animal care – Bridging the Paradigms: re-connecting people and the planet

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 12

March 2, 2012 by Robyn 4 Comments

Not every moment in an old, dying dog’s life is grim. Far from it, or neither humans nor animals would, or should, put up with it.

Way back when, Murphy was a puppy. Now, at over 13-1/2, I think about the funny moments. Many of those involve that chew toy, Kong.

I got it so I could stuff it with treats and keep Murphy occupied so I could work. Or at least rest up after participating in her rambunctious puppy (later growing dog, later senior dog) moments.

She had other ideas. She would take the Kong, try to get the treat out, then wise up. Literally.

She’d get up and carry the Kong over to me and stand there, giving me the look.

The first time it happened, I looked at her and said, “You’re supposed to get the treat out by yourself.”

She was having none of it.

I ended up sticking a pen through the short end of the Kong so the cookie would barely peek out of the other end. Murphy would then yank it out, demolish it, and give me that look again as she walked off.

Murphy has always been way too smart for the Kong (and, frankly, usually, me).

For years now we’ve used it as a peanut butter dispensing device. Murphy and, later, Alki each got a Kong in bed at night with a little peanut butter on it.

Just the other night, remembering the old Kong days, I stuck a treat in it for Murphy to toy with, then snapped a picture of her trying to get the treat out. It ended up the same way: with me digging it out for her.

I’ll treasure this photo. It will remind me of her quirky personality, her cut-to-the-chase attitude. She is a wonderful, smart, loving dog.

I think of what a heck of a corporate CEO she’d make: innovative, cunning, easygoing.

And, as this second photo will prove: satisfied.

What else is there?

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 11

February 27, 2012 by Robyn Leave a Comment

my dying dog We were just sitting on the deck together, and I was reminding Murphy of the very first time we were in that exact same position: back in October 1998, when she’d just come home to live with me. She was 11 weeks old, my introduction to Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.

Today she is over 13-1/2, and dying from a splenic tumor.

Time is clearly on our minds these days.

Last week she was in crisis, having breathing difficulties because the tumor had apparently bled—it’s internal, hidden, silent except for her loud breathing. We learned that the bronchial infection we’d fought for two months was gone. What was left was what dying from a splenic tumor looks like.

She wasn’t in pain, was hungry and interested in life, and even the necessarily dispassionate vet was telling us she was a long way from dying. That was clear to see. I was grateful. I’d take what time we could both get, as long as it was time on her terms.

Good time. Time that was comfortable, that made her want to stay in her body. With me. With all of us.

As the bleeding ebbed and the fluid absorbed in the last few days, she began to breathe easier, and cheerfully greeted the babysitter who came to stay with her and Alki, her Cavalier brother, and Grace the Cat, so I could attend to business. A few hours away, that’s all, and only because staunch, experienced friends have generously come to help.

Friends who agree to come knowing that time might end on their watch. Brave people who’ve been there before with their own animals, and know what it’s like.

Time heals all wounds, they say. But not this one.

Today it was sunny and cold in Seattle, with a stiff wind that rarely leaves our beachside neighborhood. Then, just a few hours ago, the wind died down, I took Alki on a walk, and came home to sit on the deck with Murphy. We’d done that a few weeks ago, but she was too weak to sit up and peer out at the world. Instead, she curled in my lap and the warm sun soothed her old bones.

She was stronger today. Just like when she was a puppy, she stood with her hind legs on my leg and her front on the deck railing, watching people and dogs and cars go by.

That’s when I thought about how much time had gone by. Over 13 years.

She is deaf now, but she can see, and she’s generally alert and interested. She has her moments when time stands still, when she gazes off into the distance, when it’s very clear that time has taken its toll.

If that’s what time does.

It passes, and we wonder, where did it go? As we sat on the deck together in the cooling afternoon sun, I thought of all the things I could be doing: writing another article, cleaning house, updating my website, the things we do to live.

Ironic, that, because what we were doing together right then was living. On her terms. And mine.

