OH, MOE

On Thursday, June 12th, we had to say goodbye to our very best friend in the whole world and the puzzle piece that completed our little family - Mobody Sorrel…aka Moe, Moesy, Moses, Moseph, Moe Moe, Sweet Baked Potato, Tato.

About a month before he passed I noticed he was struggling to poop a bit. My mind first went to “I wonder if that Greenie didn’t get chewed and digested well” or “did he swallow a rock while playing in the creek?”. Neither of these things would have surprised me - he had experienced minor blockages when he was young from similar situations. Certain it would pass, I was keeping an eye on things. It was getting hot out, we were in the midst of a chaotic move and he was also eating more kibble instead of fully home cooked meals while we were moving…maybe he just needed more moisture. He wasn’t exhibiting really any other symptoms. I took him to the vet to be safe. They did a physical exam and even did a rectal exam but found nothing wrong. The vet was convinced he was just feeling the chaos of change and mourning the loss of his fur friend, Margo, who had just passed after a battle with cancer. His advice was to just get the both of us into the woods more, as that’s what makes us both happy.

Fast forward three weeks - 6 days before we lost him. He had been significantly slowing down on his walks, and having troubles squatting and lifting his leg for several days. I took him for a 2 mile walk that day and it was as if I was walking with a toddler…it was painfully slow and he was exhausted. At that point I thought maybe he had a slipped disc, pinched nerve or an onset of arthritis. Something was wrong, but it all seemed like something that could be manageable and treatable. After all - he was 10 1/2 - none of these things would have surprised me. I gave him left over carprofen and gabapentin over the weekend, until we could get an appointment with the vet. It seemed to help quite a bit and he was squatting and lifting his leg a little again and I took that as a good sign.

We got an appointment on Tuesday, June 11th. I went in armed with all of this new information and new symptoms, I even had videos of him trying to go to the bathroom and going for a walk. The vet did another exam and found his joints to be just fine. He decided to do another rectal exam and that’s when they found it - a very large mass that was partially blocking his colon. He did an ultrasound to confirm. It was inoperable. It had grown SO quickly that it went from undetectable to inoperable in a matter of three weeks. The vet gave him at most two months.

Wednesday I cut work out early to spend the day with Moe. I took him to Good Dog to see all of his favorite people at daycare…to let them know that he wouldn’t be back for daycare but we’d stop in to say hello as much and for as long as he felt like it. We popped into Rusted Moon Outfitters - a mandatory stop every time we walked in Broad Ripple. We had lunch on the patio of Broad Ripple Brew Pub. For dinner, I got Noah’s favorite sushi from Sakura and picked up some yummy food for Moe. We met Noah at Marott Park to walk the woods (slowly), sit on the beach of the creek for dinner and to let Moe play in the water. All of his favorite things in Indy.

My friend Erin, the owner of Log Cabin Animal Hospital, asked to see Moe Thursday morning. She had just integrated Traditional Chinese Medicine into her practice and offered acupuncture and to try some herbs to see if we couldn’t break up the mass a bit to give him more time. Wednesday night I felt a twinge of hope that we could slow down the clock a bit. Thursday morning, however, was a different story. He woke up VERY early with an urgent need to go to the bathroom. He was able to pee but could not poop and had not since late afternoon the day before. The straining was clear. I took him to see Erin and within ten minutes of being in her office I could feel and sense that her hope had diminished. He was listless. So very listless. She did acupuncture, gave him a vitamin b shot and gave him another shot to try to help him poop. She did an ultrasound and, in the 36-40 hours since the mass was found, it had shifted and grown so much that it was now pretty much completely blocking his colon and pressing on his bladder. He was miserable and it was heartbreaking. I left Erin’s office with a bottle of herbs and a gut feeling that we did not, in fact, have two months.

He barely made it to the car. I had to coax him. We made it home and he had no energy to do anything but lie on the kitchen floor. I curled up next to him. Big spooned him. I put his favorite meditation music on the little orange Bose speaker and put it next to us. It always made him feel better - he was even known to lay his head on the speaker to feel the bass running through it while listening to the sounds of indigenous flutes. I told him I loved him…that he was my best friend, but I did not want him to exist on this earth for me or for Noah. That even though it wasn’t fair and it shouldn’t be his time, if it needed to be his time then I release him. We release him. I asked him if he ever cared to come back to this painful world that he please find me again. I would look for him. Always. We would look for him. Always.

I called my sister and her family over. I called Noah home early from work. We spent the afternoon loving on him in the sunshine in his new backyard. The backyard he was only able to enjoy for a week. The backyard where I was excited for him to bask in the sun while I gardened for years to come. The backyard that will now feel empty without him around. He got up long enough to greet everyone as they came, and immediately needed to rest again. He still wasn’t able to poop. It had been 24 hours and the shot Erin gave him (that was warned may come with diarrhea) didn’t even help him poop. We did not…could not let him suffer.

My baby brother kindly and generously invited us to lay him to rest on his land. He called his vet to the house that evening and he created space for Moe where the field meets the trees on his property, right next to his very own beloved dog. Noah and I took one last walk in the evening sun with Moe, curled up next to him and told him how much we loved him, how much everyone loved him. We fed him his favorite dehydrated beef lung treats right up to the very end. It was immensely painful, yet poetic in a way. He now rests forever, basking in the sunshine where the squirrels will tease him for eternity.

It will be two weeks tomorrow since we said goodbye too soon. It has honestly been the most painful two weeks I’ve experienced in over 15 years. The loss feels monumental. Gutting. He was with us for 10 1/2 years, since he was 8 weeks old. He was by our side every day, every step of the way. Seven years of his life was spent exploring the entire country with us, and was VERY rarely not by our sides. Things feel quiet, sad and empty now.
I know that will change and the grief will ease with time, but for now there’s a Moe sized hole in our lives, in our hearts.