Wednesday, March 06, 2024

re:re:beagle died

4.40pm. trust a fucking noisy motorbike (most likely another underage malay [or that 1 indian] male child) to ride past and have the noise all echo about in this high-ceilinged prison i call my room, despite the rain still continuing. (it was raining cats and dogs with lightning and thunder an hour ago, whereas now it's the lighter side of moderate.) sigh, back to how i wanted to start.

as in this title's post, i've decided to continue filling in the blanks. because i didn't know i'd be haunted for not continuing. i just...don't know how to write something any more, without it getting all traumatising yet again. but there is no closure for me not to continue, so i might as well (before time catches up and erodes more of my recollection). 

that said, after i'd lost my memory immediately after my hit-and-run and when it started flooding in, no thanks to my ptsd (and likely because desmopressin is a nootropic, yet i...divinely needed it to not keep drinking like a camel and emptying out all those liquids every few minutes, to the point i hardly have time to do anything else [which is still the case when my pill efficacy starts to run out]), it was insane how vivid and jarring old and distant memories were to me. 

stuff that i thought i'd long forgotten exact details about, started to resurface. yet...i keep wondering if it was god taking me back in time to those moments. because for over a year, it was like i was harry potter staring into the pensieve, where all those memories i was recalling were always me viewing them from a silent, invisible 3rd-party perspective. 

it got to the point where i was starting to feel left out of my own memories, because...i was basically staring at someone else living out their life, and rifling through the diary entries, photos and videos of another, or so it seemed. thank god for eventually correctly realigning my memories to a first-person view. that was the closest to depersonalisation i've ever experienced, and there's no doubt the greater harm it would've caused me had that continued. back to title's topic.
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the final time i'd checked up on, and gone over to beagle while he was still alive (around that 12.30am-ish timing on the 5-mins-fast wall clock, was roughly when i'd last left him), i felt his nose. and found it unusually dry; ditto his tongue and side of his mouth. his left nostril (not the usual right one) even had crusted-up blood stuck to it, which signified that blood hadn't been running for some time. i tried to pluck it out but when beagle kept moving his nose away, i knew it was too physically painful for him. 

so i went to the sink, got some t.p. and dabbed water with it, then gently dabbed away that crusted-up blood. there was hardly any new blood dripping out of his nostrils so (again) i thought whatever injection he was given, must be working in helping him improve. (i didn't know he was running out of life and blood to to bleed out.)

i then brought over his water bowl, carefully lifted his head above the bowl (he couldn't even lift his head, just like hours earlier, i'd observed), but he didn't open his mouth). i then left bowl nearer to him (by the screen door & grille, instead of further away almost behind him by the cardboard 'wall' perpendicular to the grille), despite my parents only just scolding me earlier in the month for not doing so (because my father'd step into the water when opening the grille). 

for the past few months, beagle's had to use his front paws to heave his body toward the water bowl, because his back legs tend to go temporarily lame after being not-sitting-up for some time. i'd also noticed how...much more water he drank, during the almost-1-month i'd returned, until the point of his death. and how much hotter he became when nights were hot. i just thought it was due to the hot weather and his thick fur coat, akin to my insipidus condition. the last time i'd brought him into my air-conditioned room to cool off was at the start of last month.

i then decided to t.p.-dab with water from his water bowl, and then dab his nose with it. i also dipped my fingers into the water bowl, and then wet his tongue, and stuck my fingers into the sides of his unusually dry mouth, to get his jaw to open a bit more. strangely, he only opened his jaw more as a result, but didn't lick the areas i'd wet or made-damp, like he usually would have. i know this signified physical weakness, but based on that incorrect info about (how strange, that several hours later it still lasted) the anaesthetic being the source of that, i was too fucking ignorant to trust my gut and ignore the lies.

at that point, beagle's nose started acting up and he was struggling to breathe (as if trying to breathe out whatever blood that was blocking his breathing). so i prayed over him, and ran my right index finger down his nose, which seemed to stop the struggling, for the first time during that nosebleeding long-drawn-out nightmare, i prayed for "healthy nose cells" because those words came to mind. unfortunately, i could not remember one of the 2 go-to prayer clips that i've chopped up (as in, selectively edited and kept) and played over beagle, that he has always responded to the most, and indicated as if he's understood the words. 

