He knew before we knew. This is the realization I have come to in the past couple of days. He is our dog. Zeus is our family's 110 lb. Rottweiler and Hound dog mix, and he knew before we knew.
My husband and I adopted Zeus in September of 2002, about six months after we were married. At the time, Zeus was only 8 pounds and the cutest puppy I had ever seen. We knew that Zeus was going to be a big dog when we looked at the size of his paws, but we had no idea he would turn into the gentle giant that he is today. We never did foresee the impact that Zeus would have on my husband and I, or our little boy, who would join our family in November of 2006.
As I look back, I now realize that it all started in August of 2006. I was 28 weeks pregnant and I had been sent home from a doctor's appointment with orders to stay in bed. The complications during my pregnancy were many, and any hope that I may carry our baby boy to 30 weeks gestation were very slim. The morning before I came home on bed rest, we had spent several hours at my doctor's office. The feelings of joy about being pregnant with our first child were quickly changed into fears of the unknown. We went from decorating the nursery and buying baby clothes, to praying that our baby boy would not become one of the statistics that we had discussed earlier that day. On that day, and every day until little Eric was born, Zeus never left my side. If I was in bed, he was in bed with me. If I was in the bath, he was laying on the bathmat right outside the tub. Zeus always walked with me; never a step in front of or behind me, but right by my side.
Against all odds, I carried Eric until I was 38 weeks pregnant. He was born via emergency cesarean on November 28, 2006. Eric Thomas Clement entered this world teeny tiny, but to everyone's surprise, he was very healthy. Daddy brought Eric's first baby blanket home from the hospital that night. We had read in a book that it was important to bring home a blanket that the newborn baby had been swaddled in to let your dog get used to their scent. Zeus slept on Eric's blanket all night long.
Four days after Eric was born we were discharged from the hospital. Little Eric had some minor feeding difficulties and he become jaundiced while in the hospital, but he was otherwise a beautiful and perfect 5 lb bundle of joy! We were so excited to bring Eric home. We wanted to show Eric his nursery, have him sleep in his crib, and of course, introduce him to his dog. Zeus was cautiously curious when we walked into the house with Eric for the first time, but within minutes he had claimed his boy. Zeus rarely left Eric's side after we brought him home, and he would check on Eric every night right along with me. When I would go into Eric's nursery in the evenings, Zeus would follow me into the room and stand up on the side of the crib. Zeus would lean over and smell Eric, and he always touched his nose to Eric's face. In a mother's eyes, I was witnessing first hand a dog kissing his boy goodnight.
The first time that my husband and I went out on a date after Eric was born was when he was about six weeks old. We brought little Eric to my mom's house so she could babysit. My husband and I went out to dinner and then returned home to watch a movie that we had rented. We never finished the movie we started to watch that night. You see, Zeus wouldn't let us. As soon as we returned home without baby Eric, Zeus' behavior changed. He sniffed us from head to toe and he ran all over the house checking every room for Eric. He went into Eric's nursery first, where he jumped up on the crib to check on his boy, but his boy wasn't there. Zeus had his tail tucked between his legs and his ears back while he walked through our house that night. He returned once again to Eric's nursery, where he stood up on the crib one more time to see if Eric was there. For the next thirty minutes or so, we listened to Zeus whine and howl until we finally gave up and left to pick up Eric from my mom's house. When we returned home, Zeus would not leave Eric's side. He spent that entire night sleeping on the floor beside Eric's crib.
Everything in our lives progressed normally for the next few months. When Eric was about 4 months old is when we started noticing big changes in our little boy. Eric's growth had stopped and he was awake almost every night crying inconsolably. Zeus was always right there with the two of us, weather it was day or night. As this pattern continued to progress, I was so exhausted and sleep deprived that I wouldn't even wake up when Eric had one of his late night "episodes." It's a good thing that Zeus was always there to wake me up to check on our boy. I spent many, many nights pacing back and forth in our upstairs hallway, or rocking Eric in our living room, trying to calm my sweet baby. I would cry right along with little Eric every night. The memories of those days are very few and far between because of my sleep deprivation, but one thing I can definitely remember is that it was never just Eric and me awake all those nights. Zeus was right there with us, pacing the halls back and forth right next to us, or sitting on the couch in the living room with us every night.
