“I’m not.” I placate him while I place Lily back in her bed, where at least she’s supported by the cushiony sides. “Just watch her while I call the vet.”
When I get our veterinarian’s voicemail it dawns on me that it is now four o’clock on New Year’s Eve. I immediately dial the first animal hospital I can find a listing for, even though it’s on the west side of town. When I explain the situation, they insist I bring her in right away. If they can do anything for her, there’s a short window in which it can happen, and that window is rapidly closing.
I hang up the phone, grab an old blanket, and wrap it around my girl. I lift her carefully, and nod to Jeffrey. “Let’s go.”
In the car we hit a red light that I know to be a long red light and I burst into sobs. My choices now, as I see them, are either having a dog with wheels for hind legs or, possibly, letting her go. Without warning, without moving or standing or crouching, Lily poops into the blanket on my lap, and my sobbing becomes inconsolable. She’s dying, my baby. Right here in my lap.
The light turns green. I yell at a distracted Jeffrey to “Go!” and he steps on the gas and in the chaos I find a doggie litter bag in my jacket pocket because doggie litter bags are in all of my jacket pockets—I have a fear of being caught without them. I clean up the blanket as best I can and drop the sealed bag near my feet. I know this bothers Jeffrey, but he doesn’t say anything, and really, what other choice do I have? We both crack our windows for air.
Jeffrey makes decent time across the city, and when I see a sign that says Animal Hospital I make him stop even though the address does not match the street number I’ve scribbled down on the back of a Target receipt. I must have transposed some numbers in haste.
Inside, the waiting room is small and hot and chaotic and I worry about having a panic attack. The nurse hands us a clipboard with papers to fill out and I push it back at her and say, “There is no time for paperwork.” Jeffrey apologizes for my outburst, which annoys me, and he takes the clipboard and a pen. There is only one free chair and he takes it so he can write. I lean in an empty doorway and cradle Lily in her tattered swaddling. Soon a doctor materializes for a consultation, and when I explain the situation she tells us that we actually want the surgical hospital that’s across the street and two blocks down. Tick tock, tick tock. Precious moments wasted.
As we turn to leave, a woman who looks like the Log Lady from Twin Peaks (although I’m the one holding the log in the form of a paralyzed dachshund) grabs my arm and says, “Whatever they tell you, don’t kill your dog.” I want to tell her to fuck off, but I’m frozen speechless in my tracks and tears start to well. “She can still have a happy life if you let her.” Instantly this woman is my everything.
I nod and my eyes overflow with moisture, but Lily does not attempt to kiss my tears and the part of my brain that knows I can’t waste even another second unfreezes me and I’m out the door.
Jeffrey tears into the parking lot of the surgical center, cutting off several cars at my urging. Inside they are expecting us, the last doctor having called ahead on our behalf. A surgical technician pries Lily out of my arms and they rush her behind a swinging door. Before I can protest, she is gone. No one offers us paperwork. No one tells us to sit. No one tells me not to kill my dog. Lacking anything else to do, we stand in the middle of a large, sterile room, surrounded by anxiety and tragedy, with nothing to look at but our feet. There’s free coffee, but it’s probably awful, and I know that I can’t drink black swill when the rest of the world is sipping golden New Year’s champagne.
After a short but interminable wait we’re ushered into a private examining room. Lily is not there. There are two seats, so we sit. We fidget until a veterinarian enters. She has blond hair and a kindly face and looks too laid-back to be a surgeon, but has such an authoritative air of command that I wonder if she served in the military. Based on Lily’s neurological signs, she is most suspicious of a ruptured intervertebral disc and wants to perform a myelogram to determine the site of the herniation.
I don’t know what a myelogram is, and I know I don’t have time to educate myself beyond the context that it is some test to detect pathology of the spinal column.
“And then what?”
“And then, pending the results of the myelogram, Lily’s best chance of walking again is surgery.”
“Surgery.” I’m taking this in as fast as I can.
“The sooner the better.”
Apparently there is no time to think. “So, we’ll know if surgery is the way to go after the myelogram?”
“In all honesty, I would make that decision now. She’ll already be under anesthesia for the myelogram, and if it does indeed reveal a ruptured disc, it’s best to perform the surgery right then and there.”
“So you need a decision now.”