Worms of the Heart

Who ever knew there's such things as 'heartworms'? Disgusting wiggling parasites floating in the blood and growing in the heart, of all places. They were barely visible to see in the blood sample, but they were there, taunting me with their microscopic wiggling, daring me to hope that what I see is just normal, but it was unmistakable; there was something else moving in the blood. I could stomach intestinal worms, but there they were, wiggling as if their only purpose was to send a shiver down my spine and give me a heartache as I look at them through a microscope. It's confirmed said the doc - they're there, and it was fatal.

She said it as if she was telling a patient he had terminal cancer. 'He won't live long', she says. All we could was wait.
And all I could do was look. I refused to let it sink in, detaching myself as I have done whenever I heard news of a calamity that affected thousands or when there is a death in the family, a coping mechanism I have perfected so well people will think I don't care at all. But I do. A part of me feels everything but I keep it all at arms-length. Succumbing to emotion now would mean an ironic victory for those nasty worms whose job it is to inflict pain in the heart.

What used to be playful encounters with my dog turned to quiet time where I would just scratch his head and he would snuggle in the same manner a cat does. I thought it was just because he has getting old already and I was too grown up to play with him like a kid. But recently he has been growing thinner, so we called the vet. They came, and with one simple blood test confirmed that he was infected with heartworms.

My first thought was "ewww..." Cmon, worms...in the heart. What was more disturbing was if that random sample of blood already contained 3 worms already immediately visible in the microscop, how many do you think is floating around in the bloodstream? The only thing that didn't make my hair stand up on end was the thought of my dog. He was just sitting there, his head bowed low as if he was understanding what we were talking about, as if he knew he was just waiting to die.

While the vet was talking with my mom, I was comforting my dog, if it was all possible. And like so many other times while I was stroking his head he would nuzzle back like a cat, as if he wants to be embraced.The vet said it was fatal. There is treatment; but it was expensive, and it wasn't sure if he would live anyway, because the damage has already been done. So in effect, we were just waiting for him to die.

My dog has been with us for 7-8 years. He's a lively dalmatian-hybrid who's heavy enough to take me down if he jumped at me and has worked how to jump up a 5 foot concrete wall like a cat to get out of the house. He knows strangers because he barks like mad at them and can somehow tell them apart from friends or family who can approach him without fear. He has given my mom a headache for the past years because he digs parts of the garden to make a nice cool patch for himself to lie on. He keeps digging and digging, because when that moist patch of soil dries he digs once more. We have gave up on filling back the hole, so now he has a favorite spot right outside my bedroom window, as if he was there to guard me at night.

Now he's weak and thin, with an expression in his face as if he is tired. He no longer runs to the door when he hears me open it, and he just lies there at his 1-foot hole of dirt, digging even more. He no longer gobbles up his food hungrily. He now moves in a lethargic pace around the house, and his earsplitting bark has become weak and feeble.

All the vet can do is give him some vitamins to get his strength back up.
And all we could do was wait. I thought if only I had the money I would take the chance of getting him treated. But we're not that blessed. And so after the vet left I carried my dog, who didn't like to move anymore like any sick person. He was so thin that I could scoop him in my arms already and carried him back to his favorite place. These nasty, disgusting worms were killing my friend, slowly. I felt a pang in my heart even though all those nasty worms were in him. And a sad thought and a sad smile came to me as I lay him down in his favorite dirthole. He must have known he was sick, and he just lied there, digging to make himself comfortable, and I thought it looked like he was digging his own grave...