Moving to Nashville

A Gidget McFidget Story

As I continue to miss life with Gidget McFidget, I find comfort in sharing little stories about her crazy antics.

This is an excerpt is from my memoir THREE HEARTED GIRL which tells the story of the pair of remarkable journeys that brought me to my two heart transplants. It’s still a work-in-progress, and I need to be done with edits and find an agent eventually.

This series of scenes is about the process of moving to Nashville to wait for a heart transplant with only Gidget to keep me company. Last week I published an excerpt about our experience shortly after the move.

Excerpts from THREE HEARTED GIRL

As I contemplated the idea of moving from Michigan to Nashville to wait for a heart to become available, I researched possible living situations. My father lived two hours east of the city, in an extremely rural town in the Smokey Mountains, up near the Kentucky border.

The town claimed status as the county seat, but the entire population of the county was less than my small hometown in Michigan. As the biggest town in the area, it boasted a courthouse, post office, and sheriff’s office, along with two grocery stores and a Dollar General. The only high school in the county sat just off the main road that connected the town with the rest of the world.

Of course, there were a couple mom-and-pop diners and the ubiquitous Dairy Queen open year-round. A run-down hospital sat on the edge of town, but it functioned as a glorified urgent care. A helicopter pad out back served as the lifeline to the serious hospitals in Nashville. Across the street from the hospital, a Walgreens squatted next to the Dairy Queen.

I knew without question I would go mad in such a tiny, isolated town in the mountains of Tennessee. Although I came from country roots, in my heart, I was a city girl.

The hospital social worker provided me with a list of options within Nashville. Near the top of the list, I recognized the name of the apartment complex which shared a parking lot with the medical building where we attended our orientation on the first day of the evaluation.

As I browsed the website, I caught my breath when I saw they offered pet friendly housing. This sprang forth like divine providence. I immediately began formulating a plan that involved taking Gidget McFidget with me.

Gidget McFidget was sensitive. Whenever I needed to be hospitalized, she became noticeably sad and refused her food until I came home. I knew my little girl would be miserable without me, and I knew I would be the same way without her. She would not care if we lived in a shoe box so long as she could be next to me every minute of every day, and I knew I would never be able to get a good night’s sleep without her little body pressed tightly against mine.

I called the front office of the apartment complex, my fingers dialing before my brain had time to consider all of the details. As soon as a woman answered, I began asking questions about short-term rentals on the pre-furnished apartments, then I pivoted into my most pressing concern.

“Here on your website, it says you offer pet-friendly housing. What do I have to do to bring my dog with me?” I asked.

“We don’t allow pets in the pre-furnished apartments,” she told me. “If you want to have a pet here, you need to lease one of the regular unfurnished apartments and pay a pet deposit.”

This made the prospect far more complicated, but I had already set my sights on bringing Gidget with me. If I could not bring her, I did not want to make the move.

“How much are those apartments?” I asked, expecting to hear a ridiculous sum.

After hearing the first price quote for the furnished apartment, this rate sounded like a bargain. “And I can have my dog with me if I do a twelve-month lease?” Suddenly, bringing Gidget to Nashville with me became the make-or-break item in this arrangement.

“Yes,” she said. “You just need to pay a one-time pet deposit. We also need proof of vaccines. And there is a weight limit. Is she under fifty pounds?”

I laughed. “She is a chihuahua mix.” Really, I did not know her breed. A later DNA test would reveal her genetic makeup as fifty percent Jack Russell terrier, twenty-five percent miniature poodle, and twenty-five percent mystery dog which I dubbed teacup Hellhound. “She weighs fifteen pounds.”

When we wrapped up the call, I asked her to email a copy of the lease agreement to me so I could review it and decide, but I had already made up my mind. As soon as I hung up, I opened my browser and started to search for furniture rental stores in Nashville.