What mattered? The time that was passing in those moments.

As I held Murphy tightly, giving her the security to lean into me for support so she could spy on the neighborhood, I closed my eyes to relish the feel of her warm body in my arms, the soft beating of her heart, the things that will be gone in a few short weeks.

Time ends bodies, true. Weeks from now this time will only be poignant memories.

As I held Murphy, I knew that I won’t regret the unwritten article, the dog hair bunnies all over the floor, an old date on my website.

I would only regret not holding her there on the deck on this sunny afternoon, for as long as she wanted to stare at the world.

So we sat there together as the afternoon cooled, until she was ready to come in.

Now I write the article, and all three of my multi-species family members snore beside me in my office, proof that the human-animal bond can be as ordinary as it is strange and wonderful.

Murphy breathes, the soft gentle snoring of old. This crisis has passed, for now. They say that the final one will come abruptly, some day. Some time. But this much I know.

Time is still with us.

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 10

February 24, 2012 by Robyn 1 Comment

my dying dog I say it and it doesn’t sink in: my dog is dying. Not just on that you’re born you go through crap (and good jokes) and you die bit, but the real life one none of us get to skip. In a few weeks, Murphy will be gone. She has a splenic tumor, and they think it’s cancer.

Which makes this Part 3 of a four part series on veterinarians, the human-animal bond, and how we got to where we are today.

In December 2011 we’d gone full circle, back to a vet we’d seen when Murphy was a puppy a dozen years ago. We’d left because one of the vets at the West Seattle Animal Hospital had known Murphy had a serious illness we needed to diagnose with ultrasound, which required a mobile radiologist who traveled to area clinics, so appointments were hard to get. The vet took the only available space for her own cat. And had the gall to tell me about it.

But recently I’d heard great things about the hospital’s owner and general director, Dr. Glenn Johnson. Like how good he is with old animals. How he’d helped neighbors through a lengthy final illness with their beloved old dog.

And that’s what Murphy is: old. Somehow she was 5, and then 13-1/2. I still wonder how that happened. Even now, as she rapidly declines, I am both thrilled that we had so long together, and appalled that it flew by so fast.

So, we left the practice in December 1999, because a crappy vet wouldn’t schedule an ultrasound, and we ended back there in December 2011, because they helped a neighbor’s old dog through her final days.

How We Found the Tumor

I wasn’t looking for an ultrasound on Dec. 26, 2011. Murphy had coughed a bit on Christmas Day, something most people probably wouldn’t have thought twice about. She’d shown no sign of illness, but that morning, as we crawled out of bed preparing to celebrate her Cavalier brother’s 10^th birthday, she coughed four times. Mild coughs. But I’m an intuitive, and I froze when I heard that cough as I felt something shift in me, something that felt like shock and loss. I turned to look at her in horror.

She coughed a few times that night and we called Monday morning to see Dr. Johnson.

I assumed it was her heart, that the mild heart disease she was diagnosed with in October had finally asserted itself. That’s what a cough can mean in the Cavalier world, in an old dog’s world.

But Dr. Johnson wasn’t convinced. He hadn’t seen her in years, and she didn’t have recent blood tests, so we ordered a round. The results showed an infection and a mild anemia. We put her on antibiotics.

Two days later Murphy was still occasionally coughing, and I wasn’t convinced we were on the right track. But I had work to do. My partner, Fallon, is a Citrine Lemurian Quartz—yes, he’s a crystal ball. We do intuitive consultations privately and at East West Bookshop in Seattle. I was scheduled to be in store that Wednesday afternoon. I hesitated. I didn’t have set appointments (sometimes people book, and you’re expected to be there, other times you’re there and they come in), but I thought about it and realized I had to go. Not just to keep my word, which is important enough, but because I suddenly knew that I would meet my most ‘significant’ client of the year between 12-2 that afternoon at East West. Not most important client, but the most significant. So I went.

At 1 p.m. I realized that I was the most significant client of the year. That Murphy had to have that x-ray that day. I called Dr. Johnson and insisted we do the x-ray that day. He worked us into the schedule.

