My sweetest girl Lucy

I wrote this earlier today, unsure if I would post it, while I was feeling a rare moment of hope. It’s the story of my girl and me, and I’d like to share it with you, if you’d like to hear it. 

It was a sunny day in June when I wandered into some shady pet store brimming with puppies in Nowhere, Long Island. I knew nothing about dogs, about taking care of a pet, about the fact that I was most definitely supporting puppy mills by even being there. I just knew that curled up in a tiny crate against a wall, fast asleep, was my very best pal. The day I walked out of that store was the first day of our beautiful, eventful, sometimes chaotic, always-full-of-love life together. Lucy was three months old and I had just turned 21 years.

Over the next 13 years Lucy and I lived in seven different apartments together. We’ve walked the Brooklyn Bridge and back home countless times to my very first career-job, we’ve slept cuddled in a ball every single night, we weathered a pandemic in NYC, we’ve swam in the pool and chased rabbits in the grass and played on the beach. We’ve adopted two kitty sisters and rescued many others; Lucy, to my surprise, the ever-patient Mayor of Cats. We’ve experienced heartbreak through four different relationships, but we’ve also made many new friends, both dog and human alike. Lucy has hands down been the most constant thing in my adult life: my girl through and through.

I know dogs can’t live forever. I know that. Thanks to the AKC’s website, I know that thirteen years in my life is about sixty-eight in hers. I know that even as I write that number, my eyes are brimming with tears. It’s the greatest injustice in this life, that theirs overlap ours so briefly and so deeply.

This has been the scariest, most stressful time of my now thirty-four years. Lucy has always been a picky eater, but over the past few weeks, she has turned away even her most beloved foods. We’ve been to four doctors and are still not sure what’s going on with my little love: maybe it’s pancreatic, maybe it’s worse. She’s not weak or hungry enough that I wanted to rush her to the ER; she eats when she wants, whatever is most appealing to her, while I try everything I can think of to encourage her. Every time she does eat my heart soars with optimism; every time she turns down what I’ve offered it breaks. While trying to diagnose her GI issues, we discovered she has heart disease, which we can’t treat until her other issues are resolved. Why is it so damn hard to find an internist in NYC? I’m sitting in the waiting room of an emergency visit just so we can expedite seeing the person who maybe can make this all make sense to me. The person who can help my girl, who can help me cope and process and plan.

My heart can’t take the waiting-and-seeing. My savings account maybe can’t take the size of the bill we’re facing. I’ve spent almost $5,000 ($4935.35, to be exact) this week in tests and appointments and few answers, and that doesn’t include the costs of approximately 50 different types of food and treats, or gas. Money should never be a barrier to healthcare; not for people and not for dogs, it multiplies the already barely-livable amount of stress, and as much as it hurts my ego to say, is absolutely a factor in my decision-making. If I could rewind the clock, I would insist that my twenty-something-year-old blissfully ignorant self would have signed my sweet dog up for pet insurance. Alas.

For now I will cuddle my girl and give her all the scritches and let her go outside a million times a day and eat whatever she wants. I will sit on the couch with her against my thigh and not get upset when she barks at the mailman or huffs at the cat. I will love her forever and ever and ever. And I will pray to whoever is out there that we get more time together.