In which I have the house to myself for a week.

My grandmother left today for a trip to Detroit with her bowling team. I get to bring in the mail, mow the lawn, feed the dogs (they’re getting dry kibbles and water and none of the other shit they’re used to), and drive her car while she’s gone.

It also means I get to go home on my lunch breaks and let the dogs out to pee. My lunch break is between 3 and 4, and I just got back.

Bindu is dry-nosed and tired all the time. She’s still bloated and tight in the belly even though Gramma claims to have been reducing her food. She and Chipper (grandma’s dog) are between the two of them drinking well over a gallon of water per day (which is a lot when you consider that the two of them together weigh less than 60 lbs.), and there have been accidents on the rug by the front door.

Though I’ve been playing phone tag with the vet for almost two weeks and haven’t spoken with him directly, I know from one of his messages that Bindu’s got a heart murmur and reduced liver function. She’s twelve years old.

She doesn’t seem uncomfortable – she still barks like hell at the mailman every day – but she can’t walk ten blocks without nearly passing out. Simply trotting up the stairs to my bedroom makes her pant – hard. When I told Gramma that she had heart and liver troubles, Gramma replied, “Sounds like old age. She’s old.”

My dog has become not merely old, but geriatric. I don’t think she’s well, but I don’t know what the problem is and I suspect it might be more than mere age. Having never been faced with an expensive pet health situation, I don’t know what I’ll do if she needs, say, surgery, or heavy meds to survive.

It was love at first sight the day I first met Bindu all those years ago. When she dies, I swear to God I’m going to need to be sedated for a week.