I am a professional intuitive. I knew it was her heart.

The next morning Dr. Johnson phoned with the x-ray results. Apparently he’d seen it on the x-ray, but wanted the radiologist to confirm it. Murphy did have fluid in her lungs, which they couldn’t hear on exam. Everything else checked out fine: heart okay, kidneys, liver. But she also had an abdominal mass near her spleen, so they suspected she had cancer.

I am a professional intuitive. I knew it was her heart. How had I missed that?

Because I ‘knew’ what it was and didn’t look deeper. Because I assumed what it was and didn’t become my own client. I leaped for the obvious and I was wrong.

Stunned and grief stricken, I talked with Dr. Johnson, at once both horrified at what I was hearing and admiring a man who so calmly and compassionately told an unprepared owner that her beloved dog was dying. That took guts.

I picked up the radiologist report and felt my way through the holiday weekend (which included my 60^th birthday and a celebration with friends, talk about not what I was expecting for a landmark birthday). I then met with Dr. Johnson, looked at the x-ray, and decided the best course of action was to order an ultrasound to better decide on a course of action.

Ironic, yes. Back to the clinic where a vet had refused an ultrasound for Murphy.

Splenic Tumors, Ultrasound, and … What?

All I really understood was that a splenic tumor was fatal: either it was cancer or it wasn’t, but if left alone, it would most likely not make any difference: death was a certain outcome. Either cancer or the natural process of a tumor growing and eventually rupturing would kill her. Unless we operated and removed the tumor. If it was actually a splenic tumor, which the ultrasound would confirm.

Time was important in the decision making process. You don’t have time when you might have a splenic tumor, because they rupture. I asked how soon the ultrasound could happen, since I knew that ultrasound services are provided by mobile vets. Within a week, he said.

The deal breaker: as a professional intuitive and Murphy’s human partner, I needed to be included in the ultrasound process. I wanted to be there so I could see the tumor for myself and talk to the radiologist about how I would treat the tumor with directed energy. There was no point to it otherwise.

Dr. Johnson hesitated, said he wasn’t sure if they would agree. My terms, I said.

He called me that afternoon. The radiologist would be available in two days, if I could bring Murphy within a two-hour window. He’d agreed to me being present during the exam. Terms met. Deal.

In less than 48 hours Murphy and I were at the West Seattle Animal Hospital when Dr. Lee Yannik and his assistant rushed in. Dr. Johnson joined us as Dr. Yannik performed the ultrasound.

Despite her age, Murphy was in great shape. Some bladder irritation, which we knew. Liver and kidneys fine. And definitely a tumor on her spleen.

They couldn’t do a needle biopsy, which they sometimes do on tumors, because they were pretty sure it was cancer, and didn’t want cells to escape from the tumor and spread throughout her body. Agreed.

Dr. Yannik was upbeat. “I found a tumor like this in my sister’s 12-year-old dog in April,” he said. “We found it like this, looking for something else.” They removed the spleen and the dog was still doing fine in January.

“With surgery and chemo?” I asked.

Yep, that’s what it sounded like.

Dr. Yannik was clear. They can’t diagnose the type of tumor it was without removing the spleen. Sometimes they look benign even when they remove them, and then pathology proves otherwise. He was pretty sure it was cancer, based on how it presented (beware of the word ‘cavitated,’ not a good thing).

They got Murphy up off the table and she went trotting down the hall to explore things, Dr. Johnson in her wake, urging me to talk with Dr. Yannik. When they returned, Dr. Yannik put Murphy back up on the table to quickly check her heart to see if her early heart disease was an issue. No.

While he discussed it, I asked about the possibility that the tumor was a result of her underlying platelet disorder: idiopathic asymptomatic thrombocytopenia. Cavalier King Charles Spaniels can inherit this strange disorder, which results in cancer in other dogs and in humans, yet seemingly has no effect on the Cavaliers. I think differently. I think the disorder causes immune system dysfunction, and the reason Murphy had a healthy long life was because I worked really hard to give her one, and she did, too.

