Wisp's turn

Little Wisp and littler Fia,

The first kiss and little pink tongues

October, 2010

Something is going on with Wisp. Will o' Wisp. The found cat. Little Wisp, at 3.5 kg, which is robust compared to the 1.5 kg she weighed when my husband brought her home from the path in the woods in the middle of the boucle de la Seine, where he found her lying in a puddle, taking her for a discarded rag until she raised her head and meowed. Calling to him, or signalling resignation?

"Pass. Don't be afraid. I cannot hurt you. I am dying," or "Help me. Please."?

He lifted her into his arms and brought her to mine that rainy Wimbledon final in 2007. She has barely left either of ours since. Our faces, necks and shoulders, more exactly. Her idea of heaven is when my husband and I are lying close, side by side, and she has two shoulders, two necks into which to nestle, one for each end of her body.When it wasn't ours, it was Baccarat's, who took her into her care like a lost puppy of her own, this dog who had never had a puppy of her own, only a year old -- born the day France lost in ignominy to Italy and Zidane played his last game, walking off the field in a state of dishonor, July 10, 2006. She and her mother approached this little cat, so frail and weak she couldn't stand on her own hind legs, and licked her nearly into oblivion.

If there is a direct proportional relationship between the number and force of the licks given to an ailing animal, Wisp was in really bad shape. I have told this story before.

Or, I thought I had. I have looked, and I can't find it. Perhaps this is a good thing, though, since it gives me the opportunity to tell the story again and maybe do it better, or just let it go. I have been asked to consider making my posts "stand alone" without referring to past posts or leaving the reader hanging. I have spent some time thinking about this.

I am not sure that I will ever be able to want to do this because the posts aren't columns on topical subjects, and I am not a columnist. I am a diarist, who got tired of the whiny, overly personal subjects in my dear diary and decided to see what lies between the wholly intimate and the fictional and how I might tell it. They are moments in my life, and because lives are bound to their pasts and rarely anticipate their futures, even if the future is as obvious as the punch line of a terrible joke, each post contains references to the past, never links to the future, and if the resolution is not contained in the moment, it will not appear in the post; I am left with my own fear or sadness, and so, I am afraid, is my reader, who may chose to use the tags to look for additional information, background or reassurance, but who may also use the comments to ask me.

I may or may not answer. That depends on the question.

I'd like to be a novelist, like Jane Austen or George Eliot, but I am still a good ways away from that, unfortunately, lacking, first, the will to work, second, the vision, and, third, the talent. Being totally honest, I hoped writing here would take me a step closer. Maybe it did, if you use a microscope to measure the distance traveled.

I will tell the story again, I will give this post the tag "Wisp's Story" and hope that I remember it so that I can find it again, whenever I want someone to know her story (or whenever someone wants to know her story without my thinking of it), and perhaps I will offer a prize to the person who finds the original post containing her story.

When my husband came through the door holding a sodden cat at arm's length, dripping on the terracotta tiles, my reaction was, unbelievably, to both of us, "Oh! Non."

"Comment ça 'non'? Quand tu amènes une bête à la maison, c'est 'oui', mais quand je le fais, c'est 'non'," he demanded.

He was pouting, and I hadn't even had the time to stand up from my armchair. His son stood behind him in the July rain, become standard issue summer weather in our nondescript temperate climate. I stood and reached for the animal, receiving a feather's weight of wet fur and bones gone limp, no muscles left to stiffen the spine or raise the soaking wet fur. I regretted the "non" I had let go. It hadn't been understood. I didn't mean "no", but I didn't know what I meant, either.

Oh! No, not again, is the closest to my meaning. No as in a rejection of the possibility of her state, that this little cat could come to what she was. No to the argument it would bring, anticipating that he would hand her to me, ask me to care for her, and then to ask me -- because he would -- to give her away. No, I would not care for her and then give her away. You must know me better than that by now. I find toads in the pool pump filter basket, ducks in the pool, birds everywhere, and I try to save them. I usually fail. I hold funerals. I do not give them away, so take care in what you bring to me.

He returned to try taking his walk again, and I settled the tiny, fragile cat on my lap and watched the rest of the Wimbledon men's final. Several sets in which I didn't have to think about what to do or about her future, several sets she might not even survive. She fared better than Rafa, though, and I called to the dogs to take a walk on the dirt lanes down along the fields and the Seine, the mostly dry cat rolled into the hem of my sweatshirt. She lay there as we walked, not even tiring my arms. And then, I felt wet. She had released her bladder without making the slightest movement. We returned to the house. It was a Sunday afternoon, no stores open, the only visit to the vet possibly at emergency rates. We had a night to get through. She never left the warmth of someone's arms.

At bedtime, I got out a towel, lay it next to where I sleep, and settled her into my side. She did not move. The next morning, she was still breathing. I picked up the cat on the towel, placed it on a pillow and carried her to the car. We went to the grocery store for easy to eat wet food in time for the store's opening. She was still breathing when I came out with small aluminum tins of premium wet food and the cat milk I found. She raised her head when I opened the food right there in the car, and she ate. Her energy eating surpassed any she had shown until then.

She would be alright.

I called the vet and took her in.

"Oh la," said the vet, "Qu'est-ce qu'on a ici?" I explained what I knew of her history while he looked her over. She was fur on skin on bones. You could feel each point of every single vertebra in her spine, all sides. He listened and looked up at me.

"Ca fait un bon moment depuis qu'elle est abandonnée," he confirmed. "Elle n'a pas mangé correctement depuis plusieurs mois. Je ne vous conseillerais pas de la faire vacciner. Elle peut avoir une vraie saleté, et en plus, puisque ça fait si longtemps depuis qu'elle a pu bien manger, elle est peut-être touchée."

He meant that we should not spend the money to vaccinate her until we tested her for disease. It might not be worthwhile. He meant, also, that hunger had perhaps made her too crazy. He gave her a shot that made her drop like Sleeping Beauty to the examining table between his hands, shaved a small spot on her slender neck and drew blood. Then, he gave her another shot and she raised her head like a cartoon cat, coming back to life from sudden death. He laughed. He enjoys giving that drug for the effect on the pet owners, as much as for the effect on the animals that lets him get their blood to test.

"On va envoyer ça au labo, et je vous tiendrai au courant."

I scooped the cat up, put her back in one of the three travel kennels I had gotten when our enormous American cats had flown to France 5 years before, enormous for this cat, who weighed in at 1.5 kg to their 9 kg apiece. The call came the next day. She was clean of all disease. She was merely physically wasted.

"Surveyez-la, quand-même," said the vet, "On ne peut pas encore savoir si elle va avoir un comportement normal."

