Labor of Love

Most of the time I look at Arrow and see her as a dog who is getting better. Other times, I look into her eyes and see my dog who has cancer. Even though they removed the tumor, she is undergoing cancer treatment, and I can't help but see my dog as being ill. I wonder, "How did we get here?" But I guess that is always the case with a cancer diagnosis. Its not like we prepare for it and then it happens. It comes up out of the blue and catches you off guard. Those of you who know me well know that of course I've been thinking about the day when little Boney gets sick. Truthfully though I didn't picture that happening until a couple of years down the road. I didn't picture spending this fall helping her with her cancer treatment. These are the realities that we now face. Arrow was sick and she is recovering, but she's also worn out, scared, sometimes confused, sometimes content (and sometimes drugged out of her mind!).

The routine around here has changed quite a bit for the next couple of weeks. We get up in the morning and give her two different pain pills. We let them kick in for about half and hour and then we take her downstairs, walk slowly down the stairs with her and let her out into the backyard to do her thing. You'd think that this would be quick, she would pee and poop, and want to come back inside because she is sore. That's not exactly how it goes. She stands in the woods and stares at us for about 10 minutes or so before she decides that we REALLY aren't going for a walk and that she really is going to be stuck inside the house all day again. Occasionally during this outing she will pick up a couple of sticks to try to entice us to play with her.

Back inside finally, we feed her and let her drink some water. We eat our own breakfast and then we lay out a towel onto the tile floor and get the warm water, cleaning solution, Vitamin E oil and ointment out and lay it around the towel. After yelling at the cats to get out of the way (that would be me yelling at them), we call Arrow over and convince her to lie down. As much as she knows this is going to be unpleasant, she walks over to us and lies herself down. Sally does the cleaning and I hold her head and tell her its all going to be OK. I rub her forehead, and keep her from licking the cleaning solution while Sally applies it. This takes about 5-10 minutes and then Sally puts the ointment on. I then lay on the floor with her, rubbing her head and keeping her relaxed. The saddest part about this is that the whole time her little body is tembling. She is so scared, and the pain is pretty bad, but she trusts us. Sometimes she'll even lift her little arm in the air to help Sally reach under it and clean it out. Ten minutes after the ointment, we put a t-shirt on her (we have a bunch of them now) so that while we are here, she doesn't have to wear the lamp shade.

Early evening, she gets another pill, more ointment, and another head massage. Back outside, we have to convince her once again that she's not ready for a walk, and then in for dinner. About 8 pm, she gets one more pill. Before bed, we give her one liquid dose of an anti-inflammatory, and one more pain pill--Let it kick in, and then back outside for the final pee. The ointment goes on, ten more minutes of a head massage, and then the t-shirt. Then we all go up to bed. Whew! Another day down. Five more to go before peak. We're getting there!