(i believe god enabled him to. and likely did impart some healing to him

—oh god, the fucking 'mat motor' child hellion returned; thank god he's soon putt-putted away—

albeit not complete healing, at least not in this life. as in, i believe the prayers really did extend his life, and slow down his illness' progression. but sadly or not, he only got fully healed by going to heaven.)

---
sigh, one of them's returned, is running his motorbike engine and sometimes revving it up, while yelling to another child. how i long for living-in-this-prison nightmare to be over, where i don't have to keep hearing these hellions over and over again. and have had even 1 of them terrorize my house for months every few hours during lockdown (so both him and i hardly got any sleep) until i called the cops, who surprisingly responded, prolly coz i'd dialled emergency and mentioned my severe mental problems. ok he's audibly speeding round and round these roads. which means i have no choice but to ignore, yet remain on edge and have that affect my writing (in a bad way) as i continue. fyi. back to topic.
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the prayer clip in question was when jp prayed psalm 103:2-5 over his congregation. all i could remember (at the time i was last with beagle) was the last part of jp adding in his bit before he ended his prayers. so i said (like i've always reappropriated, when playing out that clip to beagle), "beagle is young again, strong again, healthy again, because of jesus!". it visibly relaxed the dog in the dark.

i then said sth like, "if beagle needs any help, just call 'jesus, jesus'!" and flapped his ears as i said that. he again looked visibly calmed to hear that – he has always...looked like he's understood, whenever i've mentioned jesus by name. i then stupidly returned to my room (coz it was a hot night yet beagle didn't want the cold, as i said, plus my menstruating made my body temperature even hotter than normal) and continued googling beagle's meds and and blood test results, instead of breaking for "dinner" like i ought to've done, since it was past midnight already. 

i only ate close to 6am that day for "dinner" that night, since (after the family cleared off) i'd spent 2 hours until nearly 4pm by beagle's body, half-heartedly trying cpr without the mouth-to-mouth (coz his jaw was closed a lot firmer, and i didn't wanna break his jaw by opening it up, his lolled-out tongue was in the way, plus there was already some halitosis). at least i got to try it this time on this dog...although after learning the next day what i'd learned, i was a lot more understanding of why it'd be cruel to temporarily resurrect him (only for his suffering to be prolonged until he'd die again, shortly after).

fast forward to me finally checking again on beagle at 2am. i found the water bowl in between his paws (so he must've used the last of his strength to paw himself over), with his head dangling oddly to the right of the bowl. and...that eerie silence in the dark. i immediately knew he was dead, verified (after putting away the bowl) and started shouting through the door of my parents, before going over to my room to grab my phone (and then return to record how he was last found). after roughly only a minute of filming, i returned to my room to scream and wail for a while. (i soon stopped because...it was pointless. there was still a sense of disbelief at the time, yet peace also.)

my parents and brother'd exited the room to congregate where beagle was (with my parents checking up on him). when my brother thought he was still alive but unconscious, my mother noticed his lolling-out tongue. 

i mean, his tongue has always had to stick out because of his busted-up gums, but he's always slid it back in to lick water, breathe, etc.. and there was at least some tension to it when he was still alive (even at 12.30am when he hardly had any strength left to move)...not limp and lifeless, like that-point-onwards.

i immediately pointed out the absence of breathing, and lightly moved my fingers in front of his nose (i didn't block his nostrils, but my mother soon waved away my fingers). there was no breath coming out of them. his eyelids could not be closed (even by the time i'd left his corpse around almost-4am), because they'd pop back open by reflex. but there was nothing scary about them; just...me feeling sad. at least his body was still soft, cuddly (alas, too late for him to feel me hugging him) and warm by the time i'd left his corpse. because it wasn't the case when i'd checked back at 5am (it was cold and rigor mortis had set in).