I watched her. She continued to sleep by my side, in the protection of the crook of my elbow. She rode on my husband's shoulders, like Cunégonde Mouse (our brilliant rescue and magical mouse friend) had in times past. She become the chouchou of the dogs, if not the two cats, Shadow and Chloé, come from the US with their brother Nuts, since buried in the garden. She was no more touchée by her various traumas than I. I called the vet and made an appointment for her shots, and I spoke names aloud, hoping to hear one that sounded right. Sam rejected Vita (he was so right), Wilamena, and a long list of others. I got out my laptop and started searching. The details of that search are best left (along with the explanation of the name on which I settled, and which Sam approved) out. I'll give the explanation, anyway.

Will 'o Wisp is her full name. We call her Wisp, for short. A Will 'o Wisp is a magical sort of being that appears at Midsummer, and it is known by many names, including Puck in English. It is a being one cannot know if it is good or evil. It is manifested by a light, like a glow, a flame, hovering over the land, most usually marshes and swamps. In French, it is called the feu follet, which happens to also be a film by director Louis Malle, which he based on a novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. The will 'o the wisp is known as Jack 'o lantern, evoking my favorite holiday, and appears in nearly every folklore of Europe, eastern, central and western, as well as in the US, where the phenomena is called spook-lights, or ghost-lights.

We had found her at midsummer. She was but a wisp of a cat. Willow-like. We were waiting to see if she were good or evil. Oddly, little Fia was born in the "f" year. We could have named Wisp's new friend Feu-Follet, but they are not the same being, they did not have the same story.

The rest is history, and her friendship with Baccarat is family legend. Baccarat was her friend, her mother, her comfort. In October, Wisp squatted and released a drop of blood-stained urine. I took her to the vet.

"Elle n'a pas de fièvre. Je ne sens rien en la palpitant d'anormal, mais vous avez d'autres chats, n'est-ce pas?" I nodded. We did have another cat, still. One only, having lost Chloé nearly two years before, who went the way of her brother. Shadow was 11, and Shadow had not the time of day for Wisp. "Ah," she said.

The sort of "ah" that says, "Well, then it is to be expected". She explained that cats are not social beings like dogs, at least not with their own kind. They prefer to be alone, and they do not appreciate sharing a litter box. She recommended that we get another, explaining that Wisp was suffering from a cystitis, an inflammation of her bladder, idiopathic. This meant that it is a real physical problem, causing real physical pain, without a physical origin. It comes from psychological and emotional perturbation.

"On ne va pas prendre un deuxième bac à chat!" my husband objected, as though it were an intolerable luxury to have two litter boxes for two cats. I could, however, concede that one is already taking up a lot of space in our small home, and with the vet bills, even another 40 euros for another covered, double-bottomed litter box with swinging door was discouraging.

"Why," I moaned, looking around at the assortment of two and four-legged creatures, "can't we all just get along?"

Days passed, and she improved, until the day before yesterday, when she moved about the house in a perpetual squat, leaving euro coin-sized spots of urine everywhere: behind the sofa, between the television and the sofa, on the end table, on the staircase, at the top of the staircase, in a line that suggested a dribble from the top of the stairs to the bathroom door to the (thankfully) closed door of our room. Then, she yeowled at the top of her small lungs and threw up. I called the vet and cancelled the appointment I had made for that evening; she needed to go in right away. She'd be better in their hands than mine, in a cage, even.

An examination, two sonograms, several blood tests, and 163 euros later, we have a diagnosis. It is not a tumor. It is not calcium deposits. It is idiopathic cystitis. The vet handed me a box of anti-inflammatory medicine and another of something to tranquilize her. We are to try it for a month and see if it helps her.

"Quelques fois, ça aide, mais c'est des capsules --" she broke off, looking at me apologetically, and opened the little bottle to show me the capsules; they were half white and half blue, and they were big. I looked at her and grimaced. "Vous pouvez peut-être les enrouler dans quelque chose qu'elle aime manger --" she suggested hopefully. I cannot think of a single thing that she likes to eat that much, but at least they are not absolutely necessary and she does not have a tumor. She returned to the possible causes for this outburst of idiopathic cystitis. In her mind, it is the other animals, or a change, even, in the animals in the neighborhood, possibly the arrival of a cat she doesn't like, or Fia's arrival.

"Ou, la mort de Baccarat," I said.

She couldn't know how much Wisp and Baccarat loved each other. As much as I loved Baccarat. I understood that and wasn't jealous.

"Baccarat fut son doudou. Elle se mettait dans son cou et dormait des heures là, dans ses bras. Baccarat me regarda pour me dire 'Et, que fais-je mainentant' en poussant de grands soupires." The vet listened, her eyes opening wider. She nodded.

"C'est Peut-être ça," she said.

I explained how Rapide had not let her come to her for the same comfort for a long time, and how Fia is still too little. She's a better playmate than source of comfort. Even so, Rapide tolerates Wisp's need to snuggle without enthusiasm, and it is a sign of near desperation that Wisp settles in between a 5-month old lab who'd prefer to play and an aged lab who'd prefer she go away.

She misses Baccarat. She is the one who took it the hardest of all the animals. I understand that. I took Rapide to see her daughter when she was hospitalized. I did not think to take Wisp in her travel cage.

Time, my little Will o' Wisp. It takes time.

....

Life continuing

Weeds as high as en elephant's eye

And it looks like they're growing clear up to the sky.

"Mom?" Sam called out, crossing the terrace on this way back in from the shambles we call a garage, which houses discarded and functional bicycles, an assortment of those Razor scooters that found a much smaller following of fidèles than anyone would have supposed from their popularity 10 years ago, the lawnmower, planks for the unfinished petit balcon, two full-size refrigerators, one plugged in and in desperate need of a defrosting, two beat up but valuable leather club chairs we cannot really afford to have recovered, especially since we have learned we prefer to spend our resources trying to save our beloved animaux de compagnie, "pets", but I find that word terribly belittling of what they really are to us, the old Sony Trinitron 17" Dell monitor, all our tools and every bit of used wood removed from somewhere from which my husband cannot separate himself, along with the furnace, the oil tank, the dryer and an old washing machine that serves as a surface on which to pile more stuff.

I waited for what would follow. Were his jeans not in the dryer? Was there no bottle of Coke keeping cold in the real fridge, which is inconveniently far from the kitchen, where my husband finds it perfectly normal to have one the size of what my son will likely enjoy in his monk's (excuse me, student's) lodgings in Paris, either a 9m2 chambre de bonne, now politely and considerately referred to as a "chambre de service" in the annonces, up under the mansard zinc roof of an immeuble de standing in the 17th arrondissement near la Place des Ternes, or a sightly larger but better appointed studette, or very small studio, on the rez de chaussée, the "chaussée" being the pavement, and the "rez de chaussée" being "street level", in a drearier part of town at the edge of their cherished Marais, on a street the shops of which boast exclusively the not exclusive, but cheap garments imported and exported by their hard-working Chinese owners and destined for the Tatis and run-down markets, the better appointments including a real, but small, full bath with shower and toilet, as opposed to a Sanibroyeur in the "chamber", or the nicer option, we have since discovered we believe it to be, of a shared toilet, cleaned by the building's guardian, out on the palier, or corridor, and a separate storage space with shelves, ready to receive a small washing machine for his soiled clothes and bedding that I dream he will wash.

