Dog Medicine (18 page)

F
EBRUARY
1997

I called my mom, who was aware of the potential diagnosis, and after her usual singsong hello, came the avalanche of my distress. “Mom,” I said, “that vet was right. This one said the same thing. They said Bunker's so malformed that he won't be able to walk in a year if we don't do something.” She took a sharp intake of breath and then was silent. My shock became hers, and her quiet felt collusive. This was bad. Really bad. Not what we had planned at all. She quietly asked what I wanted to do, and I told her that there was only the option of surgery. That was all. No other. I didn't mention the price tag, and I made an excuse to get off the phone. I knew she was worried about Bunker, but I also knew she worried that I would become depressed again.

As was my habit, I went to my room, closed the door, and cried. I imagined ways to escape and avoid, moment by moment, these terrible fears. I listened to music, tried to sleep, ate a box of chocolate chip cookies, and watched out the window as cars, buses, and people went by, their lives far better than mine. I was the only one so lost and scared and confused. I was the only one who needed a dog to survive. Clay would laugh at me if he knew.

My sense of isolation was all-encompassing. I still couldn't fully recognize that I had control over my thoughts, that if I were able to see the negative self-talk, I could choose something else. I would not notice that I had a choice whether I told myself, time and again, that I was the only one this weird, this wrong, this weak. I was the only one I knew who was unstable enough to
need psychiatric intervention. I hadn't found a therapist in Seattle yet, but I knew that I needed one. I promised myself I would call Aurora and ask for a recommendation. I stayed in my room hiding until late into that night. Dark, quiet corners were best. I curled up there, feeling safe alone. Bunker seemed weak now too, settling in right beside me.

Melissa came home from work late, and I stayed in my bedroom. She wasn't mad anymore about my not showing up for her at the airport. I told her about Jason, that I'd had raunchy sex with him and felt awful about it. She put together that the night of my one-night stand was also the night I abandoned her at the airport. Her frustration created a distance between us that was real enough that it broke my heart a little, set off the negative voices in my head:
You're such a shitty friend. No wonder you've never had a best friend until now. And look how you treat her.

I stayed in my room, reeling from the surgeon's concurrent diagnoses. Bunker and I lay on the bed together. From the ceiling, we must've looked like two halves of a heart. His hind legs were curled into his stomach, his front paws resting on my chest. His head curled into my neck, my nose on his forehead. When he stretched and his eyes met mine, I imagined he felt sorry. He was hurting, and he needed me. He knew that I needed him too, but he was not able to do his important work. In his few short months of life, he'd been pure happiness and goodness. How could pain sprout in his body? I cried and imagined that all the pain and blackness Bunker took out of me was finally showing up in him.

Then there was a knock on the door. I stopped my weeping and sat up, whispering, “Shit, shit, shit.” Bunker hopped to the floor and stretched, wagging his tail. I snatched a tissue and wiped my face, wishing I'd locked the door as it opened slowly. I could see Melissa's hand, her long, elegant fingers and pretty fingernails, way healthier than my gnawed nubs. She looked at me and I held
my breath, trying my very best to look okay, but she saw right through that effort, and I burst into a sob.

None of the roommates knew the extent of my terrible year in New York, of my breakdown or my diagnosis, and I wanted to keep it that way. I wasn't a depressed or sick person to them. I wasn't someone who ruined friendships and didn't show up and cried too often. Before Jason, I'd reinvented myself in Seattle as someone fun, responsible, thoughtful, and smart. But I felt like I was tricking all of them and now the façade of a put-together person was cracking, and they'd see who I really was: a terrible person, a royal fuck-up, a crazy-dog-lady who believed that if her dog died, she would too.

I couldn't hold in the sobs. “Honey!” Melissa said. She closed the door quietly behind her and came and sat down on the bed next to me. “What's wrong? What happened?” What was remarkable about this moment was that, in her voice, there was no trace of
What's wrong with you?
There was an absence of judgment.

“Bunker's sick,” I fumbled. “Well, he's not really sick. He's broken.” My voice cracked and I burst into another mucky sob. I hated how familiar this felt. But Melissa sat with me, quietly, peacefully, not yet tired of my tears.

“What do you mean, broken?” she asked, and when I looked at her, I saw tears in her eyes, too. Amidst the avalanche of relief that came at this sight, I leaned across the bed and hugged her and we cried together. We sank down to the floor and sat on either side of Bunker, our hands stroking his resting body. I told her about his hip dysplasia, how severe it was, how it explained why he couldn't climb stairs sometimes. Tears dripped down her cheeks and she petted Bunker's ribs, still soft with silky red puppy fur.

