When You Let Me Go

Teigen Bond - Atlantic Veterinary College

V:50 I:4 Creative Corner Winner

When You Let Me Go

You have the power to let me go, the privilege to give me one last gift – a tribute to our everlasting bond. When you pick up your car keys in one hand; and reach for my leash with the other, I know that the time has finally come. 

I've been ready for this for a while. We both knew it was only a matter of time. Every day it gets harder to breathe, my lungs wet and heavy, weighed down by tumours. I am drowning on dry land, my body rebelling against itself – a civil war where the only casualty will be me.

You open the front door one last time for me, and I wobble unsteadily down the steps towards the car. Good-bye roses, that prick my nose when I sniff you. Good-bye grass and dirt, where I used to dig. Good-bye yard; and house, car and chew bone. Good-bye cat and rope toy and comfy little bed.

I stick my head out the window, feel the sun caress my ears, my tongue tasting the wind, heavy with pollen and asphalt.

I struggle not to trip as I climb the clinic's steps, knowing this is the last time you will see me walk. I don't want you to remember me like this, my body an empty shell of what it used to be. I want you to remember me healthy, my coat and teeth gleaming, my legs flying as I race after a bright red Frisbee. I want you to remember me happy, sleeping beside you on the couch on lazy Sunday afternoons. I want you to remember all the good times we had.

You kneel down before me, petting my head. I stare at your beautiful face, the one I have licked for years. The one that tells me I am a “good boy”, the one that kisses me at bedtime. My tail thumps weakly and I try to smile, remembering how that used to make you laugh. You stare long and hard, etching my face into your memory. You don't have to worry – I know you won't forget. I know I could never forget you, no matter what happens next.

I suck in a breath at the prick of the needle, then sigh at the smooth cool feel of the drugs. My eyes drift closed as the drugs calmly and quietly flow through my veins, pumped around my frail body by my failing heart. If there is life after this, I will wait for you. I will once again sit at the door, waiting for you to walk through it, my leash in my smiling mouth.

You whisper good-bye, and I give you one last kiss. The veterinarian, whom I used to hate so much, now looks like an angel in her starched white coat. I smile at her. I hope you both know how much this means to me. There is no other way that I would rather go. Now surrounded by love I will leave this earth - believe it or not, it is a good day to die.

Veterinary medicine hits close to home

Entry, Experiences
Teigan Bond, Atlantic Veterinary College

Five years ago, my five-year-old horse Belle went lame after I had owned her for a year. We had been doing some light riding and getting ready for summer when she presented with severe head-bobbing lameness in both front limbs. After nerve blocks and x-rays, the diagnosis was Navicular disease. A degenerative hoof condition, we started her on oral phenylbutazone and Navicon (a blood thinner) and changed her shoeing regimen from barefoot to shod with wedge pads. For a few days her lameness decreased, then came back with a vengeance. Changing her shoes didn't help, and in some cases made her lameness worse. As the Bute doses continued Belle starting getting multiple hoof abscesses in all four feet. Upon a farrier visit, White Line Disease was also discovered in all her feet, and treatment began for that. Belle was getting her feet soaked, poulticed, and bandaged twice a day and her health was still not improving. Meanwhile, I was getting really good at using Vet Wrap! 

 

The diagnosis was still Navicular Disease, with the cause of these other problems unknown. Her soles became truly 'paper-thin', and her right front and hind feet almost had to be re-sectioned due to the White Line Disease. It got to the point where she was lame at a walk. Then the holes appeared on her coronary bands. Once again on all four feet, holes the size of dime sprang up almost overnight. Though not painful, the risk of infection was high, as was the chance of her hoof capsule detaching from the coffin bone and laminae. We started her on oral penicillin and the vet started calling in the experts. Overall it took about four months, three farriers, four vets, and five differential diagnoses (including Cushings, Laminitis, and Selenium toxicity) before one vet from the U.S. suggested an allergy to phenylbutazone. We immediately pulled her off it (at this point there really wasn't that much to lose), and her lameness began to decrease within a week. Her abscesses healed and never reappeared, and the coronary band holes closed up as quickly as they opened.  

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