I asked, “If the spleen filters platelets, and Murphy was born with macroplatelets, so they’re not the right size, what if that confused the spleen and the tumor is actually the spleen compensating all her life, for over 13 years now? If so, then removing the tumor could actually kill her.”

Drs. Yannik and Johnson looked at each other, then at me. I’m not sure if they thought I was insane or if no one had ever considered this. By the dumbfounded looks and the ‘Ah-ha’ I saw on Yannik’s face, I realized that it was an intriguing theory but totally worthless, because they’d never know what the tumor was unless they removed it, and clearly if anybody else had thought what I was thinking, no one had ever investigated it and published their results.

I also emphasized that I was an intuitive, and I wanted to know how to direct energy at it. Either Dr. Yannik was prepared for me or he had a pretty good poker face or it wasn’t the first time he’d met an intuitive. Whatever, I asked about directing a beam of light at the tumor and burning it. No, he promptly said. Burning it wouldn’t work, and he had a good reason why, I just can’t remember now. But it made me glad I asked.

He advocated surgery.

Dr. Johnson spoke up, disagreeing. He didn’t think Murphy was well enough currently for surgery, and because she was older, he thought the decision was more complicated.

Interesting.

I had to admire Dr. Yannik’s zeal for his profession. I realized that he had seen her x-ray, strongly suspected cancer, and made a special trip to West Seattle that day to do Murphy’s ultrasound.

He was on a mission to save an old dog’s life. An old dog he’d never met. Because it wasn’t just his job. It was his passion.

And Dr. Johnson was advocating for his new patient. It wasn’t as clear cut to him.

I thanked Dr. Yannik and then discussed it with Dr. Johnson. Because of Murphy’s age, he said it had to be my call. If she were younger, yes, they would advocate the surgery, but any surgery on an old dog was complicated, and a very old dog with arthritis and an underlying platelet disorder and developing heart disease was a risk. Murphy could die during surgery, or suffer a protracted recovery.

And if it was cancer, she would die anyway, because that was just how it worked.

So what did I get out of the ultrasound?

Confidence that I had come back to a vet and a veterinary hospital that was interested in doing the best for my aging dog. A vet who had taken a lot of time to talk with me about her condition, arrange for an ultrasound, be present through the ultrasound, discuss it afterwards—and, in a money-oriented culture, not charge me for it.

Confidence in the people the vet referred business to: Lee Yannik is an excellent, thorough radiologist, well-respected, and clearly in tune with the human-animal bond. He essentially made saving an old dog an emergency, kind of the white knight in hospital scrubs. I imagine he’s disappointed I chose a different course of action. He shouldn’t be. He gave us room to make a clear choice.

And so did Dr. Johnson.

It was clear from our discussion that I needed more information. If we did the surgery it had to be done in a specialty clinic because Murphy would be in intensive care for a few days, and that assumed everything went well.

And I knew most splenic tumors presented themselves in a crisis, so families are caught off guard for life-ending prognoses. The best course seemed to be to take the information that Dr. Yannik offered us and find a veterinary surgeon who saw a lot of these tumors. What was their experience? What could they add to the mix?

Turns out Dr. Johnson could help with that, too.

In Part 4 of the vet series: the surgeon and the holistic vet.

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 9

February 17, 2012 by Robyn 2 Comments

my dying dog Yes, my beloved Murphy is dying.

I have to say, it’s weird.

I am no stranger to death. I lost my brother when I was only 9, and he was 14. The losses cascaded over the years: friends, family, animals.

Each death affects us differently. Of course, there’s the manner of death. Sudden unexpected death just happens to you. Obviously, the dead person doesn’t have a choice, but you always do—you have a choice of how to deal with it.

Shock, grief, anger, disbelief … these are the usual things. First things. The ones that are okay to talk about, because they are socially acceptable, respectable, respectful.

Don’t have to mention those things. You’ve most likely said them at one time or another.