and that video (of finding him dead) was helpful in looking back, to...remind myself that his face wasn't a look of pain or terror or fear or agony. it just looked like...he was sick and had a stuck nose. my father wiped up a bit of water by his chest, but at least none of my parents or i remember his mouth or chin being particularly wet. this was helpful too because...for a while, i did wonder if he was waterboarded and choked to death. it looked like he'd drunk his last gulp of water (but managed to somehow at least lift his chin out of the bowl) before likely choking to death, which was likely the choking-and-gurgling i remember hearing. (i'd thought it was of the same kind from the previous night. so, like i said, i stupidly ignored it.)

fast forward to the next afternoon. my mother asked if i wanted to be informed when beagle's body was getting buried but i declined, coz (i) i hadn't slept yet and the sunlight was too bright for my eyes, and (ii) it's only his body and thankfully not his spirit that's still in there, so what would be the point. since i still couldn't sleep, a few hours later i did ask (to video) where they'd buried him.

god'd somehow caused one of the large-leafed potted plants (on one of my parents' many cars*, except this was one of the degraded-to-point-of-scrap-metal ones) to have one leaf in particular, wave conspiciously, apart from the other not-as-wavy leaves, when i was approaching beagle's body's grave (as if it was beagle's version of tail-wagging). i never saw the leaf wave that way again.

*the fucking hypocrisy: so many cars, yet i've never been allowed to drive them. and even attempting to drive the car in my name, that i'd even finally bought back last year after my court case settlement, has been met with so much opposition. and scolding and nasty words, to the point i am too anxiety-ridden to even drive out (ever since moving back here), still.

i squatted down and could immediately smell him. it was only the next day when i did that again, and could still smell him, that i remembered something i don't think he was aware of, but merely following god's leading toward: the night before he died, in order to get him to empty his bladder* outside, as well as to compensate for his nosebleeding unwell-ness, i opened screen door and grille and helped him out.

*my parents have been cruelly expecting him to hold it in, yet keep him indoors for up to 12hrs ago, and scold him if he pisses indoors. my father's even roughly shoved his falling-out c-shaped curled-up body out once, when beagle couldn't move back legs in time to walk out; horrible fucker.

(what i meant by helping him out: i'd grabbed one of the kitchen carpet-doormats for him to walk over the rolling door&grille 'tracks' so he wouldn't slip. this and previous night were the only times it occurred to me to do so; since i'd moved back in, i'd noticed my parents had once again confiscated the carpet-doormat he used to sleep on.) 

he went out sniffing around as usual. but what was unusual was how his nose led him to the front 'garden' area of the house where his body's now buried. i thought he was eating grass again (like...all my dogs have sometimes done), so i waited for him to sniff his way back to the front gates, where i held out his compensation (the final of-that-opened-pack stick of dentastix). he gratefully accepted it after i'd quickly gone through the usual paw-shaking and pointing-out-of-features (re: his unique markings) with him, before passing him his prize.

at one point, it sounded like he was choking, but when i turned around (i was by the grille), i saw him walking between the 2 cars by the front of the gates. so i didn't worry too much. by the time he'd stepped back onto the carpet-doormat i'd rolled out for him, there were surface-level drops of blood (from his nose) as he did so, that i was able to later wash off at the kitchen sink.

so...him walking over to what-would-be his body's grave site, was why i could still smell him after that. shortly after visiting beagle's body's grave site, i went to sleep. (how i wish i awoke to beagle and heaven, instead of this still-shitty life's unchanging-for-ages circumstances. my life would be drastically different if my mother would just give me my damn space.)

shortly after i awoke and had my dinnertime "lunch", my mother'd returned from her mother's. she said before she'd gone there, she'd stopped by the vet's clinic to return the pills beagle never lived to ingest (and to claw back some $, which she did). it was truly...providential that the vet beagle saw was out for lunch, because she could then speak to the vet clinic's namesake.

she showed him beagle's blood test results where he was able to reveal they were indicative of internal bleeding. (this helped relieve half of my guilt, because...i really thought i'd killed the dog, since i was the one who triggered his nosebleed.) he said at that point, a blood transfusions would be needed, of which that clinic has no stock. and even then, there was no guarantee a transfusion would help in beagle's cells repairing and not bleeding again. he mentioned other what-to-do-next options that...would only prolong, not cure the dog's life, at that point. he also at least apologised thrice, on behalf of previous day's younger (read: inexperienced), newer vet, for not at least warning my father and brother that the dog was at death's door.

