Friday the 13th, April 2012

Today is Friday, April 13, 2012. My last post was nearly a year ago, give or take a week or so. I've been distracted by life. But that's good, you know. That way I don't have too much time to think of all the philosophical things.

I woke up really depressed this morning, but not as depressed as earlier in the week. That day it was so awful that I couldn't stay in the house to drink my coffee. I had to quickly get dressed and go to the gas station and buy coffee there so I'd be out of my private environment. Three hours later I felt better and went home.

Later that day I found out that one of my dogs has metastatic cancer to her lungs. On March 3 she had her rear left leg removed because of cancer. The X-rays at that time showed no metastasis. But about 6 days ago now she began coughing, and I suspected. Yet I was hoping it was allergies like I have. The X-rays showed otherwise, bad news, and a downhill spiral.

I am wondering, did God give me the severe depression that morning so that I would get it over with and be able to deal with the eventual bad news and be able to take care of my dog? Regardless, it worked out that way.

Yesterday I took her to the university veterinary hospital for further examination and possibly a biopsy. She had the luck to draw an oncologist for the day. The doctor said that 99.9999999999...% it is metastasized bone cancer. There is the infinitesimally remote possibility that it is a fungal infection, but even I am not holding on tight to that hope. Rather than do an invasive biopsy, the doc took a urine specimen to send off for fungal culture.

What was suggested that might help in palliation, and should not be considered curative, is administration of a drug called "Palladia". This stops the tumors from growing blood vessels and makes them die. If this works, at least my doggie won't suffocate maybe. I still am not holding out for a cure, because the blood work showed she was in mild organ failure, kidneys to be specific. Miracles do happen, though. I just hope I don't make her last days sick and miserable by giving this medication. If this appears to be the case I will stop it.

Doggie feels good right now. She is short of breath and she coughs, but she still has interest in going out into the countryside and swimming in the creek and the ponds.

I don't feel too happy or motivated this morning, either. I took my temperature and it is slightly elevated. The weather is stormy, with lots of rain, thunder, and lightning. There has been hail in the area. None of the dogs wanted to go outside to relieve themselves, but there was a break in the rain and I managed to get them to go out. Right now sick doggie is guarding her dog bone on the sofa, and one of the others is hiding out in the bathtub. I think the other is hiding behind the sofa.

I'm in a mood for purging things in the house, just going through and throwing out stuff if I haven't used it in a reasonable amount of time. I don't have too much left, though, and I might be throwing out stuff I will eventually want. I have purged so much that I'm sort of down to the things I need.

The purging is calling loudly. I sat down here to look up the meaning of something but now I can't remember what it is I wanted to know. I took apart the TV table and washed it, and now to keep myself busy I'll go clean something else.

First I had to change the title of this post. I had called it "Nearly a year later" but after being confused by it, I discovered that the post immediately previous to this had been named the same! Now I'm done here.