The next couple of years are a blur of emotions for my husband and I. Eric continued to not thrive and he was seeing too many pediatric medical specialists to count. Eric had been diagnosed with many medical conditions and we were devastated. Our poor sweet baby had already been through more medical procedures than my husband and I had endured in our entire lives. We were scared and shaken, but we never gave up. Although Eric was not well, he did continue to make slow progress in his development. As soon as Eric learned to crawl, he would always crawl right to Zeus. The same happened when Eric learned to walk. Zeus was never bothered by anything that Eric did to him. Eric could pull his ears, stick his fingers in his eyes, or even yank his tail, and Zeus would always take it all in stride. After all, the boy that Zeus had claimed 2 years earlier was finally claiming him. Not only was Eric Zeus' boy, but Zeus was now Eric's dog.
February 2009 brought some major changes to our house. We had taken Eric on a trip up to Cincinnati, Ohio, to have his first major surgery. Eric had a nissen fundoplication to help with his severe acid reflux, a gastrostomy tube placed to help with his failure to thrive, and a muscle and skin biopsy for diagnostic purposes. When we returned home, the memories of the hospital terrified our little boy. Eric would no longer sleep in his crib because of those memories, and we soon moved a "big boy," bed into his room. As you may have guessed, Zeus also thought this bed was for him. My husband and I were very concerned about Zeus sleeping in the bed with Eric, after all, Zeus was 110 pounds and Eric was a mere 20. We also had concerns about Zeus becoming tangled in Eric's feeding wires and pulling on them. Our worries soon went away. It was obvious that Zeus was only there to protect his boy; always sleeping at the foot of Eric's bed and carefully climbing up and down.
After two and a half years of visiting countless doctors, undergoing numerous medical procedures, and many inpatient hospital stays, Eric finally received a diagnosis of Mitochondrial Disease. "Mito," in short, is a disease where Eric's body does not convert food and oxygen into energy correctly, which causes many of his organ systems to fail. Mitochondrial disease can affect any organ system in Eric's body at any time, and almost his entire body is touched by "mito." Eric is most severely affected in his brain-causing primary generalized epilepsy and developmental delays, his kidneys- causing renal tubular acidosis, and his GI tract- causing gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and delayed gastric emptying. Mitochondrial Disease has no cure and it is a progressive condition. Eric's doctors will not give him a prognosis, but medical research shows that most children diagnosed with mitochondrial disease will not live beyond their teenage years.
The hardest part about living with Mitochondrial Disease is how quickly Eric's health can change. One day in October of 2009, Eric woke up and was not acting himself at all. We brought him to his pediatrician, who sent us to the emergency room, who sent us home. An hour after we returned home I went into Eric's bed room to check on him while he was sleeping. To my disbelief, Eric was in the middle of having a tonic clonic seizure and he had stopped breathing. We called 911, layed Eric down on the floor and prayed. Finally, before the ambulance arrived at our house, Eric stopped seizing and began to breathe again. When my husband could hear the emergency sirens getting closer to our house, he decided to lock Zeus in the basement so he wouldn't get in the way of the paramedics. Within 30 seconds, Zeus had physically thrown himself at the basement door so many times that the door knob broke off and the door frame broke. The amazing thing was that Zeus just sat back and watched everything that was happening to his boy, and he never once got in anyone's way.
So what did Zeus know before we knew? I believe in my heart that Zeus knew that Eric was sick before he was even born, but that wasn't all he knew. Zeus knew that Eric had something to teach all of us. He knew from the beginning how special our little boy was. He knew he wanted to be Eric's dog, his friend, and his protector. Zeus wanted to be the first in line to claim this special human being. If you have ever met a child with special needs, you know how incredibly amazing these children can be; and Zeus knew that right from the beginning. At the age of 3 1/2, Eric does not talk. He will not say "mommy," or "daddy," or tell us what hurts, but he will say, "Zeus." I don't think I have ever seen such an incredible bond between an animal and a person. Watching the two of them together the past few years has been a very unexpected treat for my husband and I. Zeus and Eric, together, have taught us many life lessons with the most important being: always, always show the people that you love how much you love them!