On the Road to Nashville

On the first Sunday in August, Jay and I pulled out of the driveway of our home in Michigan. We loaded my Honda Element floor to ceiling with my belongings, mostly clothes and medications and my computer. Anything else could be purchased once I arrived in Nashville. Gidget had a spot to herself in the back seat, her dog bed resting in the only space devoid of boxes.

Gidget McFidget in her little dog bed, smiling because she has a treasure trove of toys hidden beneath her.

Of course, Gidget entertained no thoughts of sitting quietly in her bed for what the GPS suggested would be an eight-hour car ride. We were barely on the road when she decided to explore the contents of the car. She nimbly climbed the pile of boxes and bags and quickly found a space large enough to accommodate first her head and then her torso. For a moment, I saw her curly tail poking out between two boxes, then she disappeared into the gap.

Gidget McFidget examining the contents of the car to figure out how she can get to the toys at the bottom of the pile.

A couple minutes later, a muffled squeaking sound came from somewhere under the pile. She found the box of dog toys, including the brand-new toys still in their original packaging. For the next hour, she kept herself busy by crawling in and out of her little burrow and bringing the toys out one by one, carefully placing each toy in her dog bed until she gathered enough for her satisfaction. When Gidget finished mining for toys, she climbed into the bed on top of the pile and looked pleased with herself as she randomly squeaked the toys in her treasure hoard.

As we sped down the highway toward my new residence in another state, I could not help but consider the irony that I had driven this same vehicle thousands of miles to rescue hundreds of dogs from animal shelters. Over the past seven years, I pulled dogs from overcrowded shelters and drove them on their freedom ride to waiting foster homes and rescues. Riding in the back of my Honda, those dogs were saved from certain death and given a new lease on life. Now, I rode as a passenger in the same vehicle toward my new home in a quest to avert my own death and begin my own new life.

The Apartment

Gidget McFidget in one of my favorite pictures of her. She is claiming the entire apartment complex as her territory, and she looks mighty pleased with herself.

Despite its tiny size, the kitchenette supplied more cupboard space than our kitchen at home. I could stand in the center of the tiny square kitchen and place the fingertips of my left hand on the refrigerator, my right fingers on the sink, and bow down to rest my forehead on the front of the stove.

The tiny kitchen. It was big enough to cook many meals during our stay.

The long and narrow bathroom had two doors; one opened into the hallway leading to the kitchen and the other to the bedroom. Inside of the bedroom was a walk-in closet big enough to fit a twin mattress on the floor and create another tiny bedroom. It held all my belongings with room to spare.

The crown jewel of the apartment was a balcony that ran the length of both the living room and the bedroom and overlooked a beautifully landscaped courtyard blossoming with a riot of bright flowers. French doors opened from both rooms onto the spacious balcony.

Gidget inspecting the balcony after my father installed rabbit wire over the rails to prevent her from squeezing through. Fun Fact: on subsequent visits to the hospital, I have wandered through the courtyard and found that the wire is still covering the rail nearly seven years after we moved out.

Visions of sitting out there and enjoying the fresh air filled my mind until Gidget demonstrated her ability to fit between the metal rails to commit a kamikaze attack on pedestrians climbing the stairs directly beneath the balcony. As much as she would have enjoyed committing a “death from above” attack on an unsuspecting victim, I decided it might be better to keep the doors shut and avoid eviction.

The Village

On our first evening as Nashville residents, Jay and I wandered down 21^st Avenue hand in hand, Gidget trotting merrily along at our sides. He and I were looking at the small shops and restaurants lining the street while she sniffed every light pole, stop sign and fire hydrant.

Gidget on our first evening walk in Nashville. We were in front of the little taco shop just around the corner from where we lived.

She assertively lifted her leg to mark every one of them. Although she was a female dog, Gidget had the habit of lifting her leg to mark her territory. This was the hallmark of a dominant female dog, I told Jay.

“No wonder she’s your dog,” he said with a laugh. “You are two peas in a pod.”