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Yet another "What should I do?" post...
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On The Road


Member Since:
24 September 2009
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21 November 2020 - 1:56 pm
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I'm so sorry to read this about R, thank you for letting us know.

Getting the news about mets is bad enough but when you get the update that eventually comes when you're coping with metastasis, ugh, it just feels like you've lost the battle. I remember it well, feeling frustrated that the treatment wasn't working, that it was the end of the road. It took me a long time to get my emotions under control the way you have, and realize that whatever the size of the mets and the prognosis, all a dog wants to do it continue enjoying every second on this beautiful planet with the people they love most. You are seeing the power of Being More Dog so clearly, and this will benefit Rearden tremendously wherever the journey takes you next. It's a gift like no other, and one that makes him very proud of you.

Please let us know what we can do to support you OK? We are here for you always. And don't forget to share some photos of your gorgeous boy, we haven't seen any in a while and would love to swoon over him 🙂

Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet

Member Since:
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21 January 2021 - 4:46 am
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Just an update on R, for anyone who 'met' us way back when we started this journey.  I often remind myself these days that we've been very lucky to have gotten seven months post-diagnosis.  And he's still here with me, for the moment, but I do think we're probably at that point where we need to face that the end is coming.  R is now on two different pain medications each day and hydrocodone to try to fight the coughing.  His coughing was never really bad, actually, but he coughed up some blood last week, so we started the cough suppressant to try to really keep the hacking down.  Working so far.  But either all the medications (which all do have sedation as a side effect) or his worsening condition have made R just not totally himself.  You just know your dog, you know?  And R is not a sedate fellow.  I can look back at pictures from a month ago and see a difference.  R still grinning then.  Still excited and wagging his tail.

I don't think we're 'there' yet, - He still wants to chew his tennis balls and food is a joy. - but it's hard to deny at this point that it's coming.  I'd guess a lot of people can relate to this.  For a while after you get through amputation and you go on chemo and things seem hopeful...  You can just kinda put aside what's happening a little.  Like, yes, it's a fatal disease.  But we're ALL going to die EVENTUALLY.  So it doesn't have to be at the front of your mind when things are going well.  That's all I'm saying, I guess.  Is that we've moved beyond that nice limbo phase where we can kinda ignore where we're headed on the river, and now we can see the rapids, or the falls...  Or maybe it's just the calm and deep of the ocean that we're going to reach.  I really liked that analogy.  I'm going to sound, I dunno, plebeian or something?, but that last scene with Chidi in The Good Place was really comforting to me a few months ago.  I like to think of R's end that way.  Just a wave returning to the ocean.  

I'm dreading what the coming conclusion means for me - I've never been an adult without R.  I got him just before I started graduate school so, really, I've never lived an independent adult existence that doesn't have R as a main focal point. - but so far R seems like he's handling the journey just fine.  Even now.  He wants to cuddle a bit more, and he doesn't want to be apart from me, which is a subtle indicator that he feels not everything is right.  But as much as that gives me some mixed feelings about stealing all the extra cuddles that come from his concern, I'm just soaking them up and kissing his soft, little ears a thousand times and just saying over, and over, and over again, "I love you."  I don't know, once the wave returns to the ocean, if it will be able to hear me, or be able to distinguish itself from the rest of the water and know it is THAT little bit of water that I loved so particularly dearly.  It is to comfort myself as much as him to know that he has been adored every single day of his entire life.

I sleep curled around him at night, with an arm thrown over his chest, feeling him breathe.  And I can feel the changes starting.  How he takes a breath, how slowly, how deeply...  We are so in tune with each other these days.  It's going to be so quiet around here without his collar jingling down the hallway, his little head poking through the office door with some kind of squeaker in his mouth, the hop, hop, hop noises all around the house.  I'm going to miss him.  But I think we are as at peace as we can be that these things are changing and that our journey is ending.  Not today, and I don't think tomorrow, but we're at the point where I'm not sure I can confidently say anything beyond that.  I'm hoping weeks still, I'm guessing still, but I just don't know.

They teach us so much, don't they?  I've told R so many times that he's taught me how to love better, that he's taught me patience, that he teaches me every day to be happy with little things like just the sun and the grass and a tennis ball.  But, this too, I suppose.  They teach us loss too.

London. UK
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21 January 2021 - 5:22 am
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As is often said here dogs live in the moment, they do not worry, R seems happy enjoying his time with you at the moment and while we know (with great pain) that it will not last, enjoy your time with him as well for as long as he is getting pleasure from life.

Our relationship with our dogs is so pure and beautiful, the trust both ways is amazing. You never really know what your partner is up to but you can never doubt your dogs commitment to you, and that is so rewarding and will never leave you.  

