The black cloud that follows me...

I am very sad today.

Saturday, I took my doggie to the vet. She needed a toenail trim. Last week, she started limping on her left front leg. Her ankle was a little swollen. I thought perhaps she sprained it, or worst case scenario, tore a ligament. I asked the doctor to look at it for me.

He pushed and poked and pulled on her leg, and said she would need an x-ray. They took her in the back and said they would trim her toenail while doing the x-ray.

So they left with my Z-dog. Do you ever get a feeling of doom? I'm a pretty negative person, so I get them a lot. But usually I can shake them and tell myself I am simply being pessimistic. This time I could not shake the feeling. Something was WRONG. I just knew it.

So we sat and waited, R and I, and finally they brought my fuzzy dog back in. Her toenails were all short and pretty.

The doctor had the x-rays. He put them up on his little white light up board, and immediately I knew something was wrong. It wasn't broken, but it wasn't right either.

He turned of the lights and started talking. I immediately glazed over, as one of the first words I heard was "tumor". Fortunately R is much better in a bad situation than I am, and he heard all the important details. The only other words I heard were "carcinoma", "four months to live", "amputation", and "keep her comfortable."

I am not going to amputate my dog's leg. I refuse to subject her to chemotherapy. I don't care if they say that dogs usually handle it better than humans. I am not subjecting her to radiation either. They way it was explained to me, after my brain crashed and rebooted and I was able to process data again, is that once the cancer is noticed, it has usually already started to spread to other organs, such as the lungs. Amputation, radiation and chemotherapy may only give her 10 more months. I don't want a miserable dog for 10 more months. Right now I have a happy dog who doesn't know she is sick.

She has a limp, obviously her leg is sore. But they gave her Rimadyl and it seems to be helping. If her limp isn't much improved in a couple days, they will change her pain medication.

I feel horrible because we are getting married next week and I am supposed to be happy, but how can I be happy when my dog is dying? The doctor said she should be fine for a couple more months, and she will be fine at the kennel. She likes the kennel, she likes the lady that owns it. And like I said, she doesn't KNOW she is dying.

But the guilt. It is horrible. There is nothing I could have done to prevent this. Am I doing the right thing by not treating her and just keeping her comfortable. The poor thing, she just turned 6. But really, who is more upset about this? Me. She doesn't know she is sick. She doesn't know she won't turn 7. She doesn't even know she is 6. My whole problem is humanizing the dog.

As long as she is happy and seems to feel good, keeps eating and drinking and going potty outside, then I will assume she is ok. If she stops eating or drinking, I know she has a problem and it will be time for her to go. I know if she seems to have a hard time breathing, then the damn cancer has metastasized and she needs to be let go.

I don't think I can be in there when they do it. But I don't want to leave her when they do it either. This just really stinks. It's not fair. She is such a good dog. I feel so sad.

I'm going to try not to cry anymore.

I will try to get some pictures up here to show you what a cute fuzzy dog she is and why I am so sad.

I will miss her. She was my best friend for a long time.

But not long enough.