Jim

I am, technically, an only child. But I rarely felt that way as a kid. My cousins, Jim and Jeff, who are the sons of my aunt and uncle referenced in my "Bitter Sweet" post, are brothers to me. My childhood is defined by summers of vacationing, camping, playing, swimming and catching toads, snakes, and crawfish with them. We fished and roasted marshmallows and sailed and suffered horrific sunburns and many bumps, bruises, even stitches and food poisoning. These are my most precious, fondest childhood memories. No, they are my childhood.

At one point, we all even lived together. We had chores, or "designated sponsibilities." We had movie nights with the kind of buttered popcorn that could clog your arteries before the first bite even made its way down. We were even punished together, like after a collective rebellious impulse that involved a closed closet door and whole lot of profanity shouted--loudly, proudly, defiantly--in a sudden fit of what can only be described as spontaneous Tourettes. We rode bikes and played games every day.  We had block parties and common friends. And we had animals, lots and lots of animals. There were Gizmo, Sadie, Max, Fritz...to name a few, and those were just the dogs. There were cats, too, and reptiles of all types and sizes.

I always knew one of us would be a vet. Jim, in fact, wanted to be a vet before he could ever even pronounce the word veterinarian. Fortunately for him, he had the math and science aptitude. I always was much more English-y.

Jim, DVM, got a phone call from me the first week of August, 2010. David, my husband, came home from work at 7AM and found the house covered in blood. (I still cannot imagine how frightening that must have been for him.) He ran to our bedroom and found me asleep, threw off the covers, and found my feet and PJ bottoms also covered in blood. (I still cannot imagine how frightening that must have been for him.) Apparently, delirious from having a new baby and not sleeping much at all, I didn't notice that, when I got up in the middle of the night to feed Grace and let Huan out, my house and I were covered in blood. We checked Grace. We checked the cats. We checked Huan, who was sleeping soundly beside our bed. And there was dried blood on his snout. And so it began...

Jim ran tests, X rays, cytology, so many, many times. He sedated Huan and flushed his nose more than once. He was thorough. Nothing showed cancer, and we could have done an MRI to know for sure. But we knew, after the seizures and weight loss and head muscle atrophy, that whatever this was was degenerative, that Huan was dying. And so Jim, DVM, was again, first and foremost, cousin, brother, friend. He was gentle. He called Huan "handsome" and patted his head and rubbed his ears every time he saw him. He knew--I know he knew--what an amazing dog Huan was and how very much I loved him. I saw and felt his pain every time he saw and felt mine.

One day in the fall, for example, I came home from work, and Huan was bleeding so, so, so badly, worse than any other time. It was, by far, one of the scariest things I have ever seen, second only to the eventual seizures. I called Jim, who was working--crying, frantic, desperate. He told me what to do to get the blood to stop. It didn't stop. He told us to bring him in, so David did. Huan bled all over, and I mean ALL over, the clinic. David apologized, and Jim said, "Better for it to happen here where Danielle doesn't have to see it." And that night, he brought him home to me, having somehow managed to get the blood to stop after he called me to tell me he didn't know if he could--and, incidentally, having assumed the inconvenience of chauffeuring a 200 lb bloody, drooly Mastiff on his own personal time, in his own personal car. He hugged me, kissed my swollen face, and offered to bring me dinner.

Flash forward to February. The seizures started. They happened daily, most often when I was home alone. David and I took Huan into the clinic for a routine exam. When Huan didn't react to another dog in the waiting room, which was very uncharacteristic of him, I lost it. By the time I made it back to the exam room, I was hysterical. I don't know why, but seeing Huan indifferent to another dog was my moment of clarity and resignation. I told Jim that Huan's dignity was my first priority, and when dog owners start talking dignity, death is imminent. The truth is, I even thought that night may have been the night, and if Jim would have told me it was time, I would have deferred to his judgment. Instead, Jim prescribed anti-seizure meds, gave Bubba valium to ensure he didn't seize on the way home, and said we would reassess in a month. He helped David carry Huan to the car while I dealt with the receptionists and paid the bill. Jim and I hugged in the parking lot, and as I was getting in the car to leave, I could see him walk back into the clinic past the receptionists, who were very clearly looking for some kind of exchange, some opportunity to offer words of comfort or sympathy, or maybe to inquire about Huan's status, especially given that they had just dealt with me, and there was no hiding my hysterics, despite my best efforts. But Jim ran his hand over his head, kind of the way you see doctors do in movies when they lose a patient or have to deliver really bad news; never looked up; and kept walking, right past them, out of my sight. I don't know why that single moment resonated with me so much. I think it's because I didn't realize how much the experience resonated with him at the time. In dealing with me that night, he was professional. He was composed. But in that moment, when he didn't know I could see, he was upset. And that touched me deeply. In that moment, I could see my loving cousin. In every moment prior to that one that night, I couldn't see my loving cousin, because he loved me enough to not show me. He loved me enough to be what I needed then: my vet.

That night, I wrote my first post on this blog.

March. Over half a year of running tests, taking frantic phone calls, hugging crying cousins, driving back and forth to my house and Jim's clinic, and the seizures had, in fact, stopped, at least temporarily. The last time Huan suffered a seizure was the last time Jim came to my house for a Huan related incident: Saturday, March 26th, 2011. He left our Nana's house, where he and his wife were eating dinner, after yet another emotional and unexpected phone call from me; went to his closed clinic to retrieve all necessary supplies; and came to my home to help us say our goodbyes to our sweet boy. As Huan lay in my lap on my kitchen floor, Jim injected the anesthesia into his leg and sat with us as he took his last breaths. In that single moment, the tender culmination of so many trying moments, Jim's presence was never more necessary or appreciated. My childhood companion, friend, brother, the source of so much joy in my life, was a source of such comfort when I needed it most, in what was, I think, the saddest moment of my life. How many people can say that about their cousins? Probably about as many as who could say it about their veterinarians.

I am grateful for you, Jim, DVM. And I love you very much.