Monthly Archives: November 2024

Farewell, NCL.

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It’s been two weeks. It feels like forever since I’ve seen him. My brain won’t let me think about him without a crushing weight on my chest. I dread mornings. How can he not be here when I wake up. Grief constantly tries to be the very worst version of itself. I still cannot write about him. About how perfect he was. But I thought maybe I would do my last post about living with NCL.

For Doug, it began when he’d do his normal dog shake. Mid shake, his eyes would roll back into his head, and he’d lower to the ground. Sometimes he’d tip over. I’d run over to help him get back up. Eventually he’d be back up before I got to him. He acclimated every step of the way. He never gave up. I will always wish he didn’t have to do that. We don’t deserve dogs. They are just too perfect.

Doug was diagnosed the fall of 2019. He lived five years with NCL. His body was much stronger in 2019. I don’t even remember that part of our life anymore.

At the end of our journey with NCL…

  1. He needed me to get around. He couldn’t always get back up, so I helped him. He could no longer do steps. But he never stopped trying. When I was home, I was always near him. I didn’t want him to feel like he was alone. I wanted to be there for anything he needed. 
  2. His Help’em up Harness was a true lifesaver. I was able to lift him into the car with it. I used it to get him up and down the steps, and the best part about that harness was, he believed he was doing it. My little superhero, Always chasing joy.
  3. He could no longer walk in a straight line. He would have failed a field sobriety test. He walked like he was on a boat, in an angry sea. The perfect metaphor for NCL.
  4. It was hard for him to stand and eat and drink, he kept falling over. So I brought his water to him. And I hand fed him his meals. NCL continued to break the communication between his brain and his body.
  5. His head bobbed, a lot. Every time he sniffed the fire hydrant, his head would bob into it. The universe can be so cruel sometimes. This little creature that never hurt anyone.
  6. He got disoriented. His vision declined. I was his beacon.
  7. Summer heat made every symptom worse. I’m happy he made it to fall.
  8. His shitty hind legs made most things harder. This list reads like Doug was old. But he was only eight.
  9. And then he stopped eating. Twice. That was, the beginning of the end.

But Doug got up every day wagging his tail. He traveled through life with a lot of determination. He trusted me to get him through his days safely, and he forgave me when it got bumpy. He continued to love with his whole heart. His big beautiful, giant heart.

This is true about all the dogs in our NCL family. They never give up. They never stop trying. And neither do their families. We are always and forever, #nclfamily 🩵

Doug had NCL symptoms for the majority of his life. I am starting to realize that he and I moved sideways though our journey with NCL. Losing a little more ground each passing month. We were dedicated to living in the moment. In a lot of ways, the end snuck up on us. In a lot of ways, it didn’t. I can’t remember Doug without NCL. People say he’s running and playing now. But I don’t have that same vision. The moments that Doug and I shined brightest, were not during the running and playing years. They were in the holding each other up years. I want him to be running and playing, but I also want to be holding him and caring for him. Because that was the bulk of our life together. And that breaks my heart in ways I will be never be able to put into words here.

The night we said goodbye (at home), after they had given him the sedative, everyone commented on how relaxed he was. How comfortable his body looked. And it was true, he was more relaxed than I had ever seen him. I don’t know if you will understand this, but my heart broke permanently in that moment because I realized just how much of a struggle NCL had been for him. How our love had grown under such a heavy weight. A weight Doug would thankfully leave behind, but I might always feel. In that moment, we both surrendered to NCL.

Check on your friends who are caretakers for someone. I’m pretty sure they feel like they are not doing enough, and they feel guilty for being tired, and they are watching someone they love, disappear.

Of course there was one thing NCL had no power over. Our beautiful love. That’s a story for another day though. ❤️

I miss Doug.

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Doug has been gone a little over a week. It honestly feels like a hundred years. I can’t write about him. Not yet. A tribute to Doug deserves grace and gratitude. All I feel right now is burning heartache. But I do want to write a little about grief. To normalize being heartbroken over a dog. 

There are days I can’t stop crying. I’m crying right now. My first day back to work, I spent most of the day crying in my office. I also cried in the bathroom. And in the elevator. I cried so much I made other people cry. I can’t drive with music on. I can somehow make every song about Doug. I was sobbing at a traffic light and looked over to the car next to me and a woman mouthed: I’m sorry. She gets it. I sleep with Doug’s ashes next to me and his harness clutched in my hands. He’s in a giant wooden box that cuts into my chest. If I wake up in the middle of the night for any reason (probably because of the giant wooden box in my bed), I am officially up for the rest of the day and crying because it’s another day without Doug. Doug’s box is bigger than Melvin‘s was. I’m not good at ashes math, but I really don’t see how that’s possible. But I am 100% certain it’s Doug, and here’s why. Doug had two extensive leg surgeries. His legs were a lot of hardware. That hardware came back to me with his ashes. A bag of screws and bolts and plates. There were bits of bone still stuck to the screws. I’m not sure what to do with that. Just one of the million things that makes no sense to me anymore. Like living without Doug. 

My schedule, was Doug. My internal clock is still set to Doug. My Olympic gold would be won in checking the camera to see how Doug is doing when I’m away from him. I am alarmed at how many times during the day I unknowingly pick up my phone to look at those cameras. I truly was his stalker. I still am. But he’s not there anymore.   

I cleaned out the refrigerator. It was full of food that I bought to try and get Doug to eat. There were three Wendy’s cheeseburgers. I sobbed on the floor after I put them in the trash. I may have to navigate my entire life around never seeing a Wendy’s again. 

The first few days I couldn’t be anywhere in my house. Why would I be in a room without Doug? But I also didn’t want to leave the house. I’m a homebody. Doug is my home. His stuff is still out. It’s not bothering anyone. If it was bothering someone, I would just tell that person to leave. The runways are still down. Those will be the hardest for me. I worry taking them up suggests they were in the way. But he was never a burden. 

I had promised Doug that if he stopped eating again, I would not get frantic and try force feed him. He stopped eating again. I thought about how easy it would be to say F it, you have to eat. But Doug had made the decision to stop doing the thing that he loved the most, twice in the past few months. This wasn’t a blip. This wasn’t something I could fix. He was tired. His light was dimming. He was asking me to stay true to my promise that I made to him on the very first day we met and said hello. That I would measure his life in joy, not time, and that I would never waiver on that promise. I tried to bargain some years off my life to give Doug more time. Apparently my request was denied. There was so much more life I wanted to live with him. There were a million more moments I wanted to just be present with him. There was so much more love. Me and him and our simple, beautiful life. 

I will end this post with the best piece of grief advice I’ve ever gotten: you don’t ever have to get over this loss. 

I don’t ever have to get over losing Doug. I couldn’t if I tried.