Goodbye, Ruby
We said goodbye to Ruby, our two-year old dachshund, on Sunday, February 2, 2025, at 5:20 PM. It’s been just about the only thing I’ve been able to think about since then, so even though I don’t intend to fill this Substack with updates about what’s happening to me and my life, this post in particular is an update for all of the family and friends who reached out this week to share their support through kind words, food, and flowers.
Fair warning though, it gets pretty sad from this point forward. I suggest you bookmark and circle back later if you can’t deal with a story about an unexpected dog death right now.
It’s bewildering how normal everything seemed until it wasn’t. In early November 2024, we found a small lump under Ruby’s armpit. We weren’t alarmed because it seemed like a harmless lipoma, like on Dr. Pimple Popper, and she was due for her annual check-up in December. Just before the end of the month, she developed a hot spot near the lump where she’d chewed her skin until it was irritated and eventually bleeding. One trip to the vet emergency room later, she was prescribed antibiotics and made to wear a shirt to stay off of it.
A couple of weeks later everything seemed fine again. We took her to the vet for her annual, everything looked good, and they aspirated the little lump. They didn’t see anything in their cytology, so they sent it off for pathology.
About a week later (Christmas Eve), we still hadn’t heard results from the pathology report because of holiday delays. Ruby came down with a fever, and we spent a couple of days in an out of the ER while she got fluids and antibiotics. Pathology report came back saying either “foreign object” or “trauma.”
The doctor also noticed that she had some back pain. We took her to her regular vet to get checked out and we started treating her for the back pain. In the middle of January, everything seemed fine. Ruby was well on the rebound and had so much energy that we were trying to keep all four paws on the ground because we thought we were still treating back pain.
January 26 she was wheezing and had labored breathing. We took her back to the ER where they took X-rays showing fluid in her chest cavity (so not in her lungs but around her lungs). The fluid was also in her back, meaning her back pain was actually from fluid building up in it, not IVDD. They did a CT scan on her and also found a bone infection in her sternum.
At this point, the best fit for a diagnosis was disseminated fungal infection, with coccidioidomycosis, which causes Valley Fever, as the most likely culprit given our region. It made sense too, because every symptom she experienced fit the fungal infection. It even explained why she responded to intial doses of antibiotics despite there not being any evidence of a bacterial infection.
We started Ruby on an anti-fungal, she had a dip, recovered to her previous level, but then didn’t get better. Her breathing remained elevated and effortful. After a week in oxygen, giving her every chance we could, we reached the point where our remaining options were: 1) to say goodbye, 2) to subject her to exploratory surgery in her chest so the doctors could see what they were dealing with, which would be followed by an incredibly difficult recovery, or 3) to put a feeding tube in her and keep her isolated in oxygen for weeks or potentially months while we waited for the anti-fungals to maybe help because at this point we still hadn’t even gotten an actual confirmation on the fungal infection from testing, it was only our best guess.
At this point I’m going to stop the play-by-play. But don’t worry, I’ll circle back in a poem at the end.
I really can’t emphasize how much I loved this dog. I was her main person, you know? Dilara called her “my little shadow” because she would always follow me everywhere, always sit on my lap, always lick my face incessantly.
The grief feels unbearable at times - I thought I was going to have more than another decade with this dog, and now she’s gone. And a joyful and loving part of me feels like it’s gone with her.
When we got back home after saying our goodbyes last Sunday evening, I trudged towards the front door, crushed, knowing with absolute certainty that no miracle recovery would ever come and that I would never get to bring my little baby girl back home again. Dilara walked inside ahead of me, but something caught my eye in the entryway so I lingered there.
You see, back when Ruby was only a few months old and we moved from Texas to California, I bought an art piece so that we’d have something new to hang in our new home. It’s a print by underground comic artist R. Crumb, called “Kiwi.”
It’s a weird little print, right? It’s a comic with a “punchline” but without a “joke” per se. It has no dialogue. And it’s just generally sad in the story it tells.
I framed it and put it on the wall in the entryway by the front door. I joked that my decorating aesthetic is “midcentury modern confrontation” and that I put it where I did so that if people were lingering by the door taking too long on their goodbyes, they’d inevitably end up looking at it and feeling uncomfortable until they left.
We haven’t had a ton of visitors at our house, so I’ve been the main audience for “Kiwi” over the past two years. Given its location, I began to understand and appreciate its message as a kind of reminder on my way out the door: Life is short and senseless tragedy can strike at any moment. Appreciate your loved ones every day, because you don’t get to know when it’s the last time you’ll sing alongside them.
During the heightened emotions of the previous week, I hadn’t been paying attention to that comic on my way out the door. I was always rushing and thinking about Ruby. But when I came back in, I found myself entranced by “Kiwi.” When I got to the final panel, I was sobbing as I looked at the little heartbroken bird and realized: “Right now: that’s me.”
Reflecting on what the comic as a whole expresses, in that moment I felt flooded by gratitude and appreciation for the time that we shared. After all, being this heartbroken and sunk in grief wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t love that damn dog in the first place. I’m still devastated by this loss, and it’s going to hurt for a long time. But I loved that dog, and that isn’t going to ever change. That love is with me and part of me now.
I’m going to end with a poem I wrote the day after Ruby passed. The final line should be sung to the tune of “Ruby Tuesday,” by The Rolling Stones.
goodbye ruby
two years was nowhere near long enough but
know it meant the world to me at our end when
you fell asleep with your eyes still open wide
you stared straight into mine until your heart
beat one final time.
still I’m gonna miss you.
I am so sorry for your loss. I just found out. I have buried too many dogs in my life, making the grief unbearable at times. " G-d did not give them wings, so we would not know they are angels."
Ruby had the best pawrents she could have ever asked for. I'm so sorry all of you had to go through this. I love and miss all of you <3