This Too Shall Pass

Last week was a bit tough. It didn’t start out that way, and so the eventual roller-coaster made for a rough ride. And I found that even when something is expected that doesn’t necessarily make it easy to deal with.

We headed out of Sequoia National Park on Mother’s Day. There is no cell reception up there, no internet, and both of us had to wish our moms a happy Mother’s Day. (I usually joke that this is how you stay on the Good Daughter List, you know.)

Another reason for our departure – we saw an updated weather report. It was supposed to keep getting colder, with snow forecast Monday through Wednesday. We’ve always considered this adventure to be the “never winter” tour. While we have down sleeping bags and plenty of stuff to keep warm… for me, it’s just not that fun to camp in the freezing cold.

 

As a side note, I think that CVT should totally be sending out their brand ambassadors to the National Parks this summer. Not to try and and convert any of the campers – the RV crowd is pretty set in their ways – but to show the rooftop tent off to National Parks employees.

While we were camped at site #182, multiple campers drove by slowly, pointing and staring. But the first person who stopped was a maintenance employee. While he was talking to Michael, a law enforcement officer pulled up. She promptly asked if she could see inside the tent.

I’m pretty sure we made another convert that day.

 

One other side note: there were several dumpsters at the Lodgepole Campground, and they all had this sticker.

 

 

 

We headed north out of Sequoia National Park, along the General’s Highway, and crossed into Kings Canyon National Park. We saw the General Grant tree, which is the largest in a grove of giant sequoias, before moving on to lower elevations.

We arrived in the town of Sanger (the nation’s Christmas tree capital!) hungry. In addition to calling our moms I needed to work on the blog – something I typically do from a coffee shop. That wasn’t going to work with our level of hunger, so…

We went to Denny’s. Look, there weren’t a lot of options there in Sanger. Although the restaurant didn’t have WiFi, at least our booth had an outlet. Our waitress looked over our table, laden with laptops and journals, and breathed a visible sigh of relief. Easy customers – on Mother’s Day.

We got all of our work done, called our moms, and went on a supply run at WalMart. (I never thought I would shop so much at WalMart!) We picked up three tubes of ground turkey for Elvis. He quit eating dog food while we were still in San Luis Obispo, and on the advice of our vets, Jacques and Ali, we switched to an alternative diet of ground turkey and rice. (If you haven’t been following the blog, Michael’s brother, Jacques, and Jacques’s wife, Ali, are both vets with their own practice, Evergreen Animal Clinic, in Santa Maria.) While Elvis didn’t eat his new food all that enthusiastically, he did eat most of it.

Heading west out of Sanger we aimed for a reservoir called Pine Flat Lake. There were several free campsite’s on the reservoir’s east side. The problem was that California really loves its twisty roads. I couldn’t do more than 30 mph as we drove along Trimmer Lake Road, which follows Pine Flat Lake. The lake itself is 18 miles long!

After an hour or so I was just tired. Tired of the windy-ness, tired of driving. It was after 6pm anyway. We were in National Forest land, so we could camp just about anywhere we wanted, and we kept passing pullouts that were large enough for three cars. I didn’t see any No Camping signs. So when we came upon a jumbo-sized pull-out I drove into it. Campsite established.

It was a lot warmer than up in the Park. We were treated to a nice sunset, too.

Monday morning Elvis woke us with an awful horking sound – I couldn’t get him down the ladder by myself, so I held onto him and held the door of the tent open and he barfed green bile down the ladder. Poor guy, he’d been doing that a lot lately. Combined with him eating less and less, we were worried. At his age (16), any problem has a potential to be a big problem. It looked like he’d already managed to lose all the weight he’d put on during our stay in SLO.

We headed back to Sanger, partly because there was no road that went directly north, and partly because I needed to get back into the land of cell phone reception. My mom underwent knee replacement surgery that morning, in Michigan, so I wanted to be able to call my dad for updates.

My mom came through the surgery fine and the surgeon was happy, although my mom was slow to come out from the anesthesia. But everything was looking pretty good.

Michael, however, had three voicemails from the assisted living facility where his parents live. When we reached Sanger we went to Starbucks (again, we did not have a lot of options) where I edited photos and Michael tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

Short version: It turned out that Michael’s dad had reached the point where he requires too much assistance to continue at his Type I living assisted facility. The rules with Type I Assisted Living, Type II assisted living, and skilled nursing are supposedly pretty clear-cut. Good luck trying to prove it. There are no federal regulations with assisted living so each state has their own guidelines. Again, short version: He was going to have to leave Morningside, the assisted living facility where he and my mother in law have been living since January. Complicating things further, my mother in law was in the clear. Would they have to live in separate locations?

Well, shit. Michael and I looked at each other in this crowded Starbucks full of college kids, and knew that we’d have to put the trip on hold again. With no plan in place, and no idea what to do yet, we went with the simplest option: we went back to San Luis Obispo. It was only three hours away. Surely Jacques and Ali would be able to help us figure this out.

