After Momma Muriel's Death

My health had been in decline for some time prior to Momma Muriel’s death.  For months I had been going thru sever stomach and lower belly pain.  There were some nights it was so bad I was on the floor crying, rocking on my hands and knees trying to survive the pain.  I had been hospitalized with hip and stomach pain in December of 2007.  After three days and a battery of tests, the doctors concluded that I had a hiatal hernia in my stomach and that was causing the pain in my hip.  They called it reflexive pain.  In truth they had no idea what was wrong with me.  I was beginning to think my job in life was to live in pain. 

A few months later, still in pain, the Dr’s begin to believe it was my gallbladder.  I had test that showed it to be working just fine.  The Dr’s came in and said, “Well we can take it out and hope it fixes your pain.  It has about a 50/50 shot of working.”  I told them to call me when they could give me better odds.  It was some years later that the lawsuits about Yasmin, an anti-testosterone birth control pill, came out.  I had been on Yasmin for several years.  But at the time I was having this pain, I was off of it.  They now believe this medicine to cause problems with the gallbladder. Yasmin and Metformin were what I had been taking to combat my PCOS.  They were the only drugs available to treat the diseases at the time. 

My pain came and went over the next few months.  I began to see a new OB/GYN a few days after Momma Muriel’s death.  I explained to her that I was in a tremendous amount of pain, and that I often had pain after I had intercourse.  I had told my previous OB/GYN this for the past five years. He told me I was too tense, that I needed to relax and have a glass of wine before I had sex. As I did not want to go through life having to drink in order to have sex, I got a new Dr.  She said the most beautiful words to me that you can say to a person in chronic pain, “If you’re having pain, there is a reason.”

 After listening to my symptoms, taking a history and examining me, she decided to send me to a Urologist.  I had been to one before.  I kept having what I thought were UTI’s all the time, but my urine was always clean.  I had struggled with urinary problems most of my life, but it really became quite bad after I left Mike.  At one point they had to put me on a bladder pill for having to go so frequently.  I remember being excited that I could go and pee whenever I wanted.  I remember drinking cranberry juice all the time, and taking lots of AZO pills, because everyone told me that it would help.  The UTI problems came and went. The first Urologist I had been sent to, early on, told me he really didn’t do women’s health.   He could give me no answers.  My new OB/GYN sent me to someone who specialized in women’s urinary health.  A month later I was diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis.  I was told to get off all caffeine and high acidic drinks like grapefruit and orange juice.  Thank the Gods I was already depressed ‘cause I slept for weeks.  I had been living on cokes and coffee for many years, so getting off was not easy.  It finally leveled out after about 6 weeks. 

Interstitial Cystitis (IC) ought to be called Painful Irritated Bladder Syndrome.  I have the sensation that I am coming down with a UTI all the time.  Three of its primary symptoms are having to pee all the time, pain or burning in the pelvis and pain during sex.  Cranberry juice and other acidic drinks make IC worse.  This disease limits how long I can sit or stand.  How long I can ride in a car and what I can wear.  When I am having a flair, I cannot even stand to be touched.  It is a progressive and painful disease.  It will only get worse with time.   There is only one medication which is very expensive without insurance.  Although there may be genetic components to IC, there is to date no real known cause and currently no cure. 

So within the span of a few months Momma Muriel dies, I am given a devastating diagnosis, Novelle dies and then Precious the first died.  The hurricane winds had been blowing a lot that fall.  On ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­September 2^nd, 2008 what was left of Hurricane ­­­­Gustav rolled thru town.  It was the first one that had hit us that year.  We were without power for 55 hours.  That’s kind of hellish when you are dependent on a CPAP to sleep with.  My neighbors, who are on a different electric company, that we can’t get on, were out about 30 minutes. 

As the storm rolled in the winds began to change.  The dogs started going ape shit, chasing all the new smells.  Precious the first ran off in the woods.  Not a big thing.  We have such a big place that we let our fur kids roam free, and we have a doggie door so they might come and go as they please.  They were always in the woods and Precious the first loved to do nothing more than hunt.  My friend Marie and I were sitting on the porch enjoying the breeze as the power had already gone out.  As the rain started I began to count kids and came up one short.  Precious must still be out hunting.  I remember Jay and me going out back of the house tying to sense where she was. I got nothing.  I became hoarse from calling from her so long.  I finally collapsed in the tall wet grass, weeping.  Jay had to help me back in the house.  I was distraught.  She would not stay out in the rain.  She never did.  Something had to have happened to her, something bad.  She was my light.  She was my child.  She and I had been thru so much together.  I could not lose Momma Muriel and her too.  It was all too much. 

