Anxiety and the road trip aka saying goodbye to a friend

Once upon a time I thought I was tough and strong and considered myself a survivor.  Things happened. I saw and did things working in the death field, my mom died, my dad shot himself and I found him, and several of my dogs had to be put down for different health reasons over the same decade.  Somewhere in there I think I broke. Or maybe I was already broken and it was my shell that dissolved.  I still try so hard to be strong for people. I remember I had volunteered for some cases that no one would ever want but something inside me made me feel protective and that I should shield someone else from that tragedy.  I am appalled at myself at the amount of anxiety and fear that I feel on a regular basis.  I am always wanting to know where my loved ones are. Not to be controlling but to “know” they are ok.  I am the same with my dogs. I can play the “what if” game as well if not better than anyone else.  I can be about to explode – or implode –  yet seem just fine on the outside.  I have to be able to do that because many of my circle do not believe or understand my anxiety and fear.  Most of my “inner” circle do, but even then, not fully… unless sadly they too feel it too. 

Recently one of my childhood friends died. I had known her since I was 5.  When her mother called me, she asked if I would speak at her memorial service.  I knew that 2 other friends had been asked and neither could bring themselves to do it. I understand that. I really do. I do not hold that against them. I can’t say that I “wanted” to speak either. I do not like attention. I like to blend into the back and tend to OVER USE humor as a defense when I really want to scream or cry.  My response to my friend’s mother??? It was “of course I will, I would be honored to do so” and I meant it and it was a true statement but I thought to myself, how am I going to do this? I wrote out what I would say. I told myself I have to do this because they can’t and if I can, then I can protect them from the pain it causes to do it. It was the farthest I had driven in a long time, especially by myself.  It was physically painful but I am use to that.  I got up there, and I spoke.  I told my stories of my time with my friend.  People came up to me and thanked me and said it was good.  I was glad because I did not want to dishonor my friend’s mother or memory. I talked with people at the reception and was strong.  Then I got back in my car, put on the radio to sing myself home just like the ride there and it seemed like no matter the play list, every other song wanted to make me cry. I had to skip over many songs so I would not bawl all the way home. 

DAMAGE TO MY SOUL

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how the job affected me in addition to life experiences in general.  I have never handled loss well, but then again I have been losing people I care about since a young age.  I watched my grandfather die from metastatic cancer in my childhood home. I lost a good friend to a savage serial killer in my early teens. It just seems that my husband, our kids and myself have all lost so many people over the years.  Even my kids are no stranger to such loss. Losing many of their friends in car accidents. Losing my mother unexpectedly and my father to suicide by gunshot. It was me who found him. In a sad twist of fate, I worked over 15 suicides in the year before and year after my dad’s suicide and most of them were of course by gunshot. The cases after my dad’s death often caused me flashbacks and made it very difficult for me to get/keep the image of my dad out of my head. It benefited the family members of the suicides to hear my story and that I had been through what they were now experiencing but it did not help me to keep retelling my story. So why did I?  Because in my heart I had to do what was right and if my story and my pain could help these people, then I felt I needed to do it. 

What I am going to say next will not make sense to some people, but losing my dogs over the years has been extremely traumatic to me as well.  I have been there for each death, but one. I held them until they were gone so they did not have to go alone.  The one I did not attend, my husband and oldest daughter did. I just couldn’t handle it at the time. Since that time, it has not gotten any easier.  I came to depend on my dogs for emotional support. I have issues trusting people, because people let you down, they tell your secrets, they ridicule you when they do not understand you and dogs do not do any of those things.  They just love you and appreciate every minute of attention you give back.  When my Bailey began having seizures, and the medications stopped working, we knew we did not have a choice.  Nothing could stop the seizures that day and when it was time to put her to sleep, I lay nose to nose with her. I sobbed uncontrollably for some time after that and wondered if I could love another dog. As I written about her before, next came my boy Bishop and now my baby girl Tessa. I admit I get extremely anxious when I am away from my dogs. As I type this now, Tessa is snuggled up to my side and snoring loudly.  A sound I find comforting, just as I find my husband’s snoring comforting too. Earlier, I saw a dog video on Facebook about a dog and it made me cry and my boy Bishop heard me, came and put his paw on me and licked my tears. Dogs know. And they just want to make it better.