that said, it is also my father's fault for not saying more. my mother only told me (around that time) that her husband told her the vet had said beagle was haemorrhaging. (motherfucker: does that word not even mean a thing? if i'd heard that i would've sat by beagle's side until the end, no matter how hot the weather or how much i was not-harmfully bleeding.)

and 2 nights later when my father finally revealed his account of the vet's, he said the vet actually said beagle's blood platelet count was low (which was what was in the test results i was googling; it also said his white blood cell counts were high and that he was anaemic i.e. low on red blood cells). my father also said the vet had suggested putting him on an I.V. drip (which was what i'd originally bemoaned, after seeing beagle drink the littlest i've seen in...ever – namesake's vet told my mother that putting beagle on the drip would've only prolonged his life for a few hours, but not have changed beagle's life-threatening circumstances).

but that my father'd declined coz he thought the vet was trying to squeeze more $ out of him. (what is wrong with these...idiots. even for all i've suffered after my accident, it seems that $ matters more to them than a human or canine life. honestly, there are many times i still wish i had died, for every brush i've come close to death with. the pain of living through tragedy after tragedy is...so much worse to deal with because i'm still alive.)

my father also said the tranquiliser injection at the start (before the vet dared to touch beagle and check his mouth and front-of-nose – sad that this had to be the protocol, because beagle has always been so amiable towards every human) had stopped beagle's nosebleeding, but that beagle still had strength in him, coz he was still holding up his head head on his own.

and that it was only the injection of (it sucks how these people don't even bother to ask) "antibiotics" (that my father allowed, just before leaving the vet's) that significantly sapped beagle's physical strength, and took away most of the remaining ounces of strength he even had left in the remaining hours of his earthly life. 

my father also meant it to be conciliatory, but it did quite the opposite for me: he revealed that my brother'd photographed beagle upon parking at the vet's (and waiting in the car, while my father went out to ask if beagle could be admitted a lot faster, beyond the always-long queue – yes, for a fast-track fee).

when i later got my brother to send me the photos (he'd taken 2), the photos troubled me for the rest of the night-to-day. poor beagle was posing for smiles, despite blood spurting out of both nostrils and onto his tongue. his eyes were more crossed out than usual.

speaking of crossed eyes. from the 'internal bleeding' diagnosis (and the blood only being emitted through his nose and never his mouth), i can pretty much guess it must've been another one of beagle's tumours, except this time it was in the nose. googling tells me nasal tumours in dogs are rare and tend to happen to city-dwelling dogs.

i can't help but wonder if beagle's eyes were crossed (they're a lot more obvious when he's staring-intensely-and-smiling directly at me or any of my family members) because of that tumour. and the signs were...in hindsight, telltale (yet no vet picked up on it, likely coz he knows how to be quiet when he's around people he doesn't know): noisy breathing and frequent sneezing, throat-clearing, and coughing.

it also made me wonder if beagle's previous owners, or relatives he got handed over to, had actually (i) already taken him for a neck-upwards scan for his busted-up gums, (ii) seen that the scan showed a nasal tumour, and (iii) decided to dump him on the streets because they were likely asked to euthanise him (as is common for this country's vets) or because they didn't wanna pay for his chemo sessions (i.e. the only non-cure but life-prolonging treatment for nasal tumours in dogs, according to googling).

i'm theorising this handed-over part because...i noticed something highly unusual too, around 7.20am on...(i think it was) the day of the night i made him nosebleed. (it was either that day or the previous day.) i hadn't slept yet and was about to head into my room to email, when i heard him "ooh, ooh ooh!"-ing loudly. at first i thought he was injured, but when i went over to by-the-grille where my parents have kept him most-of-the-time at (for the past few months), he was evidently dreaming. i actually saw his tail wag for a bit...which i've never noticed him do before*, when dreaming, after that only, came the usual ear-lifting and nose-twitching, which i'd recorded before. too bad there was no repeat so i couldn't film it.