We should know which in about 2 hours, the first being offered, the second being decided.

"You really need to take care of the garden" was what followed. "The weeds are nearly as tall as the gate out by the garage." There was so much truth in what he said. He turned the page, ended the chapter, put the crossing on the final "t" of Baccarat, her too short life, and her death. It was time, he was telling me in his inimitable way, to get back to everything that occupied me before my life became directed toward trying to preserve hers. We lost, but the rest shouldn't go with it.

I realized I am probably depressed, but it was hidden in the business of sitting together, or he in his room and I on my sofa, laptops on our laps, scouring the real estate sites for likely studettes or chambres de service for him and communicating by exchanges of email that were chat before chat existed. The most a son pudique will allow a mother respectueuse de sa pudeur et de son indépendence.

It works.

In two hours, we will know. We criss-crossed Paris on my motorcycle, dodging traffic, cars, trucks and other deux roues. We called for more than 25, visited 5 of the 6 we intended to see, the 6th dropping off the list after we visited the 5th, which is the one for news of the decision we are waiting before accepting the other.

Yesterday, he accompanied me to pick up Baccarat's ashes, intending to go into the city to see friends after. There was hardly time to make it to the train. His plans were indefinite. He telephoned while I waited for the woman who took Baccarat a week before, with one of the vets, to get her ashes. He was by my side when she returned and handed me a bag, containing a white cardboard box. It was bigger than I expected. She placed it in my hands, and it was heavier than I had thought.

"J'espère vous revoir bientôt sous des circonstances plus heureuse," she said, my eyes starting to fill with tears.

You must remain dignified, I instructed myself.

I held her gaze. We neither of us, nor Sam, wanted all the people, suddenly elderly, apart from one young couple, waiting with their cats in travel cages to understand our business. It is the worst of the vets' and their clients' business. Her silence the week before had been from the same source. I suspected that then, and I knew it now.

The vet who had done the sonogram of Baccarat's heart that showed what turned out to be a malignant tumor had called after the weekend. To follow up. To express her sympathy. Her hope that a better outcome could have been possible. I forgave them.

We left. Sam drove, decided abruptly against taking the train into Paris, encountered traffic, and entered a parking lot that can serve as a way to get out of that traffic and onto a quieter way to his old school, or the vet. He pulled even more abruptly into an empty parking space just before the way out, and turned off the car.

"What are you doing?" I asked. I was confused.

"It's just as easy to park here and walk over to return the DVD as it is to drive there," He said. He practically spat the words out. I chose not to argue, nor to reprimand him. "I need your bank card," he commanded. I fished it out of my bag sitting next to the bag with the box containing the urn of Baccarat's ashes, and picked the box up as he strode across the parking lot.

The tape that sealed the box was white like the cardboard, and it was very carefully centered, in each direction. An envelope was taped to one end, as carefully positioned as the tape. I opened the envelope with as much care and removed the papers. It was the certificate of cremation. I returned it to the enveloped, closed it and lifted it, and set about removing the tape as carefully as it had been put there. I would replace it the same way. Inside, there was a ceramic urn, like the sort of inexpensive Delft china you can buy in any market. It was sealed with more tape, with words printed on it that said it was meant only to be removed by the owner "immediately upon receipt".

I lifted it carefully, too, but it twisted on itself, unwilling to come apart again. I tried to lift the top, expecting a seal like a jar of home-made jam or jelly, and a little resistance. I took care to remove it, pulling steadily so as not to let her ashes spill out by jolting it. The resistance was stronger than I thought; it was sealed.

I knew nothing of these things, I realized. I knew it already, but I realized it then.

The top came away with the jolt I feared, and it startled me anyway, but nothing spilled. Her ashes were inside a plastic bag, carefully closed twist-lock tie. Of course, I thought. Of course they would protect the ashes like that. I inspected the top of the urn and the lid. There was the residue of a silicone sealant that I had broken. The bag was translucent, and I could see the contents. I did not open it.

I had heard of it before, in Dave Eggers' novel A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; they are not ashes like what is left after a barbecue or a cigarette. They are granular, small chips. Small chips of ivory colored bone, Baccarat's bone, from the legs and spine that let her run like a wild thing across the harvested fields when she was not even one, a Christmas ribbon tied around her neck for my holiday card photo undone and trailing on the wind behind her. A shooting black ball of sheer joy. And they were gray grains and other colors like the stones on the beaches in Normandy she loved to play on. The muscles that propelled those bones across the fields and beaches, like I dreamed the other night. The only dream I had in a week of sleep encouraged by light sleeping pills.

Baccarat was running full speed toward me, like she did on those walks, like she did to her mother, running into her full force and getting a nip in return. I was nervous that she'd knock me down, but I let her come, waited for her weight and the fall, but there was none.

The only thing not in that translucent plastic bag is the spirit that moved her and ran right into me and my heart. Our hearts.

"Mom, will you keep some ashes?" Sam asked when he had strode back to the car and got in. He meant would I perhaps not scatter them all in the Moraine forest in Argentière when we go next.

"I could. I think I will find a beautiful wood box for them, if I do. Do you want some? I could divide them," I offered.

"I don't know."

We will figure all that out. My husband prefers not to lift the tape off the box and find the translucent plastic bag. He saw her in the white one, when he already hadn't wanted to. He looked because I did, because I wanted to, and he was there. He touched her, but he prefers to remember the living Baccarat who raced through our lives.

I haven't finished accompanying her in her journey in death, and neither has Sam.
....

Violets

On our last afternoon together
watching a German Shepard play with students

She looks so sad. She knew she couldn't run and chase a stick and make the students laugh, nor run and chase the other dog and make herself laugh. I wondered if she ever would again. She lay down next to me and put her head on my arm, lifting it to look around from time to time. I let my legs rest on her hind quarters. I'll go back to that memory until I can return to happier ones, and I will still go back to it to remember what a moment you want always to remember feels like.

This morning, I wrote an email to a friend.

