But, when the time comes for us to say goodbye to the last vestige of an era past, the progress toward that time can be fraught with pain, anxiety, and doubt, and pass by all too quickly. We have our many memories to replay and reminisce over, but when the memories come flooding in, we know the time is near. Those memories will attempt to sustain us in the time after, and when the pain of the loss is paramount, all we can do is pull out, share, and relish those memories. It's so very important to make memories while you can.
Cancer has been an evil foe for many, and it seems as though our fate has included far too many battles with the beast. Sister, father, aunts, grandfather, friends, and four amazing, loving Myjoy poodles have all succumbed to the terror that comes with the dreaded disease. They say when someone passes from cancer, that they lost their battle, but I strongly believe there is no battle to be won, that life struggles to overcome, and inevitably loses its hold. Cancer is a fucking bastard, one that I would love to squish the guts out of like a bug, pull off its wings, stick needles in its eyes, and see the yellow, pus-filled insides ooze out all around the carcass.
Sound a little crass? There is no demise too harsh for cancer. Cancer Sucks. Cancer takes a healthy, strong individual and, in a matter of weeks, turns them into invalids not knowing what new pain or weakness will hit them next or when. It makes them physically sick, waste away before our eyes, and can turn a normal, active being into a shell of their former selves. When an animal is sick, it is a small blessing that they don’t know what it is that ails them, or how severe it is, only that they feel unwell. If we can give them a short respite from the pain, nausea, weakness, or whatever additional symptom cancer presents to them, then they are happy for that moment. It’s those moments that we have to cherish in the waning days, hours, minutes.
Tailor is a 12.5-year-old Standard Poodle, who on her birthday last November, was walking up to 4 miles a day, swimming in the pool when the tennis ball was thrown in, chasing lizards and bunnies on our walks with enthusiasm, and guarding the house with a vengeance belying her size.
In February she had an impacted anal gland that ruptured. We dealt with and treated that, but noticed in early April that it didn't really seem to be healing very well, and so took her back to the vet. They did a needle aspirate to discover she had a perianal tumor. We scheduled her to have the recommended surgery to remove it on April 21. This was 10 months after she'd successfully had a carcinoma removed along with one of her tonsils. On April 19, at pretty much precisely the same moment in time that my employment ended she had a seizure. Before proceeding with the surgery two days later we had an MRI done to find she had a tumor in her left frontal lobe. The surgery was cancelled as the brain took precedence and it wouldn’t make sense to put her through the surgery when the other tumor was likely going to be the cause of her demise in shorter order. We put her on anti-seizure medication and scheduled her to start radiation to treat both sites, with the hope that both tumors would shrink and her projected two-month survival window could stretch to 6-12 months. The radiation was palliative only, for three weeks, twice per week. At least I was now able to be with her and take her to her appointments, care for her at home, and help her through her ordeal.
Doctor told us we could expect some heightened symptoms for her toward the end of the radiation treatments, but then those should subside and we should have a few to numerous months of normalcy with her. We were up for that 100%! As she neared the end of her three weeks of radiation treatment she did indeed seem to have more neurological symptoms. We managed those with medication and sucked up the sleepless nights and worrisome turns of events with our sights set on our projected months of normalcy. We had plans to get her back in the pool to swim a few more times, she so loved that, and extend our walks back out so she could hunt more lizards and chase more bunnies. But, things didn’t get better. They got worse. She seemed to become continually weaker and more frail. The prednisone made her thirsty, hungry, and have to pee all the time. The perianal tumor (or something around that end of the business) made her want to poop every time she went outside. Then she vomited a couple of times, this from a dog who literally had NEVER thrown up in her life. Then she stopped eating, peeing, and pooping. Fearing the worst, but not knowing if this was all just some of those ‘heightened symptoms’ the doctor spoke of, we took her back for some blood work.
The blood work came back early the next morning with alarmingly high liver enzyme values across all markers. That is definitely never good. Back to the specialty hospital for an ultrasound and some fluids. A few hours later the call came in. There were nodules, presumably more cancer, all through her liver, spleen, and pancreas. Her kidneys looked suspicious too. WTF??? If we had known this a month ago we never would have put her through the radiation therapy.
We promised her before her trip to the hospital that morning that if the prognosis came back with cancer in her liver that we wouldn’t try any further heroics and we would make that difficult decision to gift her release from her pain. Difficult for us. A day at the beach almost made us forget for a moment that cancer was once again taking over our every waking moment. Fucking cancer!
June 29, 2017. Rolo’s (the best cat ever) fifth birthday. We brought Rolo home in October 2012 so Olivia (our, then, 10-year-old SP) could have a buddy to snuggle and lick ears for. Livvie had lymphoma and was undergoing chemotherapy. We firmly believe that with Rolo’s love and companionship she survived over two years, in large part because of him. Ever since Livvie’s passing Rolo has tried to get Tailor to love him and cuddle him as Livvie had. No dice. Tailor had an underlying fear of the cats, even though Rolo never gave her any cause. Now with Tailor leaving I’m not sure what will happen to Rolo’s need to be a care nurse. The sadness in our house is pervasive, even down to the poor cat.
Our rescue SP, Barnaby, will likely be bereft at her passing as well. He hasn’t left her side for the past few weeks and has even supported her on our walks by letting her lean on him up the street. Plain and simple. Pets provide the best love, unconditional without question. But, their lives are too short for our human existence and the chunks of heart that leave with them each time are raw and slow to heal, never quite scabbing over.
With you goes the last of the Myjoy line at our house. All those antics you had that reminded us of Lucas, kept him with us every day. We can’t think of Livvie without remembering how you and she were the best of friends, kissing cousins, always the ‘little girls’ — even when you were the only two left and into your senior years. Always the youngest, sometimes the forgotten one, never the complainer. Oh, what a hole there is now.
CH. Alias Tailor-Made for
Myjoy—RIP (P for play of course) baby girl.
Comments
Post a Comment