sanger: 1996 - 2009
rest in peace, baby mommy loved you more than anything ever invented ever ever. i love you.
rest in peace, baby mommy loved you more than anything ever invented ever ever. i love you.
i've taken a 30 day leave of absence from work. the stress of the last few weeks has taken it's toll on me in ways i didn't think imaginable. so this is day 1. i am going to try to write as a way of dealing with the grief of sanger's illness and impending departure from this earth. afterall, this site was originally going to be about our adventures together. i'm sad that it took until now for me to get serious about it.
sanger has a nasal tumor. it was diagnosed almost a month ago. it is on the right side of her nose, under her eye and extending up between the eyes. it is cancer, although the type was indeterminable from the biopsy that was taken. i have decided not to treat it. sanger is nearly 13. chemo and radiation would only extend her life by 2-3 months. what kind of quality of life would that be? so i decided that we would forgo treatment (surgery is not an option) and let things progress as normally as possible.
since then, i decided to put her on steroids in hopes of relieving the inflammation in her snout to allow her some comfort when sleeping. the drugs have done a pretty good job of that so far. the bleeding had been minimal up until about a week ago. over the last week, she has suffered two bleeds that make me so panicky and anxious that it's nearly impossible to do anything except sit with her.
so that's where we are.
after a horrible friday night and saturday morning with sanger's bleeding pretty much out of control and me hysterical by the thought that this was it, i decided to make the call to the vet. sanger's vet, dr. tessano was not in that day. to me, that was my sign that it wasn't time. we took sanger to crissy field and she swam and swam and swam some more. she also bled and bled and bled. bright red, iron rich, creamy blood. but she didn't care. people would walk by and say, "your dog's nose is bleeding!' and i would just look in their eyes and say, "i know. cancer". some people would just keep walking, some would stop to ask questions, the real dog lovers would return my gaze and say with kindness, "you poor dears. i'm so sorry.". one woman stopped and said, "anything you want" when sanger came up and tried to rub her bloody face on her leg.
a sneeze in the car on the way home resulted in blood splattering everywhere, including all over the passengers. it is a pretty traumatic little scene, my beautiful black dog with a face full of blood...
once we got home, i gave sanger a quick bath in the parking lot and then brought her back upstairs. after 36 hours of no sleep, my girl was zonked and the bleeding let up enough for her to nap for several hours. sunday she seemed more like her old self. i had to pick out the dried chunks of blood from her nose so she could breathe, but once i did, she seemed to feel better. good enough for a walk around phoenix lake!
it took sanger several hours to get out of bed this morning. i had to pick her up to get her to come downstairs for a potty walk with me. once we get going it's fine, but words are not enough some days. she refused breakfast. i fed her about half from a spoon before she pushed my hand away with her nose. she's currently napping on the cool kitchen floor. it is such a beautiful day, i'm considering driving over the mountain to stinson, but she can't really swim there so it might be best to just head back to crissy field for the afternoon.
my anxiety creeps in and out. i felt pretty good yesterday. today when i woke up, i didn't. i felt panicked and scared and alone and worried. i feel exhausted. i feel sad. i get upset thinking that i almost made a decision on saturday that was not the right decision. not knowing what the decision will feel like when it's really and truly time is killing me. everyone says "you'll know". will i? i thought i knew on saturday. i'm afraid to make the wrong choice. i'm afraid that i will be this sad forever. i am afraid to loose my best friend.