Today is very hard. I feel sick. Rapide isn't well. She can't move, and she keeps gagging. If I try to lift her, she starts screaming, the way dogs scream. I have to get her an anti-inflammatory, in case it is her lumbar region again, but it is so strange that it came back the evening Baccarat died. Mary, I am just devastated. I know I just have to move through this and eventually it won't ache so badly, but I miss her so much I can hardly stand it. Her body leaves the veterinary clinic soon. I receive her ashes next Friday. I just want to touch her, and I can't anymore. Her fur was so soft, so much softer than her mother's. She always shined, and I loved to stroke her paws, her muzzle, and she let me. I look back at missed walks, my selfishness, thinking she'd be here for years to come, that I would be comforted in her eventual loss by the preparation the work of old age would do in her, but it was so sudden. Now, I recall saying several times that she had become grown-up in the last few months, more subdued and in possession of herself, and all I can think is that what I was seeing was the coincidence of her being 3 going on 4 and her having the earliest stage of her cancer. I thought she was maturing; she was becoming sick. Then, I thought it was the heat that prostrated us all, but it was the cancer grown into an enormous tumor in her heart. Earlier, it slowed her down, just as the heat set in. Then, it hit critical mass, and that's what we couldn't miss: her heart failure was so sudden then.

Her eyes were the part of her that talked, they and the end of her tail. Her sighs. I just so badly wish that I hadn't had to walk away from her the evening before her surgery. She turned her head away, slightly, but her eyes stayed fixed on me. I wanted to run back and scoop her into my arms, cry in her neck. I forced myself to smile at that old look and tell her she'd be fine. I knew, of course I knew, that I would most likely never feel her warm again, see that look or any other, watch her react to Sam's name or my husband walk into the room. It's so wrong. She was so young, Mary. Just 4, only just turned 4 the first full day she was hospitalized here at our vets' clinic. How could that be? I know that God does not watch over us at all, nor does God protect us. All God does is teach us lessons by placing them in our path. To what end are those lessons intended? How does it make me better to lose someone I love? I understand that sadness and grief are part of life, that we are not immortal, but there should be an order, a real preparation for loss. That's why we diminish and have to go through old age, so that even we are eventually ready, but cancer is terrible. To see your dog seem fine and on the 15th day after you first notice a problem, to go pick her up in white plastic bags, her forepaws crossed even inside there, so beautiful. It is so wrong.

And Rapide is whimpering behind me, in pain. She has finally stopped gagging, at least for now.

The only thing that helps is to keep writing, over and over again. I can't keep doing that. I know I won't need to forever. It will get better.

Yesterday, in the car on the way to get Baccarat at the hospital, where they had brought her back for us, there was traffic. I had a migraine. It was horrible; I felt so sick. When we got there, I got out of the car to go ask the security guard for permission to bring our car in to get her body. I was surprised I could walk. My legs felt like rubber, and I felt weightless, numb. He was kind. His eyes said more than our vet's here, and their nurse/secretary. I am angry with them for that, but he looked so sorry, and nodded, "Of course." The doctor came out to greet us, and she shook my husband's hand and then leaned forward to put her hand on my arm and kiss me on each cheek. My vet here did not shake my hand, did not say, "We are so sorry for your loss." Her eyes are big and blue, and they were wet. They talked to me like Baccarat's, saying all she didn't put into actual words. She showed my husband where to bring the car, to the same door through which I had walked Baccarat out every day I had come to see her, every day they had visiting hours. There was only Bastille Day and a Sunday I couldn't see her. Then, we went to talk in her consultation room. She explained that they knew as soon as they opened her and touched the heart that it was bad. The muscle of the heart wall had become very rigid; a bad sign. It was terrible, she said, very sad for them, because the surgery was going so well, better than they had hoped. The biopsy while she was on the table told them what they already knew, the tumor was malignant and it was a cancer of the worst sort. She said that we made the best decision, not to wake Bacs, saying again that while she would have recovered well, and seemed fine after a few days, since dogs have such a high threshold for pain, but then she'd have failed again very quickly afterwards, and that would have been heartbreaking to see. It's true. Sam and I would have seen her start to be well again, and we would have hoped again, and then it would have been like being cast to the bottom of the canyon floor from the rim.

We made out a smaller check for the surgery, since there were no nights on duty with her, and my husband wrote another for their hospital before we got her body. I appreciated his taking it upon himself to write them. He was showing me that he was assuming this, like he said he would, for us.

Then, he went for the car, and I walked around the side of the building, where the gray door was propped open. A moment later, Dr. Gouni and the resident appeared, struggling to carry her body in the slippery white plastic bag. I asked my husband to hurry out of the car and help them, but they were already there, he opened the back end, and I fumbled to make sure there was the place, nothing lumpy under the blanket under her, as though it would bother her. They asked if I wanted to see her. I did. I told my husband to turn away, if he wanted, since he had not wanted to see her, preferring to remember her alive and well. I had to. I am just that way. They turned down the edge of the bag, and there was her head, in profile, still wet from the surgery. Her. I sobbed, Mary, and reached out for her head. My husband looked over my shoulder and stroked her forehead. Her tongue was sticking out, and gray. I wished it hadn't had to be. She used to lick the inside of my hand with her tongue when I held the end of her muzzle. If I said "bisous", she used to lick my lips; that disgusted my husband. I didn't care. She didn't do that in these last two weeks, but she would lick my hand, gently, and look at me, telling me everything with her eyes for which she had no words. I said goodbye and thank you in English. I told them it is my real voice, but it sounded strange to me. Dr. Gouni reached forward again, and I thought she wanted to hug me, but we kissed each other's cheeks again and she had the courage and the compassion to hold my gaze. I'll miss her. She is a truly good person. Her husband is lucky, the animals are lucky and the hospital at the Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire d'Alfort is lucky to have this young woman, who is older than she looks, and who stays with them despite the low pay and missing her family in Greece.

When we drove away, we took a different route, found the right road, thought we lost it, got aggravated, I asked him to drop it for once, since I really couldn't take it just then; nothing mattered more than just coping, and we didn't need more stress. If we didn't make it back before the vet closed because of the traffic, then we would place her in the spare room and I would take her in the morning. Whatever we had to do. We were on the right road. The traffic lightened, and I noticed that my headache and nausea were almost all gone; all I needed was to have her with us, and I was much better. Perhaps, too, to have seen Dr. Gouni. I asked her to thank the student, Enora, who had cared so kindly for Baccarat. She told me that Enora was sad, too. They had all hoped so much that it would prove to be a myxoma, a benign tumor of the heart. The muscular atrophy had, she confessed, been the biggest indicator for her that it might not be. Baccarat's muscles at her temples were no longer existent. Sam noticed that the first day at our vet, two weeks ago tomorrow. I wondered if I had missed it earlier.

I will send them a letter, and maybe some sort of present for their care.

I might look for a new vet out here. I want a vet who can say, "I am sorry," and shake my hand, at least. If I find one, I will tell them. My husband says that is the difference between public and private. The CHUVA at the ENVA d'Alfort is a public institution for the teaching of veterinary medicine and the vet out here is a private clinic, become more about making money than caring for animals and their families.