“So what do we do?” she asked, and in that moment I felt, for the first time in my life, that I really did have a real best friend. She could've said, “So what are
you
going to do?” but she didn't. She said “we.”

I didn't have the words then to say what this meant to me, how much gratitude I felt that she intended to fight this battle with me, that she cared so much about me and my boy. And I don't think the leap to our deep, abiding friendship would've been nearly as quick had she not forgiven me for my idiocy that snowy night and had we not shared deep love for this wise, little, old-soul of a dog. I loved Bunker. Melissa loved him too, which made me love her more.

In the kitchen that night, I told Chris about Bunker's diagnosis. Something in me wanted to stop myself from showing the deep distress I felt. I worried that everything would change if I let the men in the house see my weaknesses. They would see me as someone with crazy problems. To say I was averse to men having a negative opinion of me would be a gross understatement. I was terrified, but trying my best not to show it.

I watched Chris put his hand on his mouth as I spoke, and I hugged him back when he pulled me in saying, “Oh, Jul, I'm so sorry.” As if he could hear my thoughts, Chris said, “You doing the surgery then?” Bunker's demise was simply not an option. I smiled, another ally in my corner, and said, “Yep. I'll sell lemonade on the curb and get two more jobs if I have to.”

Chris clapped his hands together and smiled. “Let's raise some money,” he said, in his indomitable way, his spirit so lively and energetic, his athletic, six-foot frame bouncing, his gestures deep and wide. He rubbed his hands back and forth cooking up a plan. Chris was a man unafraid, undeterred by any potential judgment—and I nearly cried as he stood before me planning what he'd already called
The Bunker Kegger
. “How much do we need?” he asked.

“Four thousand.” I squeezed my eyes closed, opened one to peek at Chris's reaction to this gargantuan amount of money.

“Whoa. Okay.” I felt engulfed by doubt, ready for the quiet
you're on your own
passivity of the average, defeated, not-my-problem kind of guy. But Chris said, “Well, gotta start somewhere. We'll have a
keg, put a bucket next to it with Bunk's picture, ask for donations. And we'll invite everyone. I swear, people will each give you at least twenty bucks.” My tears began again. “A hundred people, $20 each, two parties. BOOM! We're all set.” I laughed and cried. Chris handed me a dishtowel for my tears and grabbed a pen off the counter. BUNKER KEGGER he wrote on the refrigerator calendar. “Next weekend good?” he said. I nodded and he hugged me again.

I was sitting at the dining room table late that night, looking at my laptop and trying, for the first time, to access this thing people called the Internet. I was trying to sell bootlegged copies of the Halloween Ani DiFranco concert I'd attended at The Paramount Theater. I asked for $10 a tape, and a few people on Ani's fan e-mail list ordered them. Melissa and Chris were already in bed, and Greg came in the front door. We made real, sustained eye contact, the first time since the Jason fiasco. My stomach sank when our eyes met.

He put his backpack on the futon, sat down, and unlaced his shoes. I didn't say anything. He came to the table, sat down in the chair next to mine, and said, “I heard.” I kept my eyes on the laptop, trying to hold back tears. I missed him. I missed his touch, his kiss, his kindness. But, right now, I knew I didn't deserve him. “Chris told me on the phone. Four thousand?” he asked. The tears dripped down my cheeks, and I wanted to explode with apologies, begging Greg to forgive me. I thought of our talks in bed, our efforts to not laugh too loud as we shared stories and had begun falling in love. Why did I have to sabotage it? Why did Bunker have to be so broken?

“I'm so sorry,” I muttered. Greg went to the kitchen. I assumed he was not ready for my stupid apology. I put my head in my hands, so incredibly angry at myself. I felt something on the back of my hand. Greg had gone through the kitchen to the TV room to get a box of tissues. He handed it to me and sat back down. I looked at him, wondering if I could ever possibly be worthy of his love.

“I can loan you the money,” he said. “I have it. I've been saving money since I was a kid. I can give you the money you need to make Bunker better.”

If an earthquake had tumbled me out of my chair and down Queen Anne Hill, I would've been less moved. Greg made pennies as a grad student. He had a small stipend that he lived on. He was as broke as the rest of us, but he still offered me his savings. I shook my head. “Thank you,” I said. “That's so generous of you. You're just so amazing and kind. I can't accept it. I can't. But thank you.”

