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| Pat in our parents' back yard in 1987 |
You make your own luck. Pat Loehmer
Flashback
“I won’t let
her go.”
“You’ve only
had her a couple weeks,” was a pretty lame response but I didn’t know what else
to say.
My sister Pat
sighed on the other end of the phone.
She had
picked up the German Shepard mix at the humane society a few weeks before.
Mandy was an adorable puppy, but what puppy is not ridiculously cute.
Then just a
few days later, Mandy became lethargic and stopped eating. Pat encouraged her
to eat and drink, but finally had to take her to the vet. The puppy was
diagnosed with Parvovirus. Nursing Mandy back to health, Pat was reminded of
why she dropped out of vet school. She knew she would have given her heart to
every sick animal that came in the door.
The vet told
her to check with where the dog had come from to see if there were any other
sick dogs. Turns out that the rest of the pups from the litter as well as her
mom had all succumbed to Parvo. It was only Pat’s tenacity and shear will power
that cured Mandy. She remained Pat’s loyal companion, her shadow for many
years.
Probably 12 or 14 years later, the
shepherd was full of arthritis and lacked any energy, her eyes clouded with
cataracts, when one day she could no longer get up the steps into the house.
Pat called me a few hours later to
tell me that Mandy had obediently, though slowly, followed Jeff into the woods
when he called her, a rifle over his shoulder. Pat didn’t know what she would
do.
“She’s not suffering anymore.” Yet
another lame answer from me.
“I know,” was all she could say in
return.
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| Mandy in Pat's yard in 1987 |
“So what do
you think?” I laid the paper on her lap. “How can we configure the bathroom?”
Even though Pat was lying in a
hospital bed, life had to go on. My husband and I were working on remodeling
our house, adding a third bedroom and second full bath. We were trying to figure
out how to fit all the fixtures into the cramped bathroom space.
“Here,” I laid more paper on her lap.
“I measured everything and cut out models. So it will be like putting together
a puzzle.”
She looked at the small cut-outs of a
toilet, shower and vanity and the space they needed to fit into. “Are you
mocking me?”
“What? Of course not.” The last thing
I wanted to do was hurt her feelings. “If we are going to keep both doors
coming into the bathroom, I don’t know where everything should go.” One door
led to our bedroom, the other to the laundry. I really hated the thought of
shutting off the one to the laundry room and the back door beyond.
She pushed the pieces around for a
while. We came up with a plan we thought would work and I assured her I would
tell the contractor on Monday.
A few hours later, shortly after Mom
came to visit, Pat’s skin went suddenly grey.
Her body convulsed in the small bed
and her eyes rolled back in her head.
“Pat, Pat!” Mom called to her. I
pushed the “code blue” button on the wall and ran out into the hall to flag
down the nearest nurse.
A flurry of activity ensued and I
pulled Mom out into the hall so that we wouldn’t be in the way.
By the first of June, we were all noticing
that she wasn’t nearly as mentally sharp as she used to be. When she first was
admitted to the nursing home, her husband set up her laptop and paid for WiFi
to her room so that she could stay in touch and even work on projects for her
employer. After a month or so, she wasn’t able to focus. She was the smartest
person I knew, and it seemed cruel after losing everything else, that she would
lose her intellect.
An MRI
confirmed that the cancer had spread to her brain. The doctor told Pat, Mom, and
me that they could try radiation. It wouldn’t destroy the tumor, but could
control its growth for a little while, buy her some time.
Her chin
went out again. Her determination never wavered, but this time she was
determined to let go. She was tired and if she knew anything else, she knew
when enough was enough.
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| Pat at our parents' house in 1987, playing a peg game by herself. |
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