The trip without Rascal

When we went to Paris, little did I know that would be the beginning of the end of my trips with Rascal. During the fall of 2009, my aunt needed my help in Huntsville. So, I packed Rascal and most of my winter jeans and sweatshirts and "moved" to Huntsville to "live" with my aunt. Christmas was bitter sweet, she was feeling so badly, I did all the cooking that she had refused help with in the past.
Rascal had is 13th birthday on Dec. 26th, we celebrated with peanut butter and cheese his only people food. He never has liked doggie treats.
In early February, Rascal started having a discharge from his lip and I took him to a Huntsville vet to have it looked at. If you knew Rascal, a trip to the vet was rarely a pleasant experience. He had bitten me almost every time he had to have an exam. This time with the new vet, she said she was going to have to sedate him to check inside his mouth. I was really worried about him and asked her to call me, because I hated for him to be sedated at his age, just for an exam. She called while I was taking Lene out to eat. She said she had found a small growth in Rascal's mouth and needed to do a biopsy to see what it was. I was scared to death.
This do was the only "person" who had been with me my every minute for the last 13 years. I brought him home as a 6 week old puppy that my brother had given me for Christmas 1996. He had potty trained in Charlie's house in Pell City, eaten the doors at the "camphouse", and grown up in Auburn. He had slept with me every night, made every trip I did unless I was flying, and had been my constant, empathic companion every day. I told the vet to call me when I could pick him up.She told me they wouldn't hear from the biopsy for a week.I told her I was coming to pick him up immediately. She said he was still pretty sedated, but I could pick him up.
I thought he would rather wake up with me than with strangers, so Lene and I picked him up. He was hilarious waking up and Lene and I laughed til we cried as he would get out of my lap walk around wobbly and then come back to get in my lap. It took him several of these missions until he was completely awake. As soon as he was wide awake, he let me know how displeased he was with me for leaving him with strangers-by doing one of his famous "wiggs"-running none stop over my lap around the den, down the hall into the living room, into the bedroom over the bed and back again 10 or 15 times. I was so happy to see he was doing just fine.
The next week, Lene and I were at her doctor’s appointment when the vet called to tell me that Rascal had a cancer under his tongue, and with all the blood vessels, nerves, etc. that the prognosis was not good. It was like a bomb had dropped into the middle of my life! I wanted to go home and just sit and hold him. Lene and I didn't know what to do. He was acting fine, except he had stopped eating very much and had lost a couple of pounds. The vet gave us pain meds, some antibiotics, and meds for his stomach. She said to feed him anything he would eat. My cousin cooked him chicken and dumplings that I mashed up and he loved them, he ate hot dogs cut into tiny pieces to cut down on the chewing that hurt his tongue. I decided to bring him to AU to the vet school after visiting Pete Marine, his vet. Pete gave him more of the same meds and called the vet school so that we could get in that day.
He had only been to the Vet School twice before and never for anything major. My cousin, Lew Strickland, teaches at the Vet School so I knew he would be in good hands. That was a Thursday, my Bunco night. I went to Bunco and my cell rang. My aunt and I had a long running joke that she should "pray for my winning" and I thought it might be her calling to see my progress. It was my cousin saying my aunt had had a stroke and she was in the hospital. He assured me that it was just a small one that they were waiting on admitting and would call back when they knew anything. He assured me that she knew everything and had a little drooping of her mouth, but nothing major.
The next morning, I packed Rascal and returned to Huntsville. While my aunt had been waiting for admitting, she had had another stroke and was still conscious, but not speaking clearly, but knew everyone and what day it was, the president, etc. (Some days I might not know what day it is.....eek) My cousins and I were going to take turns staying with her. I would take Rascal-who thought the car was his "real home” with me in the car to the hospital. I'd put on his winter coat and wrap him in a blanket. Every hour I'd go out to the car and turn it on to heat it up and check his water. He was quite happy as long as he was with "his" car. I turned out to be the coldest winter in 20 years in Huntsville. We had snow several times and the wind was biting and polar. But he and I kept our vigil at the hospital. My cousin Barbara, decided to come up and help with sitting at the hospital. It also relieved Rascal's being in the car all day. Now with the 4 of us, she would stay at my aunt's house with Rascal, I would come home, she would go to the hospital, then cousins would come and relieve each other. With four of us it was much easier and Rascal had someone with him all the time.
I noticed him sleeping a little more and then going to sleep in the living room in my favorite pink chair. I put his cozy blanket in the chair so that it would be comfortable and protect the chair. By the middle of March, he seemed to be doing a lot better and was back to being "The Rascal".
On Tuesday March 23, we were sitting in the den watching TV and he got up to go outside. He kind of stumbled when he got up but walked on to the front door. As he started down the steps, he stumbled and then was not able to walk very steadily, he seemed to improve some as we walked, but could not make it up the steps when we got back to the house. Barb and I got dressed and took him to the emergency vet. He told us that it looked to him like the cancer was causing some neurological problems and we should try to make him comfortable.
That night I didn't sleep at all, I woke Barb up at 7 am and told her to hold Rascal as I had been doing all night so that I could get some sleep and then I would drive to AU. I called Dr. Marine and said to bring him in first thing on Thursday morning for him to take a look, but to be prepared. By the time we got to AU he was not walking and was just looking at me out of his big bright eyes. He and I slept together for the last time on that Wednesday night. Although my ex-husband and my brother had said they would be the ones to take him for that final vet visit, I knew I couldn't let him go without me. Barb and I bought him some McDonald's sweet tea that he drank on the way to the vet. Dr. Marine said that his body was just shutting down due to the cancer having reached his brain. That there was nothing that we could do. So, I held him while Dr. Marine administered the meds. He drifted peacefully off to sleep as I held him wrapped in his favorite monogrammed towel.
By the time we returned home, Charlie had his little grave dug under the pecan tree in the backyard. He had put up a little bone marker for his headstone. While Charlie buried him, Barb and I dug up some daffodils and planted them around the edges of his grave. Except for death my parents, it was the saddest day of my life.