  • "what shall be done for these innocents? I have been warned not even to raise the question of animal immortality, lest I find myself “in company with all the old maids”. I have no objection to the company" - C S Lewis (The Problem of Pain)
  • "Mr Toplady was touched by the cruelty of the scene, and exclaimed, ' Who could bear to see that sight, if there were not to be some compensation for these poor suffering animals in a future state' 'I certainly hope,' said my grandfather, ' that all the bulls will go to heaven; but do you think this will be the case with all the animal creation' 'Yes, certainly,' replied Mr Toplady, with great emphasis, ' all, all!" - Josiah Bull (recording a meeting with the great A. M. Toplady, author of "Rock of Ages" in "Memorials of the Rev. William Bull of Newport, Pagnel")
  • "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God" Luke 12:6
New York, NY
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21 January 2021 - 9:45 am
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Ash - You have so beautifully and heartbreakingly captured what I know so many of us in this Tripawds community feel. Your love for R shines through in every post you write and that love will remain constant even when the wave returns to the ocean.  I am sending you love and strength for the coming weeks. sp_hearticon2 Stacy

Griffin lived an amazing life for 11 years! Diagnosed with osteosarcoma on March 17, 2020, Griffin's right forelimb was amputated on April 2, 2020. Ten days later he was running and playing fetch! Lung metastasis discovered in July 2020 did not slow down Griffin and he lived joyfully for the next 7 months, passing peacefully at home on February 11, 2021. https://griffin.tripawds.com

Virginia







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21 January 2021 - 10:21 am
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Your "words"....your words could not be more enlightened  and definitely  come from a guided source of love for R.  R is still teaching you and teaching us with all his wisdom he is channeling  through you.💖

As hard as this part pf the jouney, thank for for sharing such a lovely  state of inner spiritual grace and harmony.....the state of "being R".❤

Love and light

Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!

PS....just wanted to add a quote from Anne Lindbergh,  A Gift From the Sea:

"Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach-living: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid.”
― 

Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!

On The Road


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21 January 2021 - 10:59 am
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So beautifully said, thank you for returning to update us and share the good and the bittersweet of what you and R are going through. It's never easy, and even when we know we are closer to the inevitable, we are reminded that our animals are the wisest beings on the planet who selflessly give to us right up until their last breath. May you continue to find beauty, peace and unforgettable moments together in the coming weeks. We will be here for you every minute if you want to talk.

Give R a few extra ball tosses and lovin' kisses from us. We are keeping you in our hearts.

Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet

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8 April 2021 - 6:59 pm
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201

In a weird way, this felt like the last group of people I needed to inform, even though a number of members of this group ended up becoming friends over social media and already know...  

It's been three weeks, today, actually, since I had R put to sleep.  I have a lot of feels about that.  And even though I know all the feelings are normal feelings, that doesn't change the intensity of them, the doubt of them...

I decided 'too early' to avoid 'too late'.

Our final week started with a trip to the emergency room on Monday evening when I noticed that R was squinting one eye and basically not opening the other.  He'd been his normal self all day, but after he ate his dinner he came up and laid on top of me while I was trying to do my sit-ups in the living room.  I had transitioned mostly to working out in my living room for the last six months because I didn't want R to be alone, really any more than absolutely necessary, so he was used to seeing me on the spin bike in there, and lifting dumbbells and stuff and usually he'd let me get in at least three or four sets before he'd demand attention.  Mostly, I think, just because he'd realized he basically didn't have to follow any rules any more and if he wanted cuddles he got them pretty much any time, any where.  But insisting on lying directly on top of me wasn't normal.  That was generally reserved for when the tornado sirens were going off and we were hiding in the bathroom, or when we travelled because he hated, hated, hated hotel rooms.

So I stopped working out and sat on the couch with him.  And quickly noticed the eyes.

He'd been fighting what we thought was pink eye on and off for a few months.  I'd actually had the ophthalmologist at his vet take a look a couple months earlier, and when he'd started getting gunky eyes again a few weeks before this, I'd just assumed it was the pink eye again and refilled his goop prescription and started forcing goop into his eyes before breakfast and dinner again.  But I called his oncologist when I noticed him squinting and they said anything eyes could be considered an emergency, so...

I ended up sitting in my car until about 1am on Tuesday, only to be told they thought he had glaucoma and I needed to bring him back for another appointment with the ophthalmologist tomorrow-today.

I felt terrible that I hadn't caught on that the eye was more serious.  He'd had gunky eyes for MONTHS, but I just kept assuming it was the pinkeye recurring and/or to be really honest I thought in the grand scheme of things eye boogers were really far down on my list of concerns.  I didn't realize they might be something serious.  Shit we wish we'd learned sooner, I guess.