They are probably picking her, and any other dogs and cats who have died, up now. I don't like to think of her burning, Mary. I just want her ashes to take to the forest at the base of the peaks of the Mont-Blanc range. I wish there was another way. I wish it didn't have to be this way. I wish.

Mary gave me the idea for a present to send to Dr. Gouni and Enora. Violets. She told me that when they had to have their dog put down last winter, their vet gave them a pot of violets, and it was the same when her son and his wife had to do the same with theirs. Our vet offered no condolences, no support. I thank them for helping us get Baccarat into the cardiologists at the ENVA d'Alfort and their teaching hospital, but I can ill pardon not sharing our grief for an animal for whom they have cared since she was 8 weeks old by at least expressing their regret for so sad an outcome to her short life.

I can offer violets to a young doctor and a student who cared enough to be kind and to let us see that it was so.
....

ENVA d'Alfort, Day 8, Thursday

Resting

The surgical team at the Institute Montsouris, or IMM Recherche - CERA, has been able to move Baccarat's surgery up to Thursday. Five days sooner.

The studies undertaken here are large animal veterinary, as I understand it, but it is part of the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris, which is a human medical center in Paris. We are assured that they have state of the art technology and techniques, that the team operating on Baccarat operates on human beings in cardiovascular surgery, and that medically, we have the best possible care available.

This, I do not doubt. I knew that the moment we were referred to the Ecole National Vétérinaire d'Alfort.

This evening, after Dr. Gouni came to find Baccarat and I and give me the estimate for surgery, I was sitting at the edge of Baccarat's cage and listening to the older couple who had come to see the dog in the cage next to hers, a dog that lies there on its inflatable pad and twitches. She has neurological problems, among other things, they told me. Her chart said that she is sweet, but you must get her attention before touching her. Baccarat's chart said, under temperament, "Gentille", but today it read "Très gentille". Their dog had been operated on and was still recovering. They were older than I am. Well dressed. They bent into the cage, rather than sitting on the edge, as I did. She was worried. He seemed pragmatic, concerned, self-possessed. He exuded knowledge and confidence.

"Vous êtes médecin?" I asked. I already knew the answer.

"Oui," he nodded. Of course.

"En quoi?"

"Rhumatologie," he replied. I noted his suit without tie, shoes. The red thread at the lapel button hole indicating his membership in the Légion d'honneur. Something my husband, who wears jeans and long-sleeved cotton t-shirts to the hospital, to protect his arms from the polyester mix of the "blouse blanche", would refuse. I wondered how he had earned it, thinking he was probably a professor of medicine. I noted his well-coiffed, somewhat long gray hair and nodded.

"Mon mari aussi. Il est obstétricien-gynécologue." He nodded and looked from me to Baccarat.

"Elle va être opérée," said his wife, looking over from her dog. "Elle a une tumeur dans le coeur."

Her husband knew. I had told him while she talked to her dog. 18 years old, they had found her in a forest when she was 2, 16 years ago. I thought of Wisp, also found in the woods, and who is becoming mentally unstable since Baccarat has been hospitalized. This morning, walking up the stairs to clean Sam's room -- I know, don't tell me; I am hoping to install better habits before he gets his own place --, I smelled a smell. It was only when I got in the bathtub to take my shower before leaving for Maisons-Alfort that I noticed the smell again, particularly strong in the bathroom, and saw the pile of cat poop deposited in the corner between the tub and the window.

Damn it, said myself. Now what are we going to do?

"Clean it up and hope Baccarat makes it, because if she doesn't, we've got a serious problem developing."

"Elle a beaucoup de personalité," said the rhumatologist, "ça se voit dans ses yeux." His wife looked around again into Baccarat's cage.

"Elle est si belle," she said. "Elle a des yeux si communicatifs."

"C'est exactement ça," I said, nodding, and looking back at Baccarat.

It was only after they left and the student who has been caring for her since she arrived came and knelt next to me, after having asked with a big smile if I had been told, Baccarat would be operated on on Thursday, reaching in to caress her head, and said, before getting up to leave, "Vous pouvez rester le temps que vous voulez," that I broke down again. I stroked her head, while she lie there, resting, her eyes closed. She glanced at me. I reached for the scarf in my bag from the motorcycle and buried my face in it, wiping my tears.

The veterinarian on rotation in medical hospitalization came in. She had come to find me outdoors earlier and introduce herself, and now she stood there smiling at me. They hold us up, too. They encourage us, and they tell us to bring our families; we have to prepare ourselves, see our beloved animal before the surgery because, if it is very bad, it will be kinder not to wake her up only to suffer the pain of recovery for nothing.

I knew what she was going to say; my husband had anticipated it, and Dr. Gouni had said it. I said it before she had to. She smiled at me, and I looked at her eyelashes. The length of them. Their color. The spacing between them and their curve. Her eyes. I looked at her lips as she spoke and smiled. I wondered if I would be able to recognize her again, seeing all of her face at once. I could only see pieces of her. Could she tell how I was seeing her? I could hear her.

"Si," Dr. Gouni had said, "c'est très, très méchant, il serait peut-être mieux de ne pas --"

"La réveiller," I finished. "Je sais. Mon mari me l'a dit. Je fais confiance à l'équipe médicale et chirurgicale." She nodded.

If it is a not so very bad, but malignant, they will remove it, close and let her live out the time she has.

We know it is decided already. Prayers no longer serve any purpose. They never did. It is what it is, benign or malignant. Love and support are what we need. Caring eyes and compassion.

Hope will help until the phone rings sometime around 4 pm Thursday, but we are told that we must prepare ourselves. The new vet and I looked at Baccarat, and my eyes filled with tears again.

"On se demande seulement comment, comment cette chienne si pleine de vie et si jeune aurait pu avoir cette tumeur."

"Elle est déjà une chienne spéciale. Ca se voit dans ses yeux si expressifs. Elle va vers les gens. C'est clair qu'elle est bien avec les gens, et elle se bat. Elle ne se laisse pas aller, et cest très important," she said. She is right. Baccarat is fighting to stay with us. She is not giving up, lying down to let herself go.

"Je vais la laisser dormir, se reposer," I said.

"Oui, et nous allons bientôt faire ses soins du soir," she said, smiling again.

"Je serai là demain, et après demain, et mon fils aussi," I told her, "Mon mari est de garde à l'hôpital mercredi. C'est bête. Peut-être il va pouvoir me joindre demain soir." She nodded, and left me to say good-bye to Baccarat.

I had to stand and shut the glass door on her cage. She watched me, her eyes never leaving mine. I smiled. I wanted her to know that it was alright. That I believed it was alright.

"Je reviens demain, ma Bacs. Je t'aime."

I walked down the corridor, and on down the stairs, out to my motorcycle, waiting in the sun on the wide sidewalk along the avenue.
....