He put his hand on mine, as if he wanted to hold it, or say something. Instead he just squeezed gently, stood up, and walked upstairs to his room.

F
EBR
UARY
1997

The party was set for that next Saturday night. Greg and Chris picked up the keg and lugged it up the front stairs. Greg and I hadn't talked about Jason, but he wasn't entirely avoiding me. I assumed he needed more time to think about things, as did I. Will was still calling, but I found myself slightly less engaged by the conversations and often found ways to get off the phone quickly.

Greg and Chris pulled the keg across the living room and Bunker watched with curiosity as they lifted it into a bright-blue bucket and poured ice all around.

“Grocery store?” Melissa said. We drove to the Safeway at the top of the hill and stocked up on chips and salsa, pretzels, and M&Ms. In the checkout line at the store, Melissa said, “I got this. Put that money in the Bunker donation bucket.” I protested but she refused my money, and I stood humbled by the generosity of my friends.

I perused the magazines at the checkout stand, not reading a word, just brimming with gratitude, wondering how I had found myself in this wonderful place. Melissa said hello to the cashier and I looked out the tall window at the greenness of this city, contemplating the kindness of the average Northwestern stranger and the sweetness of the fertile air. The wind brushed the tops of the evergreens in the parking lot on top of Queen Anne Hill, and I wanted to know what the wind was telling me. Was it a warning? A sign to be prepared for the coming tragedy? Or was it the same wind in the pine grove in Ohio, the one enveloping me, telling me that despite all the trouble around me, I would be okay?

“You okay?” Melissa asked, as she put the key into the ignition of her rag-top Cabriolet. She'd had the car since high school and we joked about how we always knew she was pulling up to the house because the car sounded like a souped-up lawn mower.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Actually, I'm good. I'm really good. I'm excited about this party. I think Bunker is too.” I fought the flash of frigid dread thinking about Bunker's potential demise. My mind tripped back into the veterinary surgeon's office. I could smell the doctor's cologne mixed with the alcohol used to clean the metal tables. My heart raced, my throat constricted, as I once again considered his words, “. . . 
won't live two years without treatment. One of the worst cases we've ever seen.”

I wanted to tell Melissa how terrified I was, how desperately I needed Bunker to be okay, how I planned to jump in front of a truck if he died during surgery. Already I'd imagined scenarios of the veterinarian getting distracted, slipping with the scalpel and cutting a major artery, Bunker bleeding out onto the floor, his tongue hanging inert through his teeth. I'd pictured it all and worse. I watched my still-depressed mind develop a sinister plan. Most certainly, if Bunker didn't survive, neither would I.

People arrived at about ten. Friends from all corners of Seattle appeared at our door with cash in hand: graduate students from Greg's lab, office mates from my temp job and Chris's video editing company, Melissa's college friends and co-workers. The bucket at the center of the dining room table began filling and Bunker's happy picture in front of it was soon half hidden with dollar bills.

I stood at the table telling everyone about Bunker's diagnosis. Halfway through the night, I was overcome because we had created a circle of healing. People cared, and they showed it. They held their hands over their mouths as I explained Bunker's debilitating condition. They knelt down in front of him as he leaned against me through much of the party, and they petted his soft head. He watched us all, making eye contact, letting his mouth
fall open into a goofy smile, his long red tail feathers swishing back and forth. Bunker leaned into me as I spoke to people. I was his partner, and everyone here loved our connection.

A few hours into the gathering, Chris and I stood in the kitchen and counted the money. We had almost four hundred dollars, and he advised I hide it in my room, just for safekeeping. I slipped it in between my mattress and box spring and noticed that Bunker had retreated to his crate, his eyes bloodshot and sleepy. As if we were connected psychically, I felt a searing pain in my lower back and hip. But I didn't worry that there was something wrong with me.

He couldn't keep his eyes open as I sat down in front of the crate, noting that he was often tired too soon, too mellow and slow for a puppy. “We got you, buddy,” I said, easy tears coming again. “We'll fix this.” A moment of recognition came and I thought of my father, trying his best to help me, to fix me when I was deeply depressed. I had a glimpse of the desperation he must have felt in the face of my suffering. But I had learned from his determination that even the biggest, scariest problems almost always had a solution.