Tuesday, the ophthalmologist tells me the pressure in R's worse eye is 60-whatever-it-is-es when it should be, like, 13 and that if 'the drops' don't work the only other options are some injection that kills his eye, or to remove his eye because essentially he's going to have a raging migraine, like, all the time, until we fix this.  He recommends giving the drops a few days to see if they can do the trick, but he estimates about a 25% chance they'll fix things and...

We both agree: there's no way I'm removing R's eye.  I'm not just going to chop off his pieces, one-by-one, as they fail him.  I took a leap and took his leg, and I'm glad I did.  But I'm not taking any more from him.  Not with all the other shit we have going on...

So I take him home.  We have a follow-up appointment Friday.

But then...  I'd really been noticing it for the past few days, but it just struck me that night, maybe because I was now hyper-hyper in tune with him after our latest ER scare, but...  His breathing had been having weird episodes.  He'd breathe really, really rapidly through his nose and then have a loooooooong pause in his breathing - so long I'd legitimately frightening him awake a few times because I thought he might have died - and then return to normal breathing.  The episodes didn't seem to really bother him overly, but they certainly didn't seem restful.  I actually took a video of one of these episodes and sent that to his main oncologist and he offered that maybe we wanted to bring him back in for lung x-rays to see how the tumors were growing in there and where we were at and...

I think I'd already decided, a little, that if those x-rays were shitty, I might decide to let R go.  I had taken vacation days for the whole week at that point because regardless of x-rays, the ophthalmologist had said we might have to consider putting him down Friday if the eye wasn't fixed by then so...

So Wednesday was R's day.  We laid out in the sun in the backyard.  We chewed through two different tennis balls.  We took a nap in bed with the window open and the breeze rustling through our hair.  In a way I was both at peace with this as a possible last day, and doubtful about it being right, because we even played fetch for the first time in weeks when my friend came over to visit.  (She was one of R's favorite people.)  And we even managed a full little loop of a walk around the neighborhood, which we hadn't managed in months.  On one hand, I felt like, this dog is still pretty happy, all things considered.  Maybe it's not time.  On the other hand, I thought the fact that we'd managed those last two items was almost like a sign from R that he was making this a really perfect last day.

So I had 'grandpa' come up on Thursday to drive us to the vet, and to be there if I needed to put R down, and for R, because grandpa was his very favorite person in the entire world.  He was so happy to see him.  And again, again.  Does that mean the dog wasn't ready to go?  That he could still be so happy to see his grandpa that he was whining with ecstatic joy?  Or does that mean...

There was no way I was going to manage a better last day than Wednesday.  No way I was going to manage a better final morning than cuddling up on the couch while momma sips her coffee and just tells you stories about how much she has always loved you, and then grandpa shows up at the door like the very best surprise...

So x-rays on Thursday showed that the tumors in the lungs had progressed substantially and his oncologist said his episodes of 'respiratory distress' were going to get more common, and I should be prepared for the possibility that he might die suddenly, basically at any moment, and he thought I could take him home for another two or three weeks, maybe, but he also didn't think it was too early to talk about whether I should let him go now...

I asked him to give me a half hour to think about it.  Obviously, I'd already thought about it a lot.  I'd planned the whole day before in anticipation that this was probably what the x-rays were going to show and...

R didn't 'want' to go yet.  I know that.  And I'm still not sure if I made the right choice or not.  But I also couldn't stand the idea of waiting until he'd basically suffered enough that he 'wanted' to die.  I would have fought a fucking slab of granite with my bare fists to keep that boy happy, and healthy, and safe, and HERE with me.  But I didn't want him to know what it was to feel so bad that he 'wanted' death.  I wanted him to have a happy last day.  And then I wanted him to know no pain, and to know peace, and there's a lot of debate in my religion about whether or not animals get to go to heaven, but I just can't believe that God made this little light, and this little creature of joy, and love, and happiness, just to have it snuff out to nothing when his body is gone.  So I had prayed a lot, asking that R's end be one with no pain, and only peace.  And I'd told R all about how 'grandma' was in heaven, and when he met my mom he needed to try to be polite and not jump up on her, but she liked dogs and she and him were going to get along great, and they'd be so happy, and his body would be whole again, and when my time comes, can he come and meet me wherever this world bridges to the next?

I just felt like, yeah, we might get two or three more weeks with R feeling less and less happy, and maybe his eye always hurting, or having a fucking migraine all the time, before we got to the day he unequivocally 'told me' he wanted to go, but... 

In a way, he hadn't been enjoying life like he used to for a long time.  Months, really.  He was still eating, and wanting to cuddle, and able to do his business, but he wasn't really R.  No fetch.  No walks.  No crazy puppy grin.  Just always high on multiple pain killers, sitting in the sun, mostly just blissed out holding the tennis ball in his mouth.  Was that what counted as 'good days' now?  Would we have considered that a 'good day' in December?  When he was still his crazy, goofy, whirlwind self?