ENVA d'Alfort, Day 4, a heart tumor

In the refuge of the shade of a plant

Baccarat has a diagnosis. After days of tests and results and more tests and more results that ruled out kidney and liver diseases, infections, deep intravascular coagulation, pulmonary embolisms, and thrombosis, Professeur Chetboul, who I have not met, spoke with the cardiac surgeon who would operate on Baccarat at the Institute Montsouris in Paris and called the veterinary cardiologist who has been following Baccarat with her and the chief of staff, Dr. Gouni, to tell her that according to the cardiac surgeon, if the clot is in the atrium and not moving, it is what they thought it might be, a clot formed over a tumor.

It is nothing else, and the course of treatment they have been pursuing will not be helpful, necessary as it might be to keep her stable until she can have surgery, which is the only option available to save her.

I listened to Dr. Gouni, the resident and student listening alongside, Baccarat on her green cotton tape lead at the student's feet, tired, while she explained that because Baccarat is so young, only having turned 4 last Saturday (she was born the day Zidane was given a red card for his head butt in Materazzi's chest and France lost to Italy, unfairly and undeservedly in 2006), there is a good enough chance that the tumor is benign to justify operating. Because of the size of the clot, they will have to use a cardiopulmonary bypass machine to reroute the flow of blood around the heart during the surgery. The hope had been able to give her the anti-coagulant Fraxiparine to prevent the clot from getting any bigger, while her body's natural process to degrade clots, or fibrinolysis, went to work to possibly make it small enough to operate by clamping a portion of the atrium, but the cardiac surgeon ruled that out owing to the tumor. We cannot know it's size.

Because the lump appears not to be connected to the heart wall, it is possible that it is relatively small still, or some kind of tumor my husband named that I cannot remember, but a tumor it is.

Dr. Gouni went on to explain that if Baccarat were 10 years old, they would not recommend surgery, since there would be as much as a 95% chance of the tumor being malignant.

They will be able to perform the biopsy on the tumor while Baccarat is on the table and have the reply immediately. If it is benign, they remove it and whatever part of the heart muscle they need to and close. She would then have a complete recovery, and little chance of a repeat occurrence.

If it is malignant, they will close.

"Dan ce cas, on peut discuter les options de traitement, chimio --" offered Dr. Gouni, a little reluctantly, it seemed to me, and I shook my head.

"On ne ferait pas ça." The intern smiled sympathetically and nodded her head. Dr. Gouni nodded, too.

"On pourrait lui laisser le temps qu'il lui restera à vivre -- " I nodded.

"Oui. Je lui laisserai le temps de vivre chez elle, et puis, on verra." There would always be time to have her put down if she began to suffer too much. They nodded.

The issue for now is that there is not a doctor specialized in operated the cardiopulmonary bypass machine, or "un pompiste", available until July 27. The surgeon wants to operate as soon as possible because Baccarat's condition is too fragile. They offered me to take her for a little walk outdoors again yesterday, and while she seemed stronger, choosing by herself to get up and move around more from time to time, she had diarrhea and vomited. These are signs that gave pause to Dr. Gouni. It indicates that she has low blood pressure, which they confirmed. Spots also appeared on her shaved belly during the afternoon that indicate internal bleeding. They ran platelet counts to determine whether she should still be on Fraxiparine and adjust the dosage. She will take no more walks. She can walk with me to the cardiology waiting room from her cage and sit there together.

I asked if the cardiac surgeon, who operates on people in a hospital for human beings, is not put-out to operate on animals.

"Oh, non!" said Dr. Gouni. "Il l'aime beaucoup. D'abord, c'est moins stressant que d'opérer sur un enfant" for example, her tone implied, "et puis il aime les chiens, surtout les Labradors. Il en a lui. Aussi, c'est dans le but de la recherche."

Baccarat's surgeon loves Labrador Retrievers. He is a Lab owner himself, and he is doing everything he can to move her surgery date up, and aside from being a surgeon, he is also involved in research. Baccarat's case adds to their bank of knowledge.

"Il donnera son temps," continued Dr. Gouni. "Ils ne factureront pas les chirurgiens, mais tout ce qu'on ne pourra plus utilser sera facturé." In other, words, the doctors will operate for free. We will pay the costs of materials that cannot be reused, and I don't think that amounts to very little in this case. She had guessed 2,000 euros, plus hospitalization and her current costs of diagnosis, treatment and hospitalization. It is somewhat staggering.

"You cannot," said Sam again last evening, when he called me, "put a price on life, Mom. We have to pay whatever it costs to save her."

I was getting on my motorcycle, getting ready to leave, when I happened to see rather than hear a call coming in on my cell phone, sitting on the bike. It said it was from Sam. I answered.

He was calling to tell me that he would not be going to Nanterre in the fall for law. He said it in a voice that sounded flat, possibly just an instant from being catastrophic.

But it's not possible not to be able to go to even Nanterre, myself said, our thoughts racing. They have to accept him!

"Hold on," I said to myself, "maybe it only means that he got into one of his other choices." I turned my attention back to Sam, "Sam, does that mean you are going to the Sorbonne?"

"No. I am not going to the Sorbonne."

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, and I really was. That was his first choice, and he thought that with his English and his American culture, he'd have a chance, but these things can be somewhat haphazard, too.

Then what? asked myself, sounding panicky. Where can he be going? What's left? Can it be that he can't go anywhere?

"Descartes, Mom," interrupted Sam. "Paris 5. I got in."

I had to round up my stray thoughts, balanced there on my bike, feeling hot and vulnerable for a melanoma victim in the sun. It was lovely for a moment on an afternoon that had been sunny, then cloudy, windy. He seemed to sense that I was in need to being assisted in gathering my mind.

"I'll be in Malakoff, Mom, at Descartes."

"Are you happy? I mean, is that what you want?"

"It was my third choice, over Nanterre," he reminded me, sounding more patient with my slowness and failure to get into his head than usual. He has been feeling a little sorry for me, since he knows what it feels like to care about Bacs.

"Wait, third choice? What were your others, then?"

"The Sorbonne, Assas, and Descartes."

I had forgotten Assas. Or, rather, I had forgotten that he hadn't removed it from his choices, not that he'd need to; he had decided he didn't want to go there owing to its reputation for being cut-throat and competitive, not Sam's best learning environment, but he'd never get in, anyway. While all the public law schools, like all the public medical schools -- both of which are the best, anyway --, are supposed to be equal, Assas has a reputation for cronyism that cannot be denied in the professional world. Sam's got enough brains and personality to make up for that missed point of assistance. I am not worried about that.

"Are you sure you want to go there?"