*i've also never heard beagle call out in that way when dreaming. for the times he's talked in his sleep, he's either gone "woof, woof" or "howwwww" (the latter of which is what he usually sounds like when awake and daring enough to talk in this house, what with all the beating and threat-of-beating).

a few days after beagle died, it made me wonder...was beagle dreaming of a loved one (possibly his owner) that has died, the way people who are going to die tend to dream of already-dead loved ones? i was only reminded of this because, when i was telling my mother a few hours after beagle's dreaming (when beagle was still alive and not-nosebleeding), she said he must've dreamt he was "coming home". i was half-joking that it sounded like he was going to heaven. and...how (sadly, in a temporary way for me) true that turned out to be. 

as for the 2 verses that assured me beagle's with jesus, i forgot to preface that with the verse that...i'd immediately flipped to in my bible, in the minutes after discovering beagle's lifeless body. it was totally out of context for its passage, but i am one who increasingly believes god uses his written word in even different interpretations, as long as (i) they're in line with god's grace, and (ii) they confirm the HS' prompting within me.

the first words i saw (without even being aware of the story) were, "when the time was up, they looked healthier and stronger..." from daniel 1:15. and then i saw how different the context was. but...although it made sense with me telling beagle (the last time i saw him when he was still alive) he was healthy and strong because of jesus, i couldn't...make any sense of beagle's time already being up. i thought he still had many years ahead of him.

so mercifully (and thanks to answered prayer from myself and the only other two who know of beagle's passing), my mother seeing the right vet, helped to reveal that...that beagle's time was indeed up, and he wasn't as more-or-less healthy and my whole family thought he'd been. i mean there were more signs towards the end, but my parents put it down to aging.

for example, my father was saying a month ago that...beagle seems to've aged drastically in these past few months when it came to walking, because my father had to carry the dog back in his arms as-the-norm coz beagle'd be too tired to walk back. and...i think it was only a week prior (or 2 at the most) that, no matter how much i blew into his nostrils (like i usually do when his throat's irritated and he needs to clear it), i still failed to successfully clear his throat and prevent him from coughing a great deal. and the drinking-more-water thing. (i noticed this of snowy on the pre-dawn before he died later in the afternoon: of how snowy drank a loooot more water than usual when i'd helped him to the bucket my parents've always allocated for the dogs outside.) and so on.

as for the other jp prayer clip i'd chopped up? it had to do with praying for fatigue, heart conditions, removal of fear of death and problems with memory. i'd even sing the song along with him ('teach me lord, to wait'), and reappropriate it, such as "rise up on wings like beagle". (how sadly-or-not true that turned out to be. at now, instead of beagle having to wait, i am the one that has to. to see him, and all my other previous mostly-dogs-but-also-other-animals, again.) beagle already knew what 'run', 'wait' and 'walk' were, because they were in my everday interactions with him.

i always found it amazing that beagle could stare intently at that almost-9-minutes clip and not get bored. but i was the impatient one. so i'd last only played that song portion, as well as the psalm 103:2-5 clip, over beagle when he was finally sleeping after the first night he'd nosebled. he was noisily (with his breathing) in agreement when i played the two and gently rubbed on his shoulder. (he's also the only dog i know, who's never minded me disrupting his sleep. my parents would always scold me for doing so. but i always pointed out that he's never minded, when i came over to cuddle him while he was already sleeping, for example.)

i didn't do so for the following nights because i...thought his frequent nosebleeding was disruptive enough. as for the 2 verses that assured me beagle's definitely in heaven with jesus, they were: my bible's illustration, and that particular translation of psalm 23:4's "even though i walk through the deepest darkness..." (with a figure standing over and holding the hand of another who was in bed, as if dying), and 2 timothy 4:18's "and the Lord will rescue me from all evil and take me safely into his heavenly kingdom."