I have never dealt with loss well and I realize now the job did a number on me because I feel like all the kids and loved ones I had worked on and investigated became a part of me and at the same time took a piece of me. I now live in fear. Every minute of every day I fear someone I love will be taken from me. It creates an incredible anxiety, one I can’t put into words right now but it makes me panic, sometimes it makes it hard to breathe, I need to know my loved ones are ok. Sometimes in my anxiety I start physically/emotionally reliving the trauma of my past losses. I can’t remember where I put my car keys or what I went to the market for but I can remember clearly the moments of losing my loved ones. Sometimes in my nightmares I relive the moments. There have been times when I watch a really scary movie or read a book before bed hoping to dream about anything else, but it has always been this way. Nightmares every night. Some are as simple as just having a bad day but almost always there are the ones where I lose people. Watching the news before bed just makes it worse. I have tried journaling my nightmares but it is so hard to put them into words.  It is not for lack of a large vocabulary, it is just that the words do not do justice to the feelings and even when I write the feelings they do not seem to go with the actions, but in my head they did.  Some have suggested I have some traumatic head noise from the job. Yeah, I would think so. I can’t put into words what it does to the soul to do an autopsy on a child, or worse a baby.  As a mother it was just awful to have to literally cut up someone’s baby.  Then also to see what people do to each other. There is a sickness sweeping this nation, this world, where people are hurting each other, hurting children, elderly, animals and even themselves for no purpose and I do not understand. I know that if I had to fight someone for my life or theirs, I could do it. I could do it for someone I love too, but it is not something I would chose to do, the other person would have to leave me no choice but to fight to survive. Now I have to rebuild my trust in people but I don’t know how long or what that will take considering what I have seen and experienced. 

UPDATE ON MY FUR BABY

08/02/2016

Update on my baby girl Tessa.  After a couple weeks of antibiotics and liver supplements, her liver enzyme count is down in the normal range.  Unfortunately, we have been unable to determine what caused the event or find a way to have her tested to find out. We hope it was something out of the ordinary and random, and not one of the many types of critters she chases on a regular basis. She has shown no fear of bees and tried to get one moving slow on the ground just days after the event, but I caught her and got rid of the bee before she could snack on it.

I was trying to get a nice shot of her cute face but she turned into a one eyed selfie!! 

She has regained her strength and most of her energy.  She just wants to be outside watching for lizards and birds to come into the area she has access to.  We are allowing her more and more outside time unsupervised but none at night as that is when the spiders are out and more of the odd bugs. She is so happy all the time and I am doing my best to protect her without stifling her natural instincts or play drive. 

Here she is resting on the blanket she took over from me... she was wearing a thunder shirt when I took it because there were big scary trucks paving our street that day!! FYI Thunder shirts do help!! The shirt belonged to our Maggie who was afraid of loud noises and especially thunder, and now we know it helps Tessa when needed!!! 

EXPERIENCING FEAR AND HEARTACHE AS A FUR MOM

June 1, 2016… middle of the night

Trying to write a little something on my older laptop because I did not want to have to disconnect the external hard drive and the thumb drives from my shiny new laptop so I could write in my recliner instead of sit at my writing desk…. So it only took about 45 minutes to get to this point because my old laptop runs Vista. Yes I know that is soooo old. Just like my iPhone 4 but I just ordered a new phone and later today, after a nap known as bedtime, I will be switching that over. Rambling, something I do so well and oh too much! I have the tv on and one of my favorite movies “IT” running as some background noise. It is amazing how many things I think to write about when I am driving, doing dishes, waiting for the new dog to potty, but I will be dang if I can think of something worthy to write about when I actually sit down to write. My main problem is that I over think everything.

I am wearing a pair of shorts that have a big hole in the thigh. My husband can’t understand why I won’t throw them out. But you see, that hole was put there by my previous dog Bailey. She was a rescue pit mix, who came with a damaged paw which happened sometime before she had been found on the streets. We adopted her from a rescue shelter. She was a sweetheart and so loving. She came to me at a time when I really needed some emotional support. She slept with me and would get in the recliner with me and such. She had this thing about chewing up my clothes and my stuff.  No one else’s, just mine. She would take my stuff and put it on her bed. She was such a funny little girl. So sweet and such a stinker when I would try to make the bed. She would roll around on the bed making it almost impossible to put the clean sheets on, then when I got some of the bedding on she would lay down and refuse to move even if I covered her with the other bedding.  We paid $25.00 in fees at the shelter when we got her but built a $1200.00 fence to protect her! She was worth every penny!

When I would come home from work she would somehow know exactly what I needed emotionally. Play, snuggle, or lick my tears as my emotions of the day overwhelmed me. She loved going for car rides and meeting people.  I have a photo of her sticking her face out the driver side window at a drive thru because she was sure the girl was talking to HER! We did not know what to expect the first time she was around small kids, but she impressed us all with her gentleness!

She suddenly developed seizures and medication helped for a few weeks but then she just started seizing over and over and we took her into the animal ER and they could not stop them.  I lay nose to nose on floor with her as the life left her.  I stared straight into her eyes and let her know she was not alone.  It broke my heart. She was not even 3 years old.

July 02, 2016    afternoon

Oddly enough I wrote the last post about a month ago, and yet here I am wearing those shorts again.  I cannot part with them.  The shirt I am wearing looks like it was attacked by hungry moths however the holes are from my boy pup nibbling on my shirt.  That is what he does when he is feeling needy. He snuggles up against my side and nibbles my shirt or shorts. Needless to say that is why I don’t wear my good clothes just lounging around the house.

When I lost my pup Bailey, I did not know how I could ever open my heart to another new dog. But then our Shepherd who was now without a canine companion was so sad she didn’t want to eat or play, so we knew we needed to get another dog.  We again went to the shelter, and found our boy Bishop who was the last of his litter left behind.  Poor little guy had been taken away from his mom, watched all his siblings go away and had been fixed. He looked so sad and scared and I understood. 