"I can change later, if I want, and if I do well, maybe I can transfer to the Sorbonne, if I want. There is less information on Descartes' law program than on the others, but it is smaller, and I think that is better for me, and it was my first intuition to put it over Nanterre, so, here I go, I am about to click on "oui définitif". I'm clicking. There. It's done."

Can I possibly tell you how proud I am of him? He did this all by and for himself. Hours of research and reflection on himself and his options, and he made all his own choices, for the better or for the worse, but I can only believe that they will be for the better. He has this under control.

I only need to keep the currents warm under his wings.

"Do you want to come see Baccarat with me on Saturday morning?"

"What time?"

"Early, 9:30 am until noon."

"Alright." That's early for him, but he wants to see her. "Are they doing things for her to help the pain?" he asked.

"She isn't in pain, Sam. She is tired, and they are giving her all the attention, care and kindness we could hope for; they are making her comfortable and keeping her stable with everything they can do."

"There cannot be any question of money, Mom. This isn't about money. We have to help her."

I thought again of him saying that her life is far more worthwhile than all the "conneries" he could spend his money on, including the new used scooter he wants. I think now of a friend writing:

I'm with you--on every front. As a mother. The fact that Sam is moved by love for Baccarat to take a position: "Love, life--has more value than money" is both beautiful and a signal that your son has depth. What a fine man he will grow to be when this very special facet of his nature is nurtured.

And another saying:

[your husband] will pay for this for you and for Sam as you said, so don't question it. You do things for him, he does things for you, that's marriage. Have more faith!

And, finally, my sister weighing in:

I think if there is any type of decent chance that it might not be malignant and you can scrape together the money that you should do it. I know [my husband] is squarely in [your husband's] corner. He thinks it is unfair to the animal to put them through all that. I guess I would say the most humane thing is to do what is in Bac's best interest.

This morning, I told him that it is about money for many people, for nearly everyone. It unfortunately has to be because money is never unlimited, and it depends on each person or family's resources where they have to draw the line. We would have to draw a line somewhere, too. It's hard to know when, but it isn't now for us.

Baccarat will go to Montsouris, if nothing happens between now and then, whenever that will be, and she will have cardiopulmonary bypass surgery to remove a tumor, if it is benign.

I have to hope.


....

ENVA d'Alfort, Day 2

Look at that face -
Just look at it,
Look at that fabulous face of yours.
I knew first look I took at it,
This was the face that the world adores.

Look at those eyes -
As wise and as deep as the sea.
Look at that nose -
It shows what a nose should be.

As for your smile, it's lyrical -
Friendly and warm as a summer's day -
That face is just a miracle.
Where could I ever find words to say

The way that it makes me happy
Whatever the time or place?
I'll find in no book
What I find when I look
At that face.

Look at that face -
Just look at it.
Look at that funny old face of yours.
I knew first look I took at it
You've got a face like a kitchen door's.

Look at those eyes -
As close as the closest of friends.
Look at that nose -
It starts where a good nose ends.

As for your smile - spectacular!
One grin would frighten the birds away.
You've got a face like Dracula!
And I mean that in the nicest way!

To say that there's no one like you
Would not even state the case.
No wonder I shook
When I first took a look
At that face.

Today, they asked me if would like to take her for a walk when I arrived for visiting hours shortly after 2 pm, regretting the 20 minutes I had missed owing to a late start and a long drive. She was in her impeccably clean cage, with a bowl of water, another of food, sort of touched, and a length of green cotton tape tied around her neck. A makeshift hospital leash. They told me that she had already been out for a little walk and had peed. We were so proud of her!

Really, I am not being sarcastic. Even the smallest of things doesn't seem so small when someone is so very sick.

We took the elevator down to the ground floor, Baccarat stopping to relieve herself just outside the waiting room, which no one minded in the least, and down a corridor that seemed as long as the QE II at Baccarat's new pace. Just past the door was a little wood, with a path along which some interns and students hurried with small dogs in their arms, or others strolled in small groups, with a dog on its green tape. We past a bench, rounded a corner and came upon a red plastic bowl filled with water and drowned insects.

"Bacs, tu veux boire un peu?"

She answered by way of making a slow bee-line for the bowl, lowering her muzzle to drink and then letting her forelegs splay and her body sink slowly to the ground, like a mechanic's lift leaking hydraulic fluid. Her forepaws remained on either side of the bowl, her head just above it, for convenience. I got out Daniel Deronda and read, but mostly watched her watch the strong summer breeze in the leaves of the trees around us where we sat in our patch of shadow beneath an Acer campestre, so named by Linné, or Lineaus, the tag told me. A Field Maple. I thought about how the trees were planted with scientific discovery and learning in mind and contemplated making a garden for them.

Too much work for them, said myself, who had been fairly quiet of late.

That's what being preoccupied with real worries will do.

And then I noticed that some of the people walking near us were walking right up to me. It was Dr. Begue, a young vet in her last two years of specialty training in internal medicine, and Dr. Gouni, the cardiologist. I felt as though I should apologize for making them have to come find me, but they were smiling. They knew where I was, and it was alright. They do this. They had come to tell me about Baccarat's progress and what they knew. I had seen Dr. Begue already when I arrived, but not Dr. Gouni.

What they knew for now, with some pieces of lab work not yet available, is that Baccarat's liver is fine, that she is not in kidney failure, that her kidneys seem to be alright, but they still do not know why she lost so much blood protein. That loss of albumin and the protein that is responsible for anti-coagulation probably explain the formation of the clot.

They asked if I could find a lab for human blood work that would be willing to test dog blood because they need to perform a test usually done on humans to see if there is thrombosis, in other words, a thrombus somewhere in her body (in addition to the clot in the right atrium) that they haven't seen; a lot of Baccarat's diagnostic work and care involves people medicine, and will possibly involve people cardiac surgeons. We are going to have to take blood from Rapide, too, so that the lab has a comparison with a healthy dog, since the indicators for humans don't necessarily correspond to dogs. This thrills my husband, since Rapide, after nearly 4 years of cohabitation, still hasn't come around to him.

It's looking like I will have to ask our vet out here to draw the blood or never get it done. Sigh.

This brought us up to what they had in mind. The thinking is that if her physical condition improves, and if the cause of the clot can be identified and is not chronic in nature, and if we feel we can afford the cost, they will organize surgery for Baccarat in a hospital in Paris in an OR for humans.

I haven't told my husband about this. Not yet.

They hope that with the return of blood proteins to a normal level, which seems to be the case, and the anti-coagulating drug Fraxiparine (at 16 euros a day) that the clot will not continue to increase in size and her body can do its natural work to dissolve the clot. Another echocardiogram today seemed to show it ever so slightly, possibly smaller. If it decreases in size, then they can consider operating on the heart without a bypass. It it doesn't, at its monstrous 5 cm proportions, then they would have to do bypass surgery to open the atrium and remove the clot. It is unlikely, given its size, that it can go completely away, and they cannot give dogs the drugs they give people to shrink a clot. They are almost always lethal for dogs.

