Thursday, April 12, 2018

Breaking Through. The Good Days That Chemotherapy Delivers and the Life We Enjoy Around Them

For 48 hours every week I have him back.


The youth, the joyful expression and the wanderlust spirit of the boy I yearn to preserve.


For those few blissful days everything is as it should be once again.



We are free, we are happy and we are explorers in a world with adventures yet to be discovered.


He is back with me again and I live in the moment alone - abandoning the painful yesterday of excruciating moments of death hovering around us.

For these few days there are walks, and wags and jubilant reunions.


We are as we were. Time has lost its grip on us and fate looms for another.


There are mornings of wiggle dancing on the bed.

Kingdoms to perch over and protect and beasts yet to face and foil.

There are barking bellows to beg a meal. couches to claim and companionship to solidify and cement. We are each others best friend and no fate awaits us.


Footnote;

Jekyll has prostate canner and urethral transitional carcinoma. This is a show stopper. A final act. You aren't cured of this. You, me, I am buying him as many "good days" as I can.



For everyone who thinks that chemotherapy is beyond what dogs deserve, you won't understand my grief. For those of you who think that dogs lose their hair, will to live, or are "miserable" while undergoing chemo I will testify that after 9 rounds (weekly) he is alive and functional, because of the chemotherapy. He has good and bad days. We have great days, and days where pain meds are his elixir of bearability. The idea that we give up when "terminal" is assigned is like trying to get through life with just the good days being acceptable. You don't/shouldn't get to chose one without expecting (and maybe even trying to embrace) the flip side. Life isn't a lesson on navigating the shore. It is about the greatness that lies in the depths of magic of beauty. There isn't more in the sunshine, there is equal luminescence in the darkness.

I am here to stand beside him through the joy of his sweet puppyhood as much as his dying oldness. It is a path together. For as long as we have. I will always let him decide, as I try to see the grace in every shade of the spectrum and make his journey full of love and life for as long as we have left.


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1 comment:

  1. My heart hurts for you. I wish there was something I could say that would help. It sounds like Jekyll has had a wonderful life with you - perhaps that's the one thing to focus on. Hugs, Roberta

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