Daisy’s Ordeal
by Amy
My next piece of writing was meant to be a reflection of the previous 16 weeks and what I got from the Day One program. I was feeling really good about what I had accomplished; about how I felt physically and mentally. I felt good about how I had learned to tame some of my Parkinson’s symptoms.
Then, within two days of my writing “The Gift of Hope” all that contentment and joy was shattered by the sudden death of my dog Daisy. This is the story of what happened to Daisy so unexpectedly, just one day after her 17th birthday. The story may be long, but every word is necessary.
Jon and I were in the bedroom. He was lying on the bed watching TV, while I was putting away some clothes. At about 11pm, we heard a series of loud thumps elsewhere in the house. I walked out of the bedroom to investigate. Halfway down the hallway I heard my son, Daniel, getting some food in the kitchen. I saw his bedroom door was open. This is also the door to the basement. I shouted out, “Oh shit! Did Daisy fall down the steps?”. Daniel came around and ran down the steps. She was up on her own and moving. What a relief!
This would be the third time she’s taken a tumble down the steps around our house in the last year. We have been very careful to not leave doors open because Daisy could not navigate the steps anymore. She had become pretty much blind with severe cataracts. She was also mostly deaf. It’s like echo-location using those senses together. She had lost both, so you can imagine how scary and dangerous her world could have become. But she knew her way around the main level of the house. Where to eat, where to take naps, where to find me at my desk or on the couch, where to go when it was bedtime, and where to do her business. About ten minutes after my son brought Daisy upstairs, and to her bed on the floor in the bedroom, she got up to walk out of the room, then just stopped.
She looked a bit dazed. We figured she might be dizzy from the fall and might have hit her head. Surely, she’d be fine in the morning. She’d recovered fine after the other falls.
She finally settled down in her bed. Jon went back out to the living room and I got into bed, ready to sleep. I dozed off and Daisy went back to the living room. Jon said she was walking into corners and getting stuck. He said she couldn’t turn her body around. He brought her back to the bedroom and I was awake again. She sat on her bed and I laid on my right side so I could see Daisy and watch her while I fell asleep again. I had barely drifted off after just a few minutes when I was awakened by Daisy rustling in her bed. She was rotating her body as dogs do to get that perfect spot. She was having trouble turning her back half around. I reached over and helped her make that landing. It was quiet for just a couple of minutes, then she started howling and her body contorted, looking like a pipe cleaner dog with her legs all splayed out and her head and neck stretched so far back her nose was almost touching her back. I leapt out of bed to hold her. She was very rigid. I cradled her head and stroked her to try to calm her down. She kept escalating. I yelled for Jon. When he came into the bedroom he also tried to calm her and ease her out of being so stiff. We quickly surmised that she must have gotten a concussion when she fell down the steps. We decided she also must be having a seizure and we needed to take her to the Emergency Vet. It was now about midnight. We took turns holding her while throwing on some clothes. I also decided to wake the kids and tell them that they should come with us because I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a one way trip for Daisy.
Annette, my daughter, got ready quickly, Daniel said he would stay home, then thankfully changed his mind and joined us just before we pulled out of the driveway. I drove and Jon carried Daisy all wrapped up in her favorite blanket. It’s a sage green polar fleece material, very soft.