The Bathtub (April 2017)

by Thomas Greco, Publisher

I am certainly not the first one to say that life is a series of peaks and valleys, and I know I won’t be the last. But friends, I gotta tell you, these past few months have been one hell of a rollercoaster ride.

It began on Thursday night, February 16. I was playing in our men’s volleyball league when something happened that didn’t seem to be a big deal at the time. Allow me to backtrack a bit. Volleyball is my last refuge for competitive sport. I was advised to stop playing basketball after my first heart attack 20 year ago. I stopped playing softball about 10 years ago when I could no longer see the ball coming at me until the last second, so volleyball was it. Low impact, not too much stress on the old ticker. Does it matter that due to back problems, I can no longer jump? I could still help my team out with my veteran smarts and tricks. Plus, two years ago, my son became old enough to play in the men’s league. It was a thrill to finally be able to play on the same team with him.

I hadn’t been playing that often this year. There is sort of a youth movement going on with my son bringing along a few of his friends to the roster. But when they were short a man, they knew they could count on this old bag of bones to at least show up and make some plays. Well, I didn’t know it that Thursday night, but I had made my last play. At some point during the second game, a ball was hit high between my son and me. Both of us were going for the ball and not looking where we were. Bang! We collided chest to chest. Full force. Now, I’m not a small guy by any means. I’m a husky 5’10”, 250 pounds. The problem is that my son is 6’ 3” and 280 pounds. Yet, neither of us went down; we just bounced off and looked at each other. Everyone stopped and asked if I was alright. I felt fine. I finished the game and went home. Strangest thing.

When I got home, I started to feel a little sore. For maybe the second time in about 40 years, I got the brilliant idea of taking a bath instead of a shower. I thought sitting in a tub would help. Again, I hadn’t done this in a long time. I turned on the water, poured some liquid soap in the tub and climbed in.

Have you ever seen the movie The Blob? Where the thing just keeps growing and growing? I got that feeling when the suds started covering my mouth. As I started to climb out, I finally felt the full impact of the volleyball collision. I couldn’t move. Of course, I had the music blasting, so no one could hear me even if I yelled for help. It was kind of funny. I was pushing away the suds like a fighter throwing punches. It was even funnier when I looked around the room and saw a sea of Dove bubbles instead of the floor.

Fortunately, I was able to hit the lever that opened the drain with my toes, and I survived another day. I finally crawled out of the tub and called my wife into the bathroom. When she saw the mess, I almost wished I had gone down the drain with the water. Then she just shook her head, called me a stupid ass and laughed. We didn’t know that was going to be the last laughter in our house for a while.

Later that night, I was in my usual late-night routine. I went down into the basement, did some work, listened to some music, surfed the Net with my dog, Rusty, lying at my feet. Rusty had had an even tougher few months. Last

November, we noticed a growth on his lip. When we took him to the vet and they removed it, it was found to be cancerous. The vet advised us to take him to a specialist (who knew there were such things as animal oncologists?), since they found that there was more cancer in his lip even after the surgery. I met with the doctor alone with Rusty. He said that they would have to remove the entire right side of his lip and hope that they got all of it. Then, he would have to have bi-weekly vaccine shots (as opposed to chemotherapy) for six weeks and – if everything went well – we might get 600 days. For me, there was no question. He was my buddy.

Over the next month, Rusty had the injections and the surgery. We had worried that when they took his lip, he might look like a doggie version of the Joker. But the doctors did an amazing job. Once it healed, you couldn’t even tell he had surgery. In January, he completed the vaccines and amazingly, the doctors said he was cancer-free. His lip, lymph nodes, chest and organs were all clear. He had gone through hell, but he was a lovable, tough fighter. We were so grateful.

That Thursday after the volleyball game, the bath episode and our relaxing time, Rusty and I moved up to the living room for our usual 3am snack. We shared a bag of Boom Chicka Pop popcorn (our favorite), watched some TV and went up to bed. As I hit the pillow, I looked down to see Rusty in his usual spot at the foot of our bed by the door. Right where he could be close to my wife and me and keep an eye on the kids’ rooms across the hall at the same time. I fell asleep like any other night.

A short time later, my son woke me up. He said Rusty was in the hallway breathing in a weird way. I was half asleep, so I called him over to me. He came by my side and laid down next to the bed. He was breathing very fast. I petted him and rubbed his belly for a while, he seemed to calm down and we all fell back asleep. Around 7am, I woke up to go to the bathroom. When I returned to the bed, I saw that he had thrown up and was breathing hard again. I crawled down on the floor, held him and tried to calm him down. He could barely hold his head up. I felt his tongue, and it was cold. We got dressed, and my son carried him to the car and we rushed to the vet. He carried him into the examination room and the doctor came in, checking his vitals. Rusty just looked at me with a faraway gaze in his eyes. The doctor said, “His heart is slowing down; we need to get him on oxygen.” Just as they put him on the stretcher, he started to convulse. I held him until they took him out of the room. After about 10 minutes, the doctor came in and just shook his head.

They brought Rusty back to us so we could say one last goodbye. We cried and held him as long as we could. The guy fought so hard to beat the cancer, then his heart gives out a month later? I can’t say it was unfair. He gave us 12 amazing years. But I can say it sucks. It really, really sucks. Of course, it sucks even more to see your children go through their first true loss of their lives. But they are a lot stronger than I am. Joe was a pillar of strength that night. He knew I didn’t have the strength to lift Rusty, and he took it all upon himself to make sure that if Rusty had any chance to make it, he was going do whatever was necessary to get him there. Michelle was a different story. She had slept out that night and had to walk into a house where the dog she spent more than half her life with was no longer there. But she is tough, too. A day later, she posted this on Facebook:

“Thank you for taking my socks out of my drawers and rolling around on them, thank you for letting us dress you in our t-shirts, thank you for brushing up on us asking for constant attention and most of all, thank you for being your lovable self, Rusty. You will always be in my heart, and I’ll always cherish the many memories I have of you. You were the best dog, Rust. You were my dog. I know you’re already having tons of fun in doggie heaven. I love you, cutie!”

That still makes me cry.

One last thing. When I finally got out of the bathtub that night and opened the door, Rusty was standing right there. He took one look at the suds massacre and turned and ran. Knowing that he must have had one hell of a laugh at my expense on his last night on Earth eases the pain just a little bit. Just a little…