It’s the things we don’t mention that define us and, perhaps, our true relationship with the deceased. Those things range from, “I never liked her that much anyway,” to “Thank goodness it isn’t me,” to “Driving drunk will kill you, what was he thinking?”

These are the things we just have to let go of. They mean we’re human. That we understand death happens and we’re glad we avoided it—for now. The things we’re expected to shut up about, because they don’t matter anyway and just make us look bad.

Yes, they’re normal and they may make us look bad, but they may also make us feel bad. Still, we have to let them go. Are they petty things? Mean? Sentimental? Acknowledge them and move on.

It’s when death is prolonged that the things we’re thinking add up. That’s when the crazies can occur.

I remember when my dad was dying. He had been miserable for two years, crippled by rheumatoid arthritis and severe heart disease. He wanted to die and yet ‘want’ wasn’t enough, because his soul just couldn’t let go of his body.

I cherished the time I had with him, even though I, too, wanted him out as quickly and painlessly as possible.

I came home from Scotland with a bottle of Scotch, something my dad taught me to appreciate. By then he was in a hospital bed at home. We opened the bottle and I poured a shot for both of us. Yes, he was on morphine. Yes, we knew what we were doing. We toasted each other and drank.

My mom walked into the room, saw the Scotch, and said, “Are you trying to kill him?”

Dad and I looked at each other, at her, and back at each other. We smiled. Mom stomped out. Yep, we were hoping. For us, it would have been perfect. Of course, it wasn’t that easy.

Those are the days I thought a lot about euthanasia. About helping out somebody who wanted to die. I didn’t, mostly because I didn’t know how to, and because I knew society would call me a murderer and put me in jail. But I thought about it. They danced around giving him enough morphine to dull the pain. They let him linger. And when it got bad enough that he was in hospice, and into his last days, then I could help him.

I honored his wishes and turned away services. It was hard, but it was what he wanted. A long-time pharmacist with a strong medical background (he would have been a doctor except he went off to serve in World War II and came home damaged), he knew exactly what he was doing when he signed the form that allowed him to die. I knew what I was doing when I honored it.

Do I miss him? Every day.

Did I do the right thing? Absolutely, because it was his choice.

It was the last loving thing I could do for him.

Now my beloved dog is dying, and I think strange thoughts.

How much food do I buy to cook for her? If I get another can of sardines will it make her laugh and gobble it up?

What business events do I cancel to be home with her? How long is this going to last?

If I hold her tight in my lap will she live?

How does she want to die? Is this really necessary, the whole death and dying thing? Why can’t we just skip that part?

Sure, she’s having breathing issues and sleeps a lot, but does that mean I should kill her?

Can spring come early so we can sit out on the deck together and just enjoy ourselves?

Can I get her to play with her ragged dinosaur toy?

Do Alki and Grace the Cat care? Does anybody care?

Should I be hysterical or just sad? Should I be happy she’s comfortable, even though I’m not so much?

Can I be there when she needs me?

As all these thoughts drift through my weary brain, I know that some of them make no sense, because death doesn’t make sense. Endings don’t make sense.

We live through it anyway. Weird whimsical sad thoughts pop in. We acknowledge them and let them go. They remind us that someone we love is facing their last choice, and that we care.

That sometimes we wish we didn’t care.

Well, no, not true. If I didn’t care I would never have loved this magnificent being in a dog body. The beautiful girl I’m losing.

Never would have happened.

There is one thing worse than death: the ‘never would have happened.’ At the end of it all I can say that I understand my true relationship with this wonderful dog.

We love each other.

That isn’t weird at all.

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 7

February 10, 2012 by Robyn Leave a Comment

my dying dog They avoid you, the people you know: friends, family, the medical professionals. They can’t help it. The “C” word is in the air.

They just plain look at you differently when there’s cancer in the family. Even if they only think there is. Because they know it means death.

I noticed it the first time when I stopped in at the animal hospital to pick up a report on Murphy’s x-ray. I had first taken her in because she was coughing, and several days later I demanded an x-ray. I thought she needed heart medication. It was bronchitis.

