Bleu's Story - Val's Story, Chap 15, part 2

At the cabin up north in 2020

In the summer of 2022, Val’s dog Bleu had been diagnosed with blastomycosis. It was a long, expensive process to get the husky/lab mix healthy again. He lost a lot of weight and was lethargic for weeks before the antifungal meds kicked in. It can take more than six months for blasto to clear anyone’s system.

After he’d been on medication for a month or two, the vet would insist he come back in for lab work before they would refill his prescription. The drugs themselves were costly enough, but the vet bill with the labs was over four hundred dollars per visit.

After a few rounds, with Bleu completely symptom-free, Val stopped his meds. I told her several times I would pay the bill, but her bull-headedness reared its ugly head.

“The vet just wants to make money,” she answered.

The dog did fine for a long time. We all thought that surely the infection was cleared.

Then in April, close to three months after Val found sobriety, Bleu developed a few pus-filled nodules in several places on his body. After doing some research online, Val thought it could be the return of blasto. She called the vet, who said they couldn’t refill his prescription until he was seen and had a full exam with labs.

She opted to monitor the lesions and drain them when they were irritated, keeping them clean and watching for other symptoms.

Within a few weeks, he was lethargic again, not eating, and losing weight.

She called me one Sunday afternoon in a panic over his condition.

When I got there, I saw a skeleton of the once vibrant dog panting on the floor. “We gotta take him to the emergency vet right now.”

Looking back, I’m sure Val was in denial, thinking that maybe this was just a nightmare and she’d wake up. Or that she’d been imagining his condition and he’d suddenly spring back to good health.

Somehow, he was able to drag his weak body into her vehicle, and we drove to the animal ER just a few miles away.

He obediently followed us to the door on wobbly legs, but then veered off to pee in some bushes. Anyone else, including Val, would think that was a good sign. But with my medical background, I knew it meant something else – his body was shutting down.

The automatic doors to the building whooshed open, and we coaxed Bleu inside. But just as he started through the open door, he collapsed, and the stupid door tried to shut on him.

Only two scenes from my life continue to haunt me. The sight of Bleu lying there as Val screamed at his side, while those automatic doors just kept trying to close on them.

The other event was a few years before when one of the dogs killed one of our cats, and I was the first one to see her little wilted body. No blood, just a shell of fur. I couldn’t stop screaming.

But there I was years later, running into the vet’s office yelling for help.

He was gone before they got out to the door with a gurney. The staff still loaded him up and whisked him off to see what they could do.

I've had longer nights in my life, but few as painful. Holding my baby girl as tightly as I could as she sobbed uncontrollably, waiting for two of her friends to arrive for additional support.

We finally got back to her house and had to face her other dog, Buddy.

Dogs know. They know so much more than we give them credit for. They are the salve for our broken hearts, but how do we ever mend their hearts?

Bleu as a baby in 2017, with Granma.

With his big brother, Buddy

Taking a ride

The pack in 2017 - Buddy, Wesley, Bleu and Dino

And again the next year - Wesley, Dino, Bleu and Buddy. 
Only Buddy is left. So sad.