My summer has been unusual in its emotional rollercoaster of late, to the point where I don’t want to adult any more.
First we lost Tank, our 14 year old evil to the bone but in a cute package so I won’t strangle her Basset Hound back in April. About a month ago, Milo, my adorable pibble that’s as smart as a bag of hammers, started limping. When he was 3 he probably slayed an overly sneezy orc or a feral munchkin high on bath salts back at our old Big Blue House that caused him to damage to his back leg that required a pin to be put in on the knee. He’s been fine ever since, with it occasionally causing him to favor it sometimes when the weather got too cold for him. So him limping was concerning but nothing too out there. I made an appointment regardless, mostly just because he needed to update his shots and to just get a check up. Right before the appointment, the limping got more noticeable, and now there was a lump. A hard lump. He didn’t seem to finch when touched or when moved and it was warm to the touch. The vet suggested we take him to a specialist, so we did. He ran tests, x-rays and found almost the same strange results that Tank had. Blood-work came back fine, but showing signs of an infection. We put him on anti-inflammatories and some pain meds. The x-rays showed a lesion on the bone, indicating cancer, but he wasn’t sure as he said he never really saw anything like this. Awesome, I managed to have both dogs get the same baffling illness exactly 2 months apart. He wanted to have second opinions on the results, and a super expensive biopsy to test for cancer. We do that, causing us to dip into our savings as we already had run up our credit card that is solely for vet bills dealing with Tank. He calls me back a few days later to say that they also were just as confused in that the results seem to indicate BOTH cancer and infection. He wanted to send this stuff to THE specialist in the US, a vet in CO. We did that too, which we’re still waiting for the final diagnosis.
In the meantime, my baby is not getting any better. In fact, he seems at times to be getting worse. He’s having issues getting up and down the stairs to go outside. He has to rest for a several minutes before he heads back inside as well as wait at the bottom of the stairs as those are far harder to go up them then down them. He’s almost always sleeping, sometimes trying to find a comfortable spot. He doesn’t want to eat very much, and I’m sure he’s lost a few pounds as a result. He has zero energy and no longer happily greets us at the door when we come home. He doesn’t happy pant or happy grunt. He looks like I do in a deep depression. He resembles a mopey, depressed teenager…….who’s 90 years old……….with a bad limp……..and fur all over. The other night, it had been a warm afternoon and our house doesn’t circulate air very well, but it was a reasonable warmth. He was panting so hard we were worried he was getting over heated. He had plopped on the floor so we put our fan directly next to him. He stopped panting at least, and seemed to relax finally. Later we served him dinner and left him laying down in the kitchen, figuring it was cooler on the tile for him. A hour or so goes by and I head to the kitchen to get dessert and see that he hasn’t moved. My heart stopped for a moment as I feared he had passed away but I saw him move his eyes and see me so I then panicked that he couldn’t move. I yell for my husband and when he walks in, Milo lifts his head but remains on the floor. Hubby gets a cookie and moves to the living room and calls him over. Milo does get up and we managed to get him on the couch with some ease. We both looked at each other, knowing that the results are most certainly to going to be not good. The lump is double in size now, where its visibly noticeable, and he reacts to some touch in certain areas. There is no signs that the antibiotics he’s been on now for a month are doing anything, and we’ve increased his pain meds but that just makes him sleep more.
I hugged my baby and whispered in his ear, “If you need to go, it’s okay. Tank will be there to greet you. I’ll be okay. I love you sweetie, just know that.” I cried for a few minutes too. I fucking hate this! What’s really worrying me is that, for BOTH dogs to have the same issues so damn close together makes me think infection or worse…..environmental. That there is something in the house that caused this. I don’t want to bring another dog in here until we know what the deal is, just in case. Hell, I’d be willing to move if need be! I’m done with having a house I can’t entertain in anyways.
Both dogs are/were technically around the same age as each other, with him being so big his life span was never going to be to much further than 10 maybe. But I’ve never experienced losing both of my dogs in such a small amount of time, and never in a manner such as this. What’s not helping emotionally is that several of my friends have also lost pets recently. Two of them on the same day even! There’s just so much sadness and pain going on lately. I just don’t want to see him in pain anymore. I miss his dancing.
On a sort of positive note as I don’t want to leave this as a complete downer, I leave for a weekend in LA next week, where its going to be hotter than Zeus’s nut sack after a day trip to the sauna. Yeah, I’ve adapted to the Bay Area. Still………………….LA has malls, and I’m sooooooooooooooooooo going to my old shopping grounds as its air conditioned and there are shops there I can actually buy things from, unlike here where there is no such thing. And I’m getting my chili donuts from Boneyard, even if it means I have to kill someone. My brother has In-&-Out burgers when he is on this coast as its not out where he lives. I have Boneyard Bistro and their heavenly divine chili donuts. At least I’ll have a few friends to see and new babies to see as well.
Musings of A Strange Child 