And, here is another piece of information. A clot tends, I am told by Dr. Gouni, to form on an area that is "moche", or "ugly", meaning "not smooth", but "bumpy", "irregular". It can be from the formation of a tumor that attracts clotting around it, or it could be from an irregularity on the inside surface, in this case, of the heart muscle. What they remove would be biopsied. If it is a tumor, it is certain to be malignant. If is it merely an irregularity in the surface of the muscle, then it is corrected. Sam has offered his earnings. He says it is more worthwhile than any other "connerie" on which he would otherwise have spent them, like a new used, higher cylinder scooter for the fall, on which he had his heart set.

My husband will want to know that this offers her a longterm positive outcome and quality of life. They have the same objective and say it is too early to tell, but they wanted just to know if we would want to do this if they felt it could be worthwhile because many people would not be able to, owing to the cost.

"Si j'avais un chien qui en avait besoin," she said to me, "je sais que je ne pourrais pas le faire."

I looked at the sunlight in the trees and the blue sky and down at Baccarat at our feet. I thought of all the things I don't want as much as I want her to live. I thought about Sam and how much he has come to love this dog he didn't want. I thought about what it means to be part of one another and about from where the money would come. I felt happy thinking about it.

Happy? That meant one thing: I wanted to do it for her, if it would mean that she could run in the Moraine again in the snow.

I was happy later, when with Mappy maps in hand showing the locations of some 16 pharmacies in Créteil, I sat down on a parking barrier in the courtyard to call as many pharmacies as it took to get a week's worth of Fraxiparine. I picked the cluster the closest to the boulevard to the veterinary hospital and started calling, rounding up doses of Fraxiparine and noting it on the maps. After 5 calls, I had what I needed. I jumped into the car and headed off to collect it all. It took three pharmacies for a week's supply at about 120 euros.

I was doing something to help her. I was happy to be the gopher, to get anything they needed, to give them the name of a lab that would help, to make their work possible and easier.

"Vous faites un beau métier," I told Dr. Gouni yesterday.

"Mais, savez, ce n'est pas toujours beau," she replied.

"Non, que le résultat ne soit pas bien n'enlève rien de la beauté du métier." She nodded, accepting that.

It was going on 7 pm when I returned to the hospital, emptied down to the bare bones staff and emergencies, and rang the bell. A young intern came to let me in, and took the little plastic bag full of other smaller plastic bags of Fraxiparine. She told me everyone was gone, but she would deliver them to the service for me. I turned to leave, and remembered I had left something for me in the bags and took the stairs up to ask if it could be retrieved. There were two students, or interns, at the emergency desk. Embarrassed, I explained.

"Elle était petite, en vert, les cheveux bruns?" the young woman asked.

"Oui, c'est bien elle."

"Attendez, je vais aller la trouver," she said, without looking put upon in the least.

"Si vous mettez plus que deux minutes," I told her, "laissez tomber. Ce n'est rien d'important --"

She was already gone and back with the petite young woman in green with brown hair, who went off with a smile to get my sunscreen and returned to tell me that if I could possibly wait, Dr. Begue hoped to speak with me. Glancing at my watch and thinking I was going to miss any chance to get groceries before the stores possibly closed tomorrow for Bastille Day, I nodded.

"Bien sur je peux la voir." After all, these people were practically dedicating themselves to caring for my dog and trying to save her.

Dr. Begue appeared, hoping that I could wait for the blood to take to the lab and the syringes and tubes for Rapide's, and as soon as she was gone to do that, Dr. Gouni rounded the corner, practically straight into me, smiled, and took another chunk of her day to bring me up to date.

When we had said good-bye, Dr. Begue returned and talked about the hospital, about dog food, about anything. They work hard, but with so many hands to make light work of it, they have time for what Dr. Gouni said is also part of their work: the people who bring their sick animals to them, because, as Dr. Begue said, if we bring them there, then we are truly dedicated pet owners.

"Une dernière chose, si je peux m'abuser encore de votre temps," I said. She smiled, waiting. "Aurait-il un supermarché dans le coin?" She nodded. There was a Casino. She gave me detailed directions, as helpful as she had been with the Mappy maps of Créteil with the pharmacy locations circled in red pen and a print-out of their names and telephone numbers.

"Il est encore ouvert à cette heure-ci?" I asked, a little worried. Out here, everything closes by 8 pm.

"Oui, ça ferme à 21 h. N'oubliez pas de mettre l'échantillon de sang au congelateur," she reminded me with another smile as we parted, and I headed off to do my grocery shopping, Baccarat in her clean glass-fronted cage with her green cotton tape around her neck, perhaps sleeping, only several doors away.

It was alright. Dr. Begue and the students would be with her. I'll be back Thursday.


....

la Maladie du maître médecin, Baccarat at the ENVA d'Alfort

l'Ecole Vétérinaire Nationale d'Alfort
Maisons-Alfort, France

Baccarat is here. She spent the night in intensive care, and I have not been so exhausted in a very long time. There is the exhaustion that sleep helps, and there is the exhaustion that remains when sleep is done. I have not told this story in more than fragments in an email here, a text message there, a post on Facebook, or a message. Our Baccarat is very sick. I will tell the story, but she needs me now, and so the story will have to wait.

She has a 5 cm mass in her heart that was initially believed to be in the right ventricle, but is in the right atrium. It appears likely that it is subsequent to a renal issue, but we are waiting for the results from the tests that were performed last evening and this morning, and I am on my way to go spend the afternoon with her, perhaps bring her home. Tomorrow is Bastille Day, and if there is any chance that she is better off there, that is where she will remain because she could not be in better or kinder care. The ENVA at Maisons-Alfort is the reference in veterinary education, training and care in France, and she has had the chief of cardiology consult on her case.

They say hers is a rare case. They have decided to call it "la Maladie du maître médecin" because the only other one they have seen was in a dog whose master was a doctor, too.

We watched her grow weaker as the afternoon passed, but after her long series of cardiac and abdominal sonography, in quiet, darkened rooms with hands holding and stroking her head, paws, tummy, she had a better moment and looked out the windows before lying down, still looking more like her old self than I had seen in days.

That's what touch and love can do. That is what they are unafraid to offer at the CHUVA (Centre hospitalier universitaire vétérinaire).

She is an amazing, wonderful, distinct person. Once you meet Baccarat, there is no mistaking any other Labrador for her. She is imperfect, and she is beautiful. She is loving, and she is funny. She lives with us and makes her place, a very large place I have not always seen a loved animal inhabit so completely. She is present and ready, and to see her hardly able to fill her own paws and respond is terrible for us. Friends who love dogs tell me she is strong and we have to help her fight.

I need to go see her now.
....