I m p ressio n s
Life Lessons from Dr. Seuss
by Dr. Stephen T. Radack III, Editor
It has been an anxious, and also trying,
last few months at the Radack house.
Back in March, Mary and I took our almost
14-year-old Cocker Spaniel, Lexie, to the
vet to have her checked. She had started
to do strange things like walk into the
wrong corner of the door, pace around in
circles and becoming increasing restless at night. She was also
losing weight and looking skinnier than ever, especially after a
visit to the groomer. We knew she had been gradually losing her
hearing for quite some time and was now totally deaf. We could
sneak up on her when we came home now because she could
no longer hear the garage door open. Not a bad thing. She no
longer would bark her head off when the doorbell rang, because
she couldn’t hear it. The worst was not being able to hear her
name being called if she took off running in the yard when she
was off her leash. Time for a trip to the vet.
The vet checked her over and did not see anything unusual. A
blood test showed that she was anemic, probably from not eating
as much as she used to. He decided to X-ray her and noted a
tumor around her spleen area. He said this was likely reason for
her anemia. The tumor was bleeding. Oh, and she likely had the
early signs of dementia. He told us she could “go” at any time,
but for now take her home and have Mary make up some special
food to get her to eat.
That is not exactly what we expected to hear, and we wondered
if our pup would make it through the night. Well, she did make it
through that night and many more, including her 14 th birthday in
June. Many of those days and nights became harder and harder
as she would seem to forget that she needed to go outside to
take care of her business, or that night time was for sleep and not
for pacing over and over around the bedroom. She no longer
wanted to walk every night with us, or at least couldn’t make the
one mile loop without a break in one of our arms. She had great
days where she would eat all the special food Mary would make
her and seem like our old dog. Then there were more and more
days where she became more and more lethargic and seemed to
have no interest in food, except for her treats.
Since we got her all those years ago she would vacation at my
sister-in-law’s house with her and her family when we would go
on vacation or be out of town for a day or more. She always
enjoyed Camp Karen and sometimes wanted to stay there
instead of come home. In March, for the first time we decided she
needed to road trip with us when we went to visit our daughter
and her family in Annapolis. We were not sure how Lexie would
do, but because of her declining health we did not want to put
that burden on anyone else. To our surprise she was a great
traveler and fit right in with our grandson and large grandpup! In
June we made one more road trip to Annapolis with her in tow.
She was a much thinner, slower pup, but still showed the golden
retriever who the boss dog in the family was.
As June turned into July we knew it would soon be time to say
goodbye to our girl. Life was getting harder and harder for her
and it seemed like she slept most of the time, but that seemed
about normal for any living thing that had reached almost 100
years old. The more we talked about it there were some many
reasons to let her go, but only one to keep her with us – she was
ours and we didn’t want her to leave us! At the end of July we
had a short trip to Pittsburgh planned with some friends so she
would have to visit Camp Karen again. Needless to say that was
a tough couple days at the camp and for us knowing how things
were going. When we got home, Lexie was weaker, thinner and
not eating. It was time to say goodbye to our pup.
I had dogs while I was growing up, but never had to go through
this process before. Knowing at a certain time that next day we
would hold our dog and then never see her again was
heartbreaking. For those of you who have gone through this, you
know exactly what I mean. Are you ever sure you are making the
right decision? She must have known, because the normally
nervous dog in the car was calm and resting on Mary’s lap. That
day and for several days and weeks we kept seeing her “stuff”
and felt like she should be running around the corner to greet us.
We promised to keep walking every evening for her and we
have. We know, as so many people have told us, she has crossed
over the rainbow bridge and is a younger, happier, healthy
version of herself again.
I don’t remember who it was, but a friend posted a quote from
Dr. Seuss, “Don’t cry because it is over, smile because it happened.”
WOW! That kind of says it all, not only for our situation with our
pup, but for so many different aspects of life. I can think of two
that were in the last edition of the PDJ. The end of a life. The end
of a job. The end of a friendship or other relationship. Every one of
you can hopefully take this life lesson from the good doctor and
apply it to something in your own life.
Smile, PDA, because it happened!
— STR3
SEP TEM BER/OC TOBER 2019 | P EN N SYLVAN IA DEN TAL JOURNAL
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