I found out I had COVID on Saturday, the 18th of December. I knew I had an ear infection, I had it since Tuesday and it wasn't getting any better. I had worked the day before and should have been at work on Saturday, but I felt worse and worse, no better. When the doctor told me I had COVID, I started to cry. My only thought was for my sweet boy. The doctor asked me if I lived with anyone; I answered yes, my dog. She saw my tears and acknowledged them: there were reports that COVID was linked to increase cases of myocarditis in dogs, and told me to wear a mask around him and avoid kissing him or letting him kiss me. I said I had symptoms since Tuesday, and there would be germs all over my apartment regardless.
I called my boss sobbing, again worried for my colleagues I had exposed the day prior but mostly for my dog, Samson. I was so worried. I told him that if anything happened to my dog, I wasn't going to know what to do. Little did I know how those words would echo later.
On 12/22, I finally started to feel better. My apartment was a mess, and I needed to give Samson a haircut. I sprayed Lysol around my apartment and then set to work grooming Samson that evening. I gave him breaks in between my shaving, combing, and cutting. When I was done, he began running around the apartment, panting. I was very concerned. Grooming could be stressful, but I had essentially groomed Sammie every day for twelve years. He was used to it. I held him, tried to get him to eat and drink. Everything to that point had been normal--he'd been eating, drinking, voiding, and stooling that very day. I showed my mom on facetime, I was concerned. Then suddenly the panting changed. My baby sounded like he was drowning--it was if I could hear the crackles in his lungs audibly, I could suddenly feel it beneath my palms. I got very quiet, threw my clothes on, grabbed by wallet and keys, and put Sammie in his carrier. I got an uber to the emergency vet, it took two minutes--and then I handed the man at the desk my baby, stating he couldn't breathe. He rushed him upstairs.
I waited there for over two hours. I sat in a sterile exam room, and it was so quiet aside from the sound of my sniffling. My face was wet beneath my mask, my tears rolled down my neck in silence. I texted my mom, Amanda, Christina. My boss. The vet gave me two estimates, I signed everything and said please do what you need to. He said Samson had cardiomegaly on film, which he'd had earlier in the year, and that he was now in congestive heart failure and should be home in one to two days. He warned me that the medication, lasix and vetmedin, could cause a fatal arrhythmia. It wasn't common. He told me to leave and that they'd call in the morning. I asked if I could see him one last time, give him a kiss. They said no, he was in ICU, he was on oxygen. All I could do was leave his gray barefoot dreams blankey for him, the one with the elephants that he had laid on so many times before.
I always have my phone on silent. I put the volume up, turned off the sleep focus. I crawled into bed exhausted, but I couldn't sleep at first. An hour later, what felt like forever, my phone went off. It was the vet. Could I come? He had no blood pressure, he was coughing up blood. I couldn't think. I threw on clothes, grabbed once more my keys and wallet, and ubered a ride to the vet. Pleading with the driver silently to go faster, go faster. I went up in the elevator, alone. I was guided to my child. My sweet Samson. He was in a floor cage with oxygen being pumped inside, he was hooked up to tele. A drip of what I think was dobutamine was steadily infusing thru his peripheral iv. He was on his side, pink tinged ooze on the chuck beneath his head. His eyes were open, but he wasn't blinking. He wasn't wagging his tail. He had no energy. Each breath was a horrible, ragged rush from his open jaws. I threw off my coat and purse onto the floor and sat beside him, stroking him. The vet explained that this is the point he would normally intubate and put him on a ventilator, but that they didn't have one there and he was too unstable for transport in all likelihood. I couldn't make sense of what was before me. I said let me hold him, he is suffering. The vet asked if I wanted time with him alone before they put him to sleep, and motioned to a dog bed on the exam table. I said no, he was suffering, and could I please hold him. I held him in my arms as I cradled the oxygen mask around his face, he was too weak to shut his eyes as it rubbed against them in the mask, and his face was just smashed inside. The tech took it from me and held it, I think she understood silently. The vet administered first the sedation, a flush, then the final medication. Samson's tiny legs jerked. And I just held him and told him that I loved him so much, that he was going to sleep and that I loved him so very much, not to be afraid. I love you.
After that, after he listened with the stethoscope and said he was gone--a thing I'd seen in the pediatric icu at my job so many, many, many times--he took me downstairs into a room for dead animals and their grieving owners. A box of tissue, a memory book, fake candles powered by batteries. I had my baby in my arms and his blanket wrapped around him. I kissed his little head, his nose. I cleaned around his nose and chin with the blanket, softly. I told him I loved him so much. I took in every part of him one last time. I even took two pictures, because I knew everything felt like a dream, a horrible awful play, and that I'd need them later to understand he'd left and gone to Heaven. The clerk dropped off the papers for his cremation, and I signed them with him in my arms. And then after more than an hour, I rang a bell, and a man took my baby from me for the last time.
I used to pray to God that I'd get to leave this earth before my baby. I wanted to be spared the pain, but it wasn't fair. I needed to take care of him always, and he had to be the one to go first. I know this now, that was such a selfish wish. I never got to see him get old. He was never incontinent, or had difficulties walking. He was my angel boy, and then he wasn't. Or he was an actual angel baby.
Being in this apartment without him is so difficult. It is so quiet. There is just absence, and it is deafening--no tiny nails and paws padding on the wood floor, no drinking from the water bowl, no barking at the sounds in hallway. No making room for him every place I sit or lay. No tiny face and nose sniffing beneath blankets to awaken me in the morning, no baby zooming in beneath the covers up against my chest every morning. No little one poking out from beneath the couch as I say ready for bed?
Looking back at all of my photos and videos, his joy is so evident and palpable. I have never looked so genuinely happy as I do in the photos with him. He made me laugh, belly laughs, so many times every day. He loved unconditionally, and he knew me in a way I don't even think I know myself.
I love him every moment of the day. I talk to him often. Being separated is truly the hardest thing I have experienced, and I've had my share of experiences. I pray to God that one day I'll get to go to Heaven and we will be reunited at last.
Samson, thank you. I love being your mommy and I will love you forever. Thank you so much for the twelve years of joy and love and contentment in being with my soulmate. I will never forget you, ever.
