I have been avoiding writing this. I have it walled off inside me like an abscess. I know it’s there but I don’t want to touch it. I can function if I don’t touch it.

I leave Murphy at the clinic with the usual pang of hating to leave a dog there on their own, but not with any worry. What could there be to worry about? He’s getting an ultrasound of his heart without sedation. It should take about half an hour I’m told. I leave him at 11.45 so that he won’t have to wait all morning in a kennel. He’s scheduled to be done at the end of the morning list. I reckon I can walk the others for an hour and be about right for picking him up again. When I drop him off I remind them that he has separation anxiety and a floppy larynx cough (which he’s had for 8 years). It causes him no difficulty as long as he’s allowed to stand up and cough. It lasts maybe 10 seconds and then he’s fine. It happens when he changes position from lying to standing and vice versa.

We walk on the hill near to the clinic. I check my phone. I sit in the parking for half an hour and check my phone. I decide to drive to the Lidl close to the clinic and get bread. I check my phone. By now it’s 2 hours since I left him. I assume they had an emergency. I sit in Lidl’s car park and decide to drive to the clinic and pop in. As I’m driving the clinic calls. I’m almost at the clinic so I drive there and return the call. I can come and collect him. Great, I say, I’m in you car park. This seems to surprise the vet. I come on in. She is full of the results of the scan. He has class 2B mitral valve disease. She has meds for him which should help prevent it deteriorating. Great. She tells me he got a wee bit stressed and had to have some oxygen. I begin to feel queasy. She says she’ll go and get him. Instaed of a dancing Murphy on his lead excited to see me she is carrying a dog whom I barely recognise. He looks dreadful He doesn’t seem to recognise me either. She suggests I take him outside to the car park to see if he “perks up”. All I can think is “what happened?” She looks at me as though this is all normal. I feel my whole reality lurch. I am so shocked that I actually do as she suggests. I walk a couple of yards and pu him down. He can barely stand. He is breathless. In the daylight I can see his toungue is blue. I can hear the crackling of fluid in his lungs….it is so loud you don’t need a stethoscope. I pick him up and run back into the clinic. I shaout at her “he has pulmonary oedema”. She looks at him as though his condition is a surprise. It is the way he was when she put him in my arms. She takes him to the back area where I presume the resuscitation area is. I feel sick. Someone plonks me in a chair in reception. I then hear a voice say it’s getting a bit crowded in here and a vet nurse guides me into an empty consulting room and shuts the door. She asks me if I’d like a cup of tea. I wouldn’t. I’d like to wake up from this nightmare. There is nothing to sit on. I sit on the floor because suddenly standing up is difficult. I have no idea how long it was before the vet returns. She says he isn’t good. I think the woman is a genius. I ask to be with him. She resists and says she’ll have to ask the recovery nurse. I get my ability to walk and talk back and I don’t wait for anyone to be asked. The recovery nurseis lovely. I know her from years of going there. She gives me a hug. I am crying. Murphy is in a kennel having oxygen waved uselessly under his nose. The nurse gives me a mask and I get oxygen into him a bit more efficiently. The vet had inserted a cannula and she gives him 2 doses of frusemide. She tells me she gave him an opiate to “calm him down” I can hardly believe her. I say then please reverse it. She looks puzzled and says we don’t usually do that. It is anyway too late. He rallies briefly and then slumps and dies. She puts her stethoscope on his chest and pronounces him dead. He takes a couple more dying breaths. She asks the vet nurse to get her the pentobarbitone. She asks if she should put him to sleep. She just said he was dead FFS. I shout at her that I think she’s done enough and not to dare to tidy him up in death. My head is in the kennel with him and I’m now howling. Behind me I hear her say in a tone of surprise. “Oh, you must have really loved him”. Truly I cannot believe what has just happened. I cannot believe this woman is real.

I cannot wait to get him out of there even though it’s too late. The nurse gently wraps his body in a blanket carefully covering his head. Then hugging my still warm bundle to my chest I am ushered discreetly out of the side door (the dead dogs door) and into the car park. I can barely find my car. I put his body in the soft crate he liked to sit on top of. I have 4 other dogs in the car and I don’t want him disturbed.

I have no memory at all of the drive home.