What Have I Done?

It’s over! The surgery is over and Duncan is fine. He’s sleeping with the help of some tranquilizers and morphine, which I imagine is going to irritate his kidney condition. Well, there goes the welcome home keg idea. We’ll have to stick with water.

Dropping Duncan off this morning was the most emotional part of the whole thing. The Hospital was very busy, especially for a rainy holiday. Patients were all abuzz about the “tornado” making it’s way from Huntington Beach to Anaheim. By tornado I think they mean, “wind.” It was a really bad storm that passed through. I wondered if the hospital had a generator. Thoughts passed through my mind of power outages during the operation. Or a mix-up in which Duncan accidentally gets an appendectomy. I only met with one of the office workers. I broke down in tears when I handed him over still wondering if this was the right thing to do. He’s 13!! He has kidney disease! He looked at me with so much trust and love. I think he was trying to comfort me. And I left him there to have a limb amputated. Will he hate me? Will he ever trust me again? Should he?

I cried in my car again. I’m starting to care less if I have big, black mascara streaks running down my face. But today, I was meeting my friend Bob at a mall in Beverly Hills (near the hospital). We needed to catch up and I needed to distract myself from reality. So I pulled out the makeup bag I brought with me and doctored my swollen face. It’s make-up, not magic. I did what I could and went into the just-opening mall. For some reason, I bought an obscene amount of moisturizer today. I don’t know why. Peppermint, Brazil nut, unscented, coconut, and a hair moisturizer. Maybe I feel dried out because I’ve cried so much. I wonder how many gallons of tears I’ve shed in the last 4 weeks? Maybe I just need a layer of something oily between me and reality. Like a protective shell. Turtle Wax, if you will, for the soul.

At 10:30, I meet Bob and we head for CPK pizza. Comfort food! At 11:30, Dr Owens (Dr Tuna) calls. We never really resolved if we were doing an amputation or not. We discuss. IF there is any way to get a fair margin AND leave the leg, that would be preferable. Also, if the CT scan shows any sign of cancer or disease other than the tumor, then don’t bother putting him through this. She agrees and heads off to consult again with Dr Creitin, the oncologist. At 1pm, she calls again. They COULD leave the leg and do radiation instead. I can’t accept this plan. Duncan’s kidneys can’t take too much sedative and radiation would require him to be put under every day for a week, or something like that. And I have very personal issues with radiation because of my Mom. That’s another blog for another day. So, here I am on the phone with the surgeon who is asking me again if I am sure I want to do the amputation. I almost changed my mind. Will I regret not calling her back? As I was trying to distract myself with the Spring 1 collection at the Gap (I don’t even remember what was there), I almost changed my mind. I thought to myself, “If I call right now I can catch her before she goes in.” Like a clemency from the governor at 11:59. And I let it go. I didn’t call. I left them take his leg. And right now I feel like that makes me a bad person.

At 2:30, I was sitting in the middle of the mall. I was tired and worried and the stores have bad reception and I was terrified of missing a call. I wished I could be home or at least somewhere more private. But LA is weird that way. I live 15 miles away, but it will take 1.5 hours to get there. And I wanted to be close in case anything happened. But the call came. Duncan is fine. It’s all over. Duncan is a tripod.

I felt the weight of 4 weeks of research and buckets of tears lifted. He made it. Dr Owen said he might get to come home Tuesday night. That would be great! He’d probably recover better at home anyway! I thanked her profusely. When I got home, it started to sink in. He’s not there. And the house felt so empty in spite of the fact hat Paxton was there waiting to be petted. I would hear creaks in the floor and look up thinking Duncan would saunter over. But as happy as I am that he is ALIVE, there are challenges ahead. I won’t hear a 4/4-time pattern to his footsteps. He will walk to the tune of a waltz. He will need help getting around. He won’t be able to jump to/from some places like he used to. Our lives are forever changed. And I realize that all those words that the vets said, “animals are so adaptable,” that doesn’t include humans. Because there is so much change ahead. And I for one don’t like it. And I for one don’t know if I can adapt.

What have I done?