And Then She Stopped Breathing

During the summer in the Science Building there are a few students working on research projects and some faculty members working on various things. Overall, it’s pretty relaxed, and it’s great to be able to slow down and focus on different activities. On a very rare occasion I even bring our dog, Lexi, as I did on Wednesday this week.

When we arrived, Lexi was greeted by Jersey, who is Jess’s helper dog. After the usual canine preliminaries, we walked elsewhere in the building. Amy, one of my colleagues, came to my office to ask some questions about academic program assessment. As we looked at the screen on my laptop, Amy suddenly pointed out that Lexi had done both number one and number two on the carpet. I immediately went into embarrassed dog-owner mode, stooped down, and started cleaning it up. When I wanted Lexi to move a little, I found that she was completely flaccid and unresponsive. Her face was squished up against the door, and so I swiveled her toward the hall a little. At some point I saw her doing some shallow breathing, and then she became completely still. Amy felt a very faint pulse, but that was it. As I realized that Lexi was leaving us, I also realized that I that I had only one option left: CPR. I leaned down and started doing a few chest compressions and, shortly after I gave up, she started breathing again. I was pretty shaken up by this, and Amy pointed out that Lexi needed to go to the vet immediately.

She weighs roughly 62 pounds, and I picked her up and walked rapidly but carefully out of the building. Derrick went with me to make sure that I could get her into the truck. Lexi was still fairly flaccid, and I was concerned that I might hurt her by carrying her, but I had no choice. I placed her into the passenger seat and pulled out of the parking garage, telling myself to be careful as I drove. Thankfully the light at the front of campus was green when I got there, and I pulled onto Wade Hampton Boulevard, heading toward Ambassador Animal Hospital. The big V8 in the pickup growled as I pushed the accelerator as hard as I thought I should. I pulled into the parking lot, carried Lexi in, and told the receptionist, “I think she’s having a medical emergency.”

Nineteen years earlier, in a different pickup, the big V8 roared as I drove the roughly five miles from our house to Dad’s house in Taylors. He had called me complaining about his heart racing, and also told me that he was hot and red. I told him to call 911 immediately and to then lie down and rest until I arrived. As I did with Lexi, I went as fast as I thought I could. The EMTs didn’t arrive until about 15 minutes after I did. Several days later, at the age of 82, Dad had both a heart valve replacement and a triple bypass (at the same time). As I looked down into his face on the gurney, I told him that I loved him. My mother had died of complications due to bypass surgery five years earlier. As they wheeled Dad down the hall and I stood there alone, I fought back tears, convinced that I would never see him again. Thankfully, with a great deal of help, he did recover. He never did drive again, but the Lord gave him nine more years of life. He died in his bed in our house.

“We’re going to the second room on the left,” she said. They then opened the door to the treatment room across the hall, and we placed Lexi in there so that the vet could attend to her. The door closed, and I sat alone across the hall, still shaken up by the prospect that we might lose her.

A few minutes later, a very large, nicely groomed black poodle walked down the hall, completely unattended. She looked at me, then at the door to the treatment room, and then back at me. She came over and gave me a greeting (a brief closer look), and then turned around and disappeared. I wonder what she was thinking. A little while later the door to the treatment room cracked open, and I could see Lexi standing there. I felt some sense of relief but was still concerned.

We just don’t know when our time will come. When we’re young, we feel like we have a very long life in front of us, but time seems to go faster when we get older. With increasing clarity, we recognize the truth:

“Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”

James 4:14 (NASB)

When we exhale on a cold day, we see the water vapor in our breath condense in the air. And then it’s gone. So, too, our lives.

A while later the vet came into the room. The x-rays on the tablet computer very clearly showed that Lexi had pulmonary edema (fluid collected in her lungs) and an enlarged and somewhat misshapen heart. Lexi has heart failure (aka congestive heart failure). We don’t know her exact age because we rescued her. Based on her very gray face, she’s now an elderly boxer, and she’s probably somewhere around 10. She’s getting a diuretic (furosemide) to remove fluid from her lungs – this is the same diuretic that people often take when they have heart failure. When it arrives, she’ll also be getting a pet-specific drug to help her heart. Today is Saturday, and this morning her energy level was up. With some help, we hope that she’ll live for at least a couple more years. Like people, though, her days are numbered.