Well…..the end is near. We watched Chicago win the Stanley Cup last night but I think Cookie was with us by the TV just so she wouldn’t feel alone.
Sorry for not having any photos but the site is giving us troubles for some odd reason.
Cookie was doing just fine (on the outside) until her 6th and final chemo on June 11th (amputation was Jan. 8th of this year). We’d go for short/medium walks, hang out at parks until sunset and wait in the yard in the morning for our neighborhood “dog-friends” to come and visit. She’d eat with gusto twice a day and I even got to change a little bit the “secret ingredient”….actually more like the “secret food preparation method” for the two weeks that V. was in Italy at her parents’s house and it was a lot of beautiful quality time together.
On the day of the 6th and final chemo, we did a set of X-Rays and it showed she has 3 sarcoma lumps in her lungs. The vet advised to do the last chemo anyway to give her a better chance, but in hindsight I am not so sure if that did any good or if it even maybe worsened the situation. If we had not done it and she were in the same spot today, we’d be kicking ourselves for not doing it so it seems like you can’t win either way….
The first 2/3 days obviously she was miserable from the chemo, but she never really bounced back like she did the other 5 times. We should have known since at her last round of water treadmill exercise back in early May, she was super tired and panting, but sometimes you just look into her eyes and see that they’re smiling and they’re still bright and happy so maybe you just tend to ignore reality. In any case, on Sunday June 23rd she actually threw up her morning food for the first time and eating since then has been a challenge, to the point that she won’t even have her favorite ice cream now. We can tell she’s running frequent fevers since her head and ears get warmer in cycles, and she doesn’t do much when around the house other than sleep most of the day. Going potty is a little bit of a battle, except for when we go to the park, where apparently the “I’m sick and I don’t want to go potty” rules don’t apply….
The trips to the park give us a little bit of comfort, but it appears now that she has a bump/lump on her one front remaining leg and so we’re now somewhat worried that the osteosarcoma is there too. We’re fearful she may break that only leg now: if you are a QuadriPawd and become a Tripawd, it’s actually not so bad, but to become now a BiPawd and not have any front legs is not going to be a good thing.
We called the vet today and inquired about the details of how to go about ending her life in a humane way, so we’re mentally prepared (at least we think) to possibly make our final trip on Friday, but this evening she ate out of our hands some really yummy foods, with lots of “secret ingredient” so part of us is hopefully that maybe this is just a moment, but a part of us also knows that all in all it is simply downhill from here and it is just a matter of when.
As I write about this, it dawns on me that technically it is always a matter of when, for everybody and for anyone, human or animal…..we start dying a little bit each day at a time right after we’re born, but what counts is the experiences and memories we collect along the way. Hopefully we won’t be posting much anytime soon, but if we do, it will be for a good reason.
Best,