walnut, and I noticed that it was changing color. It had started as a light pink color (the color of his skin), but now there was a dark purple center to it. One day a little hole formed in the tissue covering the dark center and the center began to squeeze out through the hole. The hole got larger and larger, until the whole tumor was open. It looked like hamburger. By now, it was about the size of a plum.

As soon as the tumor ruptured, we began the wound management process. It was a tedious affair involving cleansing the wound with sterile saline, patting dry with sterile gauze, applying antibiotic ointment, applying sterile gauze pads over the wound, and then wrapping his whole arm in stretchy medical wrap. There was a whole set up and breakdown process for each cleaning. We did this twice daily. About 4 days into the wound management process, we began to notice the odor. The odor was of rotting flesh, because that was literally what was happening. The vet told us we could cut away as much of the dead tissue as possible, and we tried, but I was constantly afraid I was going to hurt Blaze.

Here we are wearing masks against the stench and trying to make the best of the situation.

And, here is Blaze with his bandaged leg.

He was such a good boy through all of this – just like he had been his entire life. So obedient. So gentle. He hated getting his wound cleaned, but he came to the blanket and laid down every time, anyway. Each and every time, we gave him the best treat we could think of – peanut butter or popcorn. Popcorn was his ultimate favorite treat all through his life. He loved sitting at my feet while I ate a bowl of popcorn and I would toss a piece through the air and he made a game of catching it and crunching it up. Oh, how he loved that! Once I would get to the bottom of the bowl, he got to eat the crunchy, partially popped kernels. Heaven on earth for him!

As the days wore on, it took more and more pain medicine to keep Blaze comfortable. One day he stopped eating his food. Jim and I had always said that the day he stopped eating, we would know something was seriously wrong, because he was such a food hound! He wanted to eat constantly and we had to keep him on a strict diet to keep him from getting overweight. During these last days, we observed that if we got his pain under control with enough meds, he would eat. This told us a lot. Now we were asking ourselves what was in Blaze’s best interest.

A few more days passed and Blaze refused popcorn – irrespective of how much pain medicine he had on board. Now we had to face the unimaginable… we made the call to the vet and set the date and the time.

I don’t remember much of anything between that time and the moment we were at the vet clinic. It was July 16 – a hot, sunny day. Blaze, being a Sheltie, hated hot weather. He loved winter and snow. I remember there was a day long ago when it was 5 degrees outside and I took a photo of Blaze asleep in the sunshine on top of a heap of snow on our back porch. Blaze loved being outside. Even if it was sweltering, he would accompany me while tending my gardens. As long as we were with him, he would endure the heat. The technician asked us if we wanted to do it inside or outside. Outside seemed the most appropriate choice. The technicians led us first to a place in the adjacent park that was in the open sunshine. The heat was suffocating. Blaze hated this, I knew. I spotted a large maple tree back across the road on the clinic’s property that was casting a large, inviting shadow. I suggested we walk over there.

Blaze limped across the road to the shade. I felt like a traitor. I felt like we had tricked him. He came over obediently, trusting us. Jim and I were to choose the exact location on which to place one of his favorite blankets. Something inside was rebelling. The bigger part of me made the rebel surrender. I chose a spot. I looked down…and there was a FEATHER lying on the ground. Dear reader, if you don’t know, feathers are my sign from God. The feather did not make everything okay. It did not make it any less difficult to kill my dog, but it confirmed the mercy and the presence of God. I felt God close to my broken heart.

A catheter had already been placed in Blaze’s good arm. He laid down on the blanket just as he was asked to do. He must have wondered what was going on with all these people around him – 5 in all. But, he just looked up at the vet, sort of with a question on his face – I don’t know, I couldn’t see for the tears flooding my eyes. The vet told us what to expect and then asked us if we were ready. I feel sorry for vets that they have to ask people if they are ready for their baby to die. An automaton within me said the word, “Yes.” The vet pushed the plunger on the syringe, then held his hands under Blaze’s chin. Blaze’s chin fell into the vet’s hands and he lowered Blaze’s head to the blanket. A minute passed. Birds called, crickets chirped, cars passed, but I heard nothing. The vet put his stethoscope to Blaze’s chest for a moment and then said, “He’s gone.”