And a tumor on her spleen. Pretty much a death sentence.

So the first time I took her in, it was friendly, happy, open. Murphy is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and at the time didn’t really look her age, a grand almost 13-1/2. She wins fans just because she’s gorgeous, but her charming, curious personality wins more.

Then the vet called with the radiology report.

Later that day, I stopped in to pick up the report. I wanted to hold it in my hand and try to make sense out of getting my dog on antibiotics for an infection and ending up with a terminal diagnosis. For something I didn’t even know was there.

The receptionist looked up with a smile when I walked in. Then her face changed and she looked away.

She flinched.

When other people hear the news, same thing happens.

They flinch.

They don’t mean to. It just happens. Even when it’s their job to give you the really bad news—that someone you love is dying.

They flinch.

I know some cultures—and here I’m thinking of my Japanese friends—who refuse to acknowledge death with the dying person. Instead, the family steps in, handles all the care, including putting the person into a nursing facility, and they never tell the person what’s going on.

The dying people are just expected to know. I guess in their culture, silence means death. So they do know.

I think that’s completely wrong, and I’ll never stop saying it.

My Japanese friends say, “But we wouldn’t want to know.”

But you do know, because you’re clearly failing and no one is talking to you about it. So you can’t talk. You’re left to face the fear, and the end, with distant politeness.

My personal experience says that’s cruel.

I was 9 the day my parents told me that my brother “had gone to heaven.” It took a minute for it to register. I knew he was sick, I didn’t know he was dying. Granted, they didn’t have a lot of time with leukemia back then, but everyone else knew he was dying.

If I’d known, I would have had a chance to say goodbye.

He would have had a chance to say goodbye.

No, they never told him. But I remember the last time I saw him, and the look in his eye as he reached out to hold my hand.

They never told him, but he knew. I am still haunted by what I think he felt: fear, loneliness, grief, anger, confusion. Abandoned.

And now to Murphy. Granted, she’s a dog. However, I believe in the equality of all life, whatever it is. So in my multi-species family the human-animal bond means that my animals are family members.

They are not pets. They are living beings, amazing souls who have the freedom to choose their life’s path. Equals.

They have a right to know what’s happening: from where I’m going when I leave them at home to what’s happening to their bodies.

They have a right to choose their course.

Murphy has chosen hers, and, forced to make my own choice about her condition, I did. We are united. No surgery. Quality time.

We see the world through a different lens now. We see it with our eyes and hearts open, knowing Murphy’s time is limited. It’s heartbreaking and exhilarating: we know what’s coming, and we can share it. But it’s still death.

We’re pretty sure, at our house, that it’s old age that will get to Murphy faster than the tumor. In just the last month the bronchial issues have slowed her down, she’s tired, she’s sway-backed with the tell-tale old dog ribs. Time was at a standstill for a bit, like the ocean receding before the tsunami.

But the tsunami always comes ashore. Ours is almost here. We can see it.

To some cultures, dying is a silent process.

To ours, the patchwork American culture, dying is at least a bit more respectful. The dying usually know. They get to choose. Sometimes.

Murphy got to choose.

But Americans still flinch.

It’s time in our culture to stop flinching. To stop ignoring the inevitable. To embrace death as the place where you leave one life and go on to another.

We need to acknowledge it. Yes, it’s awkward. It’s painful. It’s an ugly reminder that we are all going to die.

It’s life.

Death is what happens. Community can make it something else: a time to celebrate a life, to say goodbye, to cherish the ones leaving and the ones left behind.

Community means you don’t flinch.

Where is ours?

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 6

January 30, 2012 by Robyn 9 Comments

my dying dog Sometimes we only know the true measure of a person when death stares us in the face. There, at the end of everything, is the simple, plain stark truth of it all.

Sometimes the truth is sad. It hurts.

Sometimes it exhilarates.

This is a story about veterinarians. Four of them. Told in four parts.