I've relived putting him down a hundred times since.  He was already at the vet for the X-rays, so I went back.  They had a room.  I told them not to give me too long with him because I knew I was just going to freak him the hell out, crying and snotting all over the place; my anxiety was going to make him anxious.  (And it totally did.)  So we had fifteen minutes.  I brought him apple slices and Greek yogurt and his very favorite peanut butter cookies.  I tried to tell him one more time how much I loved him, and how grateful I was that he'd been my very best friend for ten years, and how he'd taught me so many simple but important lessons but...  He was definitely freaked out.  I feel so badly still that he felt that way at the end.  He didn't like the vet on a good day and I think with me crying and the weird day and the x-rays...

He wanted out of that room and he still wanted to go home and maybe that means I was wrong to take that decision away from him and I should have waited until he wanted to go...

I honestly don't know.

But I do know that I loved him.  And I tried so hard to make all the right decisions, and do everything right by him for ten years, and if I fucked up at the end all I can hope is that the ten years before then make up some of the difference and I do honestly believe that he had a life at least as good as any of the other puppies that made it out of that shelter in rural Indiana.

If I had thought we were likely to have any more days as good as Wednesday, I wouldn't have let him go.

But I honestly thought it was just days (if the eye kept up) or maybe a few weeks (with the lungs filled with tumors) of slowly losing our joy.

I didn't want that for him.

And maybe I should have done what he wanted that afternoon but...  We do make some decisions that go against what our dogs want, because we think we know better, don't we?  I mean, WE, specifically, those of us in this community.  R didn't want me to remove his leg either.  He couldn't conceptualize that the pain in his leg was never going away, and this was the best option.  He didn't want to go back to the surgery suite that day either.  But I did that too, because I thought I knew better than my dog.

I'm not sure if that's arrogance, or what it is to take responsibility for a four-legged life.

It's been three weeks today.  I put his beds away out of sight for a while, picked up all his toys.  I weirdly didn't vacuum until today because having fur in the carpet was oddly comforting.  The house seems empty without him.  It's weird not to have a little body resting against my legs in bed at night.  I had him cremated and he's in a little wooden box on a chest at the foot of my bed right now and it seems weird that my seventy-pound, rambunctious wiggle of fur could fit in there.  I'm mostly not crying any more, but I do still go through those last moments over, and over again and I've apologized to R a hundred times if I was wrong, and I still talk aloud to him sometimes just to say I miss him, or I love him, or that it's weird not to have to race to pick up food when I drop it on the floor.  And I feel guilty, too, that in some ways it is a relief not to have so much of my time and attention focused on my sick pup.  I can sleep in sometimes because I'm not stuck to a pill regimen.  I can workout in the garage again.  I have more time to work on personal projects.  I'm not just anxious, all the freaking time, trying to make sure I catch any sign of anything wrong with my precious little life, jingle jangling around all the rooms of my house.

I've also never NOT had a dog, so I don't really feel safe without my 'great guard dog' as a police officer once told me, hearing him barking on the other side of the door.  And nights like tonight, when it's raining, I always felt SO cozy, and SO grateful, to have a beloved little life to hold close to me, and bury my fingers in his fur, and kiss his impossibly soft ears...

Part of me wants to rush out and get a new puppy, like, yesterday.  But I'm committed to being dog-free for at least a couple of months while I see if I actually LIKE being all responsibility-free and shiz, and while I catch up on a bunch of personal projects I basically just put off for the eight months after R's diagnosis, and while I do a few things I think I need to do to feel like I'm ready to be a good companion to another dog.  

For now I'm just mostly trying to be okay.

I hope, wherever R is, he's better than okay.  I know for a fact that the very last thing he ever saw on this earth was my face, heard my voice, telling him it was okay, and I didn't leave him, and I was right here, and I loved him...  And I hope his vision faded and my voice grew distant and then it was...  Shining shores.  My mom greeting him in sunlight and green fields.  His body with no more aches, all four legs, his sight restored.

I loved him the best I could.

I did the best I could.

I guess that's all we can do.

On The Road


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8 April 2021 - 8:21 pm
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I'm so deeply sorry, I was heartbroken to learn that R had gotten his wings. Yes, you did the best you could and it showed. The 'better a day too early than a day too late' is the hardest path to take but the most compassionate. You lived up to the person R thought you were. You were his hero and even though those final days and moments were not what anyone would want, those moments do not define your love for him, or all those years you made happy memories together. He was so much more than cancer could ever be. He was a hero, and always will be.

Thank you for allowing us to be part of your journey together. It's been an honor getting to know you two and we will never forget your sweet Rearden. May he live on in our hearts and the stardust of the universe.

Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet

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