Jacques just told us that he and Ali were happy to help, which was good since we were already on the way when Michael called. When we arrived back at the house, Ali took one look at Elvis and suggested that we bring him to the clinic the next day for some blood work.

Here’s where things get difficult. We knew when we left on this trip that something like this might happen – even back in August of 2016 Elvis was an old dog. Up until recently, though, people sometimes had a hard time believing he was as old as we said.

I mean, that picture was taken on May 19, 2016, right after I’d had him groomed for the first time in his life. He was so soft and fluffy, I just couldn’t stop petting him. His eyes are all bright and lively. He looks happy. He did well on this trip, although he was slowing down a bit. In most of the pictures I have of him since August of 2016 he’s asleep. But in January of this year Elvis went on a backpacking trip with us and seemed to enjoy it. In April he was still chasing the tennis ball. But in the past week he really began to decline: sleeping more and more, eating less and less. He seemed unhappy. So when we brought Elvis to the clinic we did not have high hopes. Elvis had some blood drawn, an x-ray taken, and we went on our way. Ali said she’d be able to talk to us more about him that night.

Over dinner, Jacques and Ali gently told us that Elvis’s liver was enlarged. And failing. While the cause was not completely known, he most likely had some kind of cancer. We could order additional tests if we wanted to be sure.

I didn’t really see the point. First of all, I trust Jacques and Ali. (If you’ve ever had a pet, you know how awesome it is to love and trust your vet.) Sure, we could learn the exact cause, but it wouldn’t change the end result: Elvis was dying.

Not unexpectedly,either. He was a very old dog. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it yet, but we don’t know Elvis’s exact age. When we adopted him in 2002 we were told he was 1-2 years old. So he was either 16 or 17. Very old. And he’s lived a good life as our Adventure Dog.

Elvis was the best hiking partner I ever had. He was always ready to go. He loved hiking – running around the woods, sniffing everything. And he’d always come back and check in with me (something Bailey has not quite mastered). The only time we ever wore Elvis out completely? A six day backpacking trip. That’s right, it once took six days to wear out this dog.

Of course, this is the same dog who liked to roll in dead fish, as well as eat his own poop. As a border collie/Australian shepherd mix, he was “highly reactionary” (scientific term, it just means he barked at EVERYTHING).

One time he chased after a moose. I called him back but hid behind a tree – moose are notoriously ill-tempered and if things went south that dog was on his own. But Elvis was such an obedient dog. He came right back. (Way back, when we took him to basic and intermediate obedience, he was the star pupil.)

Fifteen years of memories. I could write a book.

But as of the day after Mother’s Day he just wasn’t eating. I mean, at all. Wednesday morning he even refused bacon. We knew he was suffering, and that’s the last thing you want for someone you love.

That’s why all the pictures I’m putting in this post are from Elvis’s younger, happier days. It’s how I want to remember him. What’s killing me is that I have so many pictures of Elvis… on my desktop. Which is currently in a storage unit in Longmont, Colorado. I’m doing the best I can here.

We euthanized Elvis on Friday, May 19th, at 8:30 in the morning. Jacques and Ali were so gracious to do this at their home. I felt incredibly lucky that we were able to end Elvis’s suffering at a place where he was comfortable, surrounded by people he knew and loved. My worst nightmare would have been having our high-strung dog euthanized surrounded by strangers on a cold steel table. But we spread out Elvis’s favorite blanket in the living room and laid him out on it, his head in Michael’s lap. I sat down on Elvis’s other side and Bailey sat down on Michael’s other side. We were all together.

It was over far quicker than I thought it would be. Completely painless – Elvis didn’t even flinch from the needle. He drifted off to sleep, and within minutes his heart had stopped. Michael and I sat with Elvis for a while after. He was still warm and his fur was so soft. Finally I could pet him without fear of hurting him. I told him he was a good dog.

Eventually, though, it was time. Jacques picked Elvis up so gently, as if he’d picked up his own child, and carried him out to the car. I will be forever grateful for that act of kindness. Ali drove Elvis up to the clinic, suggesting that I take Bailey for a walk instead of accompanying her. (Apparently things get kind of industrial at the clinic.)

We decided to have Elvis cremated. It’s actually something they offer at the Evergreen Animal Clinic. Initially I thought the idea was a bit much – the body is just a shell, right? Is this really necessary? But the thought of bringing Elvis with us as we continue to travel is oddly comforting.

Later that morning we brought Bailey to the Avila Dog Beach and wore him out with a tennis ball, a chuckit, and the ocean. He didn’t act like anything was amiss. I, however, spent the entire day feeling like I’d forgotten something. I’d get out of the truck and double-check: sunglasses, keys, wallet… what was I missing?

Oh.

Missing Elvis is hard.