Starting with the simple fact that my beloved Murphy is dying. A Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, she’s 13-1/2, and had some serious health challenges early on, most caused not by her breeding but by poor veterinary care and some really bad luck. That doesn’t matter now.

What matters here is that in December 2011, only a month ago, we accidentally discovered that Murphy has a splenic tumor. I needed to figure out as much as I could about it, so Murphy and I could decide what to do. That’s what we’ve always done: find out what’s going on, what can be done about it, and choose our course.

Those of us who live in multi-species families know we have to make decisions for ourselves and for our animal family members. We know that the human-animal bond isn’t just cookies and games: it’s food, and socialization, and medical care. It’s choice. These days, choice is harder because we have so many options: the same complex and often questionable devices and procedures we use on humans can now be used on our animal companions.

It makes choice harder. Really. What is enough? What is too much? What can you live with? Should you?

The human-animal bond is how you define families and living together. It’s the choices you make that honor the commitment to family life.

All the choices.

I read. I think. I ask people’s opinions about things.

As an intuitive I can also ask other beings what their insight is.

I can ask my animal family members what they want. We can figure out what to do together. Food choices, play times, easy. Life and death, not so much.

It isn’t easy deciding what to do about a dog’s splenic tumor. The choices were clear: operate and remove the spleen and tumor or don’t operate. There is no certain way to determine if the tumor is cancer without taking it out, because of how insidious a cancer like hemangiosarcoma is. If that’s what it is.

They examined the tumor with ultrasound, making the diagnosis as clear as possible: Murphy probably has cancer. Meaning that she isn’t going to survive long, as surgery and chemotherapy would only buy her a few months. If it’s not cancer, the tumor is still going to grow and rupture at some point, and she’ll die anyway.

Without surgery, we don’t know what it is, only that it will most likely kill her.

We discovered the tumor because Murphy had a slight cough, and I thought that with a recent diagnosis of minor heart issues, she probably needed heart medication. Blood tests were funky, and they put her on antibiotics for an infection, probably a UTI, possibly a bronchial infection. But I insisted on a chest x-ray: which confirmed a bronchial infection, and spotted an abdominal mass.

So, naturally, I called our long-term vet, a wonderful person who has dearly loved sweet Murphy and cared for her for 11 years. A vet it takes us all day to see, since it involves a long drive and two ferry rides across Puget Sound in Seattle. All worth it to see someone who figured out Murphy’s eye issues 11 years ago and helped give her a wonderful quality of life. Someone of integrity and concern. Who was strongly attached to Murphy. A friend who wanted to do the right thing. We valued her.

I called her just so she’d hear it from me. That Murphy had a splenic tumor. Before I ordered the ultrasound or did anything else. Before I really knew what it meant or how Murphy and I wanted to deal with it. Just to tell her.

She expressed condolences and then insisted that I tell the vets that I wanted Murphy as long as possible and that they absolutely had to operate and take out the tumor.

I said I wasn’t sure yet what we were going to do.

She was quite insistent, and then the phone connection went dead.

I thought she’d hit the proverbial tunnel on her cell phone. But she didn’t call me back. And hasn’t for the last month.

So there’s the clear message. One answer to a perplexing problem: there’s an awful lot we can do these days, for humans and animals. But what is the right thing to do, and who’s the one who decides?

The right thing as a vet is to evaluate the options with you. To give you the best information possible. To answer questions. To honor the human-animal bond, which is a family matter. Paternalism is rampant in veterinary care, even among female vets.

Our long-term vet didn’t evaluate the options. Thinking back on it, I realize that somewhere along the line I somehow gave her the idea that she could decide for us what we should do in our family. She clearly stated it in the end: surgery to give me as much time with Murphy as I could get.

But is that really the right answer? What about Murphy’s quality of life? What about her choice? What do we put animals through because of our feelings, disregarding theirs?

Yep, if it’s cancer, surgery and chemo buy Murphy a few more months. But at what price?

Financial difficulties for a family on pinched means, as most of us are today (the recession is the great equalizer, isn’t it?): could we afford it?

