Oh, boy. Did we have fun yesterday? When I took Elsa for her evening walk, she got away from me and slipped through the small opening in my neighbor's driveway gate. I wasn't immediately concerned. I believed that Elsa wanted to play with the four large dogs on that property, and they wanted to play with her. Well, I was right, but not quite as I expected. The four dogs formed a pack and 'played' with Elsa as if she were a stuffed animal. Fortunately, my neighbor Marsha was with me. We had been talking just before this happened. I was able to open the gate, and Marsha and I ran in screaming at the four dogs who were nipping at Elsa and rolling her around.
Marsha was able to get hold of the collars of two of the dogs, and I was able to drag Elsa to the safety of the other side of the electronic fence. Marsha came home with me. We washed Elsa and cleaned her wounds with hydrogen peroxide. I called Yvette, and she came up to see what she could do. On her recommendation, I called the emergency number of the vet. I told them her wounds didn't look bad, and she had accepted a treat. Yvette checked how to determine if a dog was in shock on the Internet. We decided that while she was unnerved, she was not in shock.
Elsa asked to go for a walk before bedtime, which she never does. I was so proud of her. I thought I would never get her to walk in the street again. She was so brave. We went to bed when we got back. She couldn't get up on the bed herself, even using the doggie stairs at the bed's foot. She curled up with me or slept on Mike's side of the bed. At one point during the night, I noticed that she was swaying while she stood. Oh, Oh. It was clear I wasn't going to Bikram in the morning. NO way was I going to leave her.
I got up shortly before 7 — no need to get up early; no Bikram. I walked her; she didn't pee again. This was scary. Why hadn't she peed in 24 hours? I checked the vet hours; they opened at 8 am. I called Yvette to tell her Elsa wasn't doing well, and I was going to the vet. She asked me if I wanted her to go with me. Absolutely. I had already decided I would leave a 7:30 am to assure a visit with the doctor.
We got to the vet around 7:40; they let us in at7:45. A vet tech took her temperature-normal, yeah! She took her to the presurgery room and shaved the spots where she had been bitten. The bites were mostly surface bites. While Marsha and I thought the four dogs were trying to kill Elsa, it is clear that it was never their intent. They could easily have torn her to pieces in the first few seconds. They didn't.
The doctor came in right around 8. He checked her wounds. He explained that it is easy to rip the surface skin from the underlying tissue on dogs because their skin is so loose. When that happens, the separated skin hurts. The doctor said it was unlikely that there were internal injuries. She had gotten off easy. He prescribed antibiotics and a pain killer.
When we got home, I gave her the pills. Then Elsa and I lay down together. I was committed to spending the day in the house doing nothing except attending to her. The pain killer must have kicked in because she ate and drank- and begged for a treat, and ate it.
Oh, boy. If I had lost her too after losing Mike -oh, boy, what else can I say?
I had a telephone appointment with my therapist. I worked on my grief. Betrayal came up. I felt betrayed because Mike left me. Now, let's be clear; this is not what my conscious mind thinks. There is no way I think that Mike betrayed me by dying. He did everything he could do to survive. He hung on longer than any human being should have had to, given how much he was suffering. Fortunately, I am now working with a therapist who understands when I say something like that, I am referring to what my nonconscious, primitive body/brain thinks. In the past, when I said something like that to a therapist, they would argue with me. When I told them that part of my mind felt that way, they would tell me that I was out of touch with reality. I put it down now to a clear difference in our understanding of the human mind. For me, there are various parts, and each has its own thoughts. Getting all the parts to communicate with each other and work out the best solution under the guidance of the forebrain is my idea of mental health.
Now, I don't remember the full sequence. Maybe it will come back as I describe what followed. I was sitting with the physical feeling of having been abandoned. I remember thinking, "Why did you leave me? I loved you." "Why did you leave me? Wasn't I good enough? Was there something wrong with me?" I am sure these are not uncommon questions on the part of those left behind. Being abandoned by someone who is committed to watching out for you is a big, big loss.
I theorize that in the hunter-gatherer days, everyone watched out for everyone else. It wasn't reduced to just a buddy system like it is now when our life partners are the only ones who check on us daily, if not hourly. For the primitive groups, every group member is significant because their survival was dependent on every other member of the group. This is comparable to what a group of soldiers in combat experience. They don't watch out for just one person, even if that person is their best buddy. They watch out for everyone because they are counting on everyone watching out for them. While I understand that I am not alone by contemporary standards, my body-brain experiences me as totally alone in a dangerous environment. It is scared for my very survival. This is an appropriate reaction for this part of my brain. My way of dealing with this disparity between historical circumstances and the current ones is to communicate to my body-brain that I am not in that order of danger. It can be done. It is sometimes done through hypnosis, but it can be done more easily with the forebrain directly communicating with the hind one.
As I worked, I could feel the energy draining from me. It was draining from my just under my heart down my abdomen and exiting my body just above the pubic bone. I felt like I was expelling something. The birthing process came to mind. I felt like I was 'giving birth' to Mike, ejecting him from my body to be a separate person so I could go on with my life, and he could go one his death.
The process of giving birth releases the baby from the mother to live its own life. Likewise, expelling Mike was releasing him to 'live' his own death. If I didn't do this, I would be holding on to him. I was releasing him from taking care of me. I realized his concern was for himself. I thought my holding on to him in my body was preventing him from moving on. It reminded me of what some families do who cannot face the prospect of choosing to take their loved ones off life-support. When I was in the hospital on Oahu, I was told there were several patients in this position, people who were being kept alive with extreme measures for years. OMG! However, difficult and scary it was to decide to take him off life support and let him go, I would never have done that to Mike. Now, I think I must also give up on hoping he will be someone in my physical life.
I am reminded of what C.S. Lewis said in a Grief Observed, that this change, the death of the partner, creates a new phase of the marriage. We would have had to negotiate a different relationship if he had lived. He would have been much weakened by his months in the hospital. That would have been different from what we had before. We would have had to make adjustments then. These are a different set of adjustments. I don't know if I will have to let go altogether. We'll see. I want what's best for him, whatever it is. I trust completely that what is best for him will be best for me.
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Musings: I'm putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.
In the book review section in the NY Times, I came across a description of a moment in a happy marriage. "The couple stood together, crotch to crotch and talked about weeding." (It's not an exact quote.) Boy, does that sum up something about the intimacy between a happy couple. With whom else can I do a hug without worrying about which parts of our bodies come together? With Mike, it was just comfortable, joyful, so satisfying. Those intimate moments which occurred while the ordinary business of life went on. I miss him.
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