June 17, 2011

Millie is Dying~

I've had two dogs in my life. My first one, Brandy, tore my heart out when she died after 14 years and it took me ten years before I was able to have another dog. I did not choose Millie, either. She chose me.

It was Martin Luther King's Day, 2000, and I was traveling down Oak Road to my house when I saw vehicles pulled to the side and a dog lying in the middle of the road. She had just been hit by a truck. The driver had tried to avoid her and crashed into a tree. Another couple stopped to check on Millie. I pulled over and joined them. Sadly, nobody was checking on the poor man who had crashed.

We scooped Millie out of the road and laid her gently on the grass. I began to give her Reiki. I could tell she was responding to the healing energy and we were bonding. The other couple who had stopped first, however, wanted her. I was ambivalent anyway, not really sure I was ready to have another dog and told them to take her.

Two days later, they called me and told me she was snapping at the kids and did not want her. The vet told me that Millie had been abused by her owner, was about nine months old, and was in rough shape after the accident. I continued with the Reiki treatments. When I took her back to the vet a week later, she could not believe it was the same dog.

Advance eleven years~

My daughter called and told me she thinks Millie is dying. She isn't eating, walking much, or eliminating. I am
two thousand miles away and not due back for another week. And, much to my dismay, I find myself re-living what I experience with Brandy. One morning she could not get up and my husband took her to the vet. I had to go to work, and had yearly treatment team meetings scheduled that day -- these are not meetings you can easily cancel as they involve parents, teachers, clinicians, and staff. I got the call that Brandy had cancer and it had metastasized The vet wanted to put her down. I begged them to wait until I could get there. They waited as long as they could, but by the time I arrived, she had already been injected.

I just sobbed. All I wanted was to be able to say goodbye and for her to know that I was there. This has haunted me for the last 21 years. Now I find myself in a similar situation.  I can not fly home and miss INATS. I want to be with Millie in her final moments.

Please God, give her one more week and let me be with her~