We brought him home and he began to heal our hearts. He was also a pit mix and had a similar personality to our Bailey.  He loved to get in our laps (while he was still little) and sleep between us, and has to have his blanket. Poor little guy had managed to get kennel cough so bad in the couple of days he was at the shelter that it took 2 months and almost a thousand dollars to get him, our shepherd and my daughter’s dog who is hear a lot, to get better. He thought all car rides led to a shelter or vet and did NOT want to get into the car for rides.  Not too long after we got him, I was taken out of the field because of my physical pain and limitations. Bishop and I became so bonded being home together….

When we got Bishop, we knew our shepherd was getting older and having several health problems. We knew our time with her was growing shorter, but having a puppy around gave her a reason to get up and around more – she knew she needed to teach the new guy the ropes. It didn’t take long at all to realize Bishop had so much energy, more than our Maggie could possibly match and we knew the right thing to do was to get him a companion more his speed. We rescued Tessa, having been told she was a lab/pit mix, but we knew from looking at her she had no pit in her.  Not that we would care if she did, but it was obvious that she didn’t.  She had this big floppy ears and we did not know if she would grow into them. She was thin and we could see her ribs. It was heartbreaking! We were told the litter she belonged to was all just abandoned there at the shelter and she and her tiny sister were the last of the them. They had been there over a month. We chose her by her personality. She really wanted to see us and was so friendly.  With her appetite we knew it wouldn’t be long before she put some weight on.  And spunky she was! She drove our poor old Maggie a bit crazy but even at 15lbs she was ready to go and play with Bishop. She was not intimidated by the fact she was so little. It wasn’t long before they were best buddies and running and playing and having a great time. Maggie was happy to supervise from the sidelines aka the couch, however just having them around lifted Maggie’s spirits and ours. Bishop had moved from our bed to one of the recliners in our room shortly before we got Tessa.  She instantly took to sleeping in our bed and has ever since.  Her spot was between my husband and me, spooned up against my back with her little puppy nose on my neck. It turns out her little puppy breath on my neck is a great remedy for my anxiety.

** I fell asleep before I could finish this entry…. 

July 15, 2016

As fate would have it, a week later my darling Tessa, just over a year old came in from about 20 minutes outside late one night and kept licking her paw. I couldn’t see anything wrong with her paw and she went down the hall, I assumed to climb in bed with my sleeping husband – as she usually does at night. I happened to go into the bedroom a few minutes later and found her laying on a towel that was on the floor (from a spill) and she had vomited her dinner and pooped. I called to my husband because she would not get up and seemed a little out of it.  He said she was wobbly when he tried to get her to stand up. I went outside to see if there was a snake (we have had 2 previous dog v snake episodes) but I couldn’t find anything.  We called our regular vet, who was in an emergency surgery on someone else’s loving pet so we had to drive to the emergency animal hospital a bit further away.  Although Tessa was lethargic and “out of it” during the ride, when I finally broke and started to sob “don’t leave me” as I was trying to pet her and steady her as she was standing next to my seat, she still had the dedication to turn her head to me and try to lick my tears.  When we told of her symptoms upon arrival, the doc said it sounded like anaphylactic shock. Further examination and labs confirmed it.  Her liver enzymes were almost 1100 when less than 150 is the normal.  She was given several medications and admitted for IV fluids and observation overnight.  I was devastated to leave her.  I couldn’t even go into to see her because I knew my sobbing would upset her more.  My husband, ever my strength, went in and said she was standing and wagging her tail.  He took her one of her favorite blankets. I sobbed all the way home. It felt like I was reliving what we went through with my Bailey.  When we got home, her companion Bishop was very confused as to where his mate was. None of us really slept. We went back to the emergency vet at 6 am. Tessa was weak but happy to see us and ready to go home.  We had taken Bishop with us so he wouldn’t be left home alone and he was so happy to see her.

She is slowly acting more like herself but she does not have near the energy.  That is most likely due to the fact today’s vet recheck and labs show that her liver enzymes are still over 800.  Of course that is down from the near 1100 they were during the event but again less than 150 is the desired/normal number.  She has been placed on some medications to help her recover and hopefully bring her liver count down.  We have been keeping the dog door closed and monitoring all outside ventures.  Of course as she gains her strength back, she is going right back to chasing anything that moves.  She had caught a bird last week. It must have been flying low because she caught by the leg, somehow killed it then looked at me when I found her and acted like she did not know what to do with it! She has trapped and a killed kangaroo rat, gopher, the bird, and a lizard. I obviously can keep her inside under watchful eye forever but I will do my best to watch her well while her liver recovers and her numbers get back to normal.  We also we prescribed a “ready to go” syringe of epinephrine, which I have taped to the cupboard door next to the emergency vet info. Doc wants new labs in 2 weeks. She is bouncing back pretty well and without complaint.  She would seem normal to the unknowing observer, but to us we know she is a lot less active than her normal self.

Fatigue has set in and I must post before I fall asleep on my laptop again!!