I can’t recall now if I mentioned it, but last month, on June 20th, I had to have my beloved white German shepherd Willow put to sleep.
She’d had a long battle with cancer which finally got the better of her. The months before were quite stressful as you can imagine, but nothing compared to the last week of her life when she suddenly was unable to eat or even hold down fluids, and worse was to come in the weeks that followed as I adjusted to the huge hole she left in my life.
She would have been 11 in October, which is pretty much the “average life expectancy” of a German shepherd, so deep down I knew the inevitable was coming – but knowing really didn’t help.
She was the most beautiful, loving dog. So gentle. Once while being walked in nearby Bushy Park she had stopped and was lying down – we went back to see what was up and found a little bird that she was guarding between her paws!
She adopted my kittens, Batman and Minchin and mothered them. They would often come and cuddle up with her at night, and when she was poorly they would come and groom her. They used to follow us on our walks over in the nature reserve behind our house.
It’s funny to think it but a broken heart is a very real thing, medically, and has serious implications. I can’t help wondering if they have led to – or at least exacerbated – the condition I’m in now.
Here’s an extract from an article I found online:
Stress and grief
Grieving takes a toll on the body in the form of stress. “That affects the whole body and all organ systems, and especially the immune system,” Dr. Malin says. Evidence suggests that immune cell function falls and inflammatory responses rise in people who are grieving. That may be why people often get sick more often and use more health care resources during this period.
But why is stress so hard on us? It’s because the body unleashes a flood of stress hormones that can make many existing conditions worse, such as heart failure or diabetes, or lead to new conditions, such as high blood pressure or heartburn. Stress can also cause insomnia and changes in appetite.
Extreme stress, the kind experienced after the loss of a loved one, is associated with changes in heart muscle cells or coronary blood vessels (or both) that prevent the left ventricle from contracting effectively. It’s a condition called stress-induced cardiomyopathy, or broken-heart syndrome. The symptoms are similar to those of a heart attack: chest pain and shortness of breath.
So you read that right – “broken-heart syndrome” exists! It’s real.
Now – I’m sure many of you who are not pet lovers (shame on you!) will say that this only applies to grief about an actual family member. Willow was my family. She was my baby. I’d had her from a puppy, raised her, and spent many hours of each day with her. She gave my life focus and purpose. She was more than “man’s best friend”.
Grieving? Don’t overlook potential side effects, Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard medical school
Losing her was harder than losing my own mother 2 years ago – since we had never been close.
And I live alone currently so I had to deal with all of it by myself, all the stress and heartache of vet trips and treatment costs, hoping to buy her more time, to have that hope ripped out from under me at the last and have to make the awful decision to have her euthanised.
I was lucky to be in a position to get her home and have a vet visit us here so she could pass peacefully in familiar surroundings. But still, even knowing I did the very best I could for her, it was still one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.
A month has passed and it feels like yesterday. I still expect to see her white silhouette at the front door each time I come home. I catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye in the house. I think I hear her breathing beside the bed when I wake up in the morning.
And just typing this has me upset again so yes, grief for a pet really does affect pet lovers as much as losing a “person”.
But with this diagnosis of hypertension – it now feels like I really am suffering from a broken heart. 🙁
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