A few days later I began to hear Precious the first’s voice in my head telling me she was gone.  I did something then I had not done in a long time.  I did some non-dominate hand writing.  What I wrote was a letter from Precious the first to me.  She told me not to cry, that she was okay and in the heavens with Oma and Momma Muriel.  She said she had been chasing a rabbit and got hit by a car.  That she had died quickly.  I begged her to lead me to her body so that I might bury her.  She told me she did not want me to see her that way.  She told me that she died doing what she loved, being free.  She thanked me for loving her and bringing her to this land.  She said she wanted to ride in the Wild Hunt with Holda.  I told her that was fine, but she had to come home to me very soon.  I begged her to at least have something of hers so I might have closure.

The day after the writing, one of the fur kids brought me her collar.  Complete intact with her tags, and undamaged.  It was a breakaway collar.  Meaning it was designed to unbuckle should she get hung in something, so as not to choke her.  It was still buckled.  My guess is that she got hung in the bushes chasing a rabbit and it slipped off her head.  Despite looking for one, we never found a body.  I still don’t know how much of what I wrote was me and how much was her.  Or was it all me?  I don’t know.  I may never know.

I felt at times I would break, and perhaps I did, and I was remolded.  It was all too much for me to handle. I had to keep reminding myself that with great death, comes great rebirth.  I think Jay took Precious the first’s death harder then Momma Muriel’s.  At least with Momma Muriel’s we had been prepared, and she had lived a long life. We had known it was coming for a long time, and we had time to say goodbye.  Precious the first’s death was just out to the blue.  One moment she was there and then the next she was just gone. 

When Momma Muriel died she left us the land we live on and half her estate.  A few weeks later I told Jay that for the first time in my life I wanted to buy a dog.  I wanted to buy a Dachshund girl and have the joy of raising her from a pup. I knew a good responsible Dachshund breeder in town that raised beautiful fur children.  I talked with her and told her that Jay and I wanted a pup.  We were hoping for a black and tan little girl.  She told me that she did not have any girls available at the time, but that Cookie, one of her girls would be in heat soon.  She hoped to breed her to Dan, one of her males.  I told her if she had a girl from the litter, no matter the color, that we would like her.  We were content to wait for the right fur child to come into our lives. 

Now Dachshund genetics are a weird and complex thing.  You have 2 sizes, Mini and Standard.  Unless you are from Europe and then you have Rabbit, Mini and Standard.  Rabbit sized ones are so small they can go in a rabbit hole.  You have three coat types; smooth, wire hair, and long hair.  Then there are multiple colors with variations like piebald and dapple.  I believe there are 16 different colors and combinations.  Cookie was a standard chocolate long hair.  Dan is a standard red and white piebald.  With that combination we had no idea what we would get.

On December 21^st, 2008, at noon, Precious Teufel Plaisance was born.  She was born on Holda’s holy day and at her holy hour.  She was the only girl born to a litter full of boys and she was black and tan, just like her grandmother had been. We believe Precious the second to be Precious the first reincarnated.  Now that is not that odd of a belief.  Our animals often return to us.  Have you never caught yourself saying, “You know she reminds me of this dog I used to have.”  Many animals believe it is their duty to protect us our whole lives, or even generations of our families.  Even if that means they might have to go thru a few bodies to do it. 

We fought over who was going to be the first to hold her.  I won!  Oh she was so tiny!  She fit in my hand.  I got to hold her when she was just a few hours old.  Her little eyes and her little ears were closed and she still had a bit of dried umbilical cord on her.  Oh she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen!  But then doesn’t every mother say that about her child.  Fur, skin, scale or feathered it matters not.  A child is a child, and after many long months, mine had finally come home.

Precious Teufel, who I will call Precious the second here, needed time to grow and learn important things from her doggie mommy before coming home with us.  You take a pup away from its mom too soon and you end up with a neurotic dog.  My breeder friend would not release her until she was 8 weeks old.  Which I think is just wonderful because that lets them be better adjusted.  She always has her pup’s best interest in mind.  But we were allowed to visit until she could come home and got regular pictures.  We got to bring her home around Valentine’s Day. 

We maintain a good relationship with her breeder and even adopted Cookie, when her breeding days were over.  Although I got to hold her first she quickly became a Daddy’s girl, again.  In many ways she is still who she was.  She loves her daddy and she still loves to swim.  But in some ways she is different, and that is fine with us.  Now she could care less about hunting, she is content to lie on the couch.  Time changes everyone, but not who we are at our core.

I am still often not sure what happened to Precious the first.  Did it happen the way she told me?  Did whatever is in my woods get her?  Did someone pick her up on the highway?  Or did she end up living out her finally years at a neighbor’s house I know nothing about?  Did she end up in the pound and was put down?  Is she still alive?  These are the things I torture myself with before I go to sleep at night.  Is Precious the second really her reincarnation or am I just fooling myself and seeing what I want to.  Sometimes I wonder.

Ilsa