as for my church's theme this year, it was something the worship leader said, to remind the congregants (and me, and everyone else who was watching online). and when she said it, the prompting in me immediately knew it was referring to beagle too (despite jp not believing animals go to heaven). and how i need to remember it's the same for me too, although not all of me's there yet. she reminded us we were living in the upper room (this year's theme). and...that's when the thought formulated in my mind: beagle's living in the upper room (i.e. with jesus now).

as for the whole "this is not a shrine!" retort, it's because 6 days later when i went to visit beagle's body's grave (i wanted to do so half an hour earlier but waited till my father took a break and returned to living room to watch tv), i saw a dustbin and pail blocking the entrance, the shade-providing plant in front of beagle's body's grave now cut up, and 2 potted plants in front of the horizontal wreath of bougainvilleas my family'd laid out, as well as a cross for beagle. in fact, the day after beagle's body's burial, my brother'd pointed out a photo frame he'd placed in front of beagle's grave. 

it's now in my room because my father got angry that day, said a buncha insensitive and rude words*, and stated sth like, "what, so i can't do anything with my garden there after this?!?" in anger.

*like "who the hell are you, man!". who the hell am i? is this how you respond the daughter you've beat up for over half their life, and whom you've still been scaring and threatening to beat up, every time your eyes bulge, nostrils flare, and you start almost chest-bumping in that...retarded asking-for-a-fight stance? like i said, i do not want to be around people whom i...don't even associate with, as being my real "family" (other than through genetics).

as for why my mother mimicked the 'shrine' statement, it's because she'd picked up a large photo frame my brother'd left for beagle, which was at the corner of where beagle was mostly confined to for the last few months of his earthly life. this was 6am on a turning-into-thursday pre-dawn (of 29th feb), when i was finally considering bathing, after over 2 weeks of not doing so. (after beagle died, i couldn't for a week, because when i'd carried him after death, his scent was still on my right arm.)

and i haven't bathed regularly, or rather once a week (or longer) has become my new 'regular', not since after lockdown when that bitch known as my mother returned, and has even-until-last-month scolded and scolded me, to the point that i dare not even bathe any more. i used to bathe at the places i'd escaped to, or nearby my workplace, during the year of my accident when i'd finally legally owned my own car. yet that bitch was scolding me even up until last month, mockingly claiming i'd also bathed once a week during that year.

this is the kind of living hell i have to put up with, and more. remind me again, jesus, why i am still alive? back to topic.

she'd awoken at the time to use the toilet. whereas i was still snacking (in vain, after hunting around for various bits of snack-like food to eat for at least half an hour, after a very not-filling-at-all meal i was given). 

(i used to drive out on my own to get myself food after my court case was settled. but that bitch kept interfering and buying me meals, so i had to stop getting my own. and nowadays she's scolding me for not getting my own meals, and whenever i've finally almost worked up the courage to go out, has started dissuading me and buying me the meals she when-in-a-bad-mood wants me to buy instead. fucking hell! when will this nightmare end, and my freedom begin! i just want to be free from my mother. and even that is something that still has not happened, nearly 4 decades later. every day i declare and pray i will not suffer the fate of my spinster aunt. i have a lot more faith after my accident that it will not happen, whereas just-before my accident, i was starting to resign myself to it.)

she then kept scowling and growling while walking around trying to find where else to place the photo frame, and repeating that 'shrine' comment, while declining whatever places (in the communal living space) i suggested she could place the photo frame at. i mean, i'm not the one who bought that photo frame (and all other photo frames eric'd helped to put up, mostly of beagle, before he flew back overseas – one photo has helped me cope; the rest have not). yet, i was getting blamed for it (yet again, as has always been the default mode in this family whenever anything goes wrong), at such a late hour, right when i was seriously considering getting myself to finally bathe.

needless to say, i lost whatever remaining willpower to bathe at the time. i did bathe the next night though, by the grace of god. and i will bathe a lot more often, and be free, hopefully this year too, by the grace of god. well...that's what i always pray for every year. and i will not stop praying until i die. (and then, i'll finally be free of that bitch. i don't wish anything bad to happen to my family; i just want to be free to live my own life, the way i want to. seems like that is too much to ask for, from a helicopter parent. nonetheless, i will not stop praying for freedom until i die.)