A few minutes pass, and now comes the second needle, a general anesthetic to guard against any chance of pain or discomfort. Her sleepful repose is uninterrupted by this venous intrusion. She slumbers on, her most favorite of pastimes.
The third needle is the sealer of fates. Dr. Gessner eases it gently into her slowly pulsating vein, first in her forepaw and then in her muscled rear leg. It does not take long. She undeliberately settles or shifts over on her side now, and with little ceremony has ceased her breathing. Her heart is strong, though, and does not as quickly surrender, but then she lets go.
Cyprus arrived at the Roediger House not quite five years ago, a rescued young adult who'd been saved from the pound because she arrived there full-bellied with three puppies and AARF took them all. Once her litter was weaned, she was made available for adoption on the very Saturday that I went looking for a pet. It was easy to fall in love with her.
But it turns out that she was not the healthiest of creatures. First came the thyroid troubles, then the massive weight gain, then the rapid weight loss and blindness in one eye that led to the diagnosis of diabetes just over a year ago. Then she lost vision in her other eye. We never got her sugar under control and ketoacidosis loomed as a likely killer.
Her regular bouts with diarrhea were mostly controlled, although she did have two episodes of explosive outputs when locked in her crate during the day. After that, she became frantic and highly anxious about being confined there and, somehow, managed to claw and force her way out of the crate in a way that to this day I still do not understand. I tried using child safety gates after that to secure her in an upstairs shower stall, but she clawed and pushed until she broke out of those holding cells, even losing toenails and bleeding in the process.
A few weeks ago, she busted out of the shower stall but also began clawing at the bathroom door, something she's never ever done.
This led me to create a pretty hardcore barricade from a washing machine drain basin, the child safety gate, an old closet rod, and a mess of zip ties.
She initially fought it as well, rubbing the hair and skin off her front leg and leaving blood across the top of the enclosure, but it finally defeated her prison break mentality.
That did not lessen the degree to which this blind diabetic hypothyroidic bundle of snug continued to feel miserable, though. Within the last two or three weeks, it appeared as though she might also have had a mild stroke. One of today's hard realizations is that she has not felt good in a very long time, but she was always a trooper and was sweet and loving and precious and adorable, and now that girl is gone.
I will not be alone in missing her, for she had many indulgent fans among the Roediger House regulars:
It has been a sad, sad day at the Roediger House.
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