My Dog is Sick: Part I

My house is on pause. I imagine this is what the home of someone whose husband is dying slowly of lung cancer and is laid up in a hospital looks like. I have floors that need to be cleaned, dust looms over everything—even sheets of paper need to be wiped down—and the floors are stained. It’s like I am waiting, like the woman with her husband, for the decision to finally come down so I can finally clean up and deal with the reality of it all. Of course there is always a glimmer of hope, represented in the ability to bring myself to wash the dishes.

It is as I have finished washing off a plastic plate in the green plastic basin and proceeding to clean it off once more in the clean water I have set aside in a clear bucket that I hear cries. I know he must be moving again, but leave the plate half submerged in water to make sure it is just that he has moved again, and not that he has gotten up, bumped into something and hurt himself.

I know I am like my mother—I say that with not the least bit of shame—and I did not need the separation of the Atlantic Ocean to discover this. However, this separation has led to a series of events that has shed new light, perhaps a small one to people with actual children, on what it’s like to be a mother.

It turns out Beaugarde did just shift again, but I feel it is my fault. He had fallen asleep under the illusion I was lying next to him, which originally had been the case. I had tried to fall asleep, having finished two books today in my dutiful stand-guard, and started a third. Restless though, I decided maybe I’d feel better if I bucket-showered and clean up the dishes.

Beaugarde start acting “strange” a week ago. I have been calling my mother on any inkling he might be sick. It is funny I worry more about the things that can happen to Beaugarde by living in Africa than I have ever considered for myself. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong exactly.

“His eyes are bugging out,” I said.

“What you mean?”

“Like a cartoon character.”

Since Beaugarde was little he has laid out on the ground in refusal when going on walks. He was doing this same thing, but he was doing it just when we’d walk from my house to my neighbors. Then on Friday it became clear. Beaugarde could not see well, it progressed quickly. He is now blind.

“Il ne voi pas,” I say to my neighbors.

“Il ne voi pas?” They don’t believe me, so I have to show them how he stumbles around into things as evidence of his malady.

I call the vet when I get home from school. He administers an antibiotic. He tells me to put some stuff in his eyes and suggests maybe he ate something outside—I have not let Beaugarde roam the village in three weeks; I have seen everything he has eaten. He did not charge me for the shot; I thought maybe he knows my dog might not make it or maybe he just doesn’t have the slightest idea what to do and is taking a stab in the dark. Beaugarde does not get better. His stomach started convulsing and he did not sleep at all Friday night; neither did I. During the day it is drawn to my attention that he can’t walk very well and not just because he can’t see. He reminds me of a cat my parents had briefly, called Chance. He couldn’t use his back legs, they just dragged behind him. Beaugarde isn’t dragging his feet, but he is tumbling a lot and when he falls it is always with a slight whine and he looks around knowing how vulnerable he has become.

Today is Sunday. He received another shot today and they think he is getting better. I am not so sure. I am hopeful because he still is wagging his tail, but I feel so sorry for him. He is so helpless. I have to pick him up and take him to go to the bathroom. I set him down in his usual spot and he tries to pee and falls down. He stays lying down until I pick him up so he stops pissing on himself. I can’t help but laugh a little. It is less funny though that he is afraid to go poop. I can tell he needs to because he is crying a little. He knows he can’t hold himself up to do the deed, so I hold him up myself.