Physical impairment, as caring for an old animal recovering from surgery, dealing with stairs, my own disability and health issues, the pain and exhaustion for my dog: is it worth it?

Emotional devastation, from the shock of hearing that your beloved dog may have cancer and won’t recover anyway, or may just have a benign tumor that will kill her if it ruptures, if she survives the surgery itself: how do you manage that?

That day in December I was in shock, grieving, appalled. I had only just learned of the tumor. I hadn’t investigated it yet, found out what our options were. All I was doing was calling our friend, to courteously tell her what was going on. We hadn’t made any decisions. I wasn’t sure what the best answer was.

My frank admission got me what?

Abruptly cut off.

As the days passed, I realized how much I appreciated that hang up. A long-term relationship built between our mutual love of my beloved dog was suddenly at an end. Perhaps we had outgrown each other, the vet and I. Or perhaps I had finally realized that what I thought was my family’s choice all along was being dictated by someone else. Or perhaps something else. Not sure.

No longer matters.

What I am sure of is that the old medical model, in fact, life model, of how we live in community has to change. The old paternalistic structure has to end. We have to respect individual choice, and family choice.

Now at the end of my beloved Murphy’s life, I absolutely insist on it. I am sad that I had to learn the truth of our relationship with our long-time vet at a time when my family needed love and support. I am exhilarated in that I was strong and brave enough to do the right thing, to give Murphy her choice, to honor her life as an equal being in a heart-bonded family.

I am grateful that my family has found its way to its choice. In the next three postings, the vets we have turned to, and how we found our answers.

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 5

January 27, 2012 by Robyn 1 Comment

Murphy is dying. My beloved Cavalier King Charles Spaniel has a tumor on her spleen.

Murphy is 13-1/2. Because of early problems, I’ve been cooking for her for 11 years. Turkey, veggies, fruit. Supplements. A strong healthy diet for a vigorous dog.

Yes, I’ve been cooking for my dog. It works for us, but it’s time-consuming.

I have to think ahead, to make sure she has food, and because I’m handicapped, and working, I have to buy and cook enough to freeze it in portions in case something comes up and I can’t cook.

Dying came up and now I’m stumped.

We discovered the tumor by accident. Pure really dumb luck, if something that horrible can remotely be termed ‘luck.’ But here’s the thing.

In being practical and planning ahead for meals, how far do I plan ahead for a dying dog?

Usually, I stock up on turkey once a month, buying eight pounds or so to feed Murphy and Grace the Cat (poor Alki has to eat something else). But yesterday I was standing in front of the meat counter, wondering just how much I should buy at $5.50/lb for Diestel ground turkey. I caught myself literally thinking: “How much do I gamble here?”

True, Grace the Cat and I can always eat the meat. The problem is in mixing all the ingredients, including bone meal and spirulina, to make the particular meals I feed Murphy. The meals that got Murphy healthy years ago, and kept her healthy until, well, now.

But how many more meals should I make for Murphy? A month’s worth? That would take more than eight pounds. And the freezer is pretty full.

Should I go for realism, meaning I have no clue how long she’ll live? Should I just give in to despair and buy a few pounds? Or, when 10 days go by and I have to cook another batch for her, will I smile, because I won one—I beat death a bit longer?

I don’t know what made me decide.

But I bought three.

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 4

January 24, 2012 by Robyn 4 Comments

Murphy is dying. Yes, she’s 13-1/2, old for any dog, but somehow her age snuck up on me. After her early difficulties, I thought getting her to 5 was a miracle, but she’s been vigorous for years.

She’s actually pretty vigorous now. Suddenly deaf, yes. Sleeps a lot. Loves to eat and explore. Slower with arthritis. A bit rheumy-eyed.

Dying.

Yes, that part. The accidental discovery of a splenic tumor. The almost certain prognosis of cancer. Which means surgery and she’ll die anyway, even if she has chemo. And even if it’s not surgery, she’ll die because the tumor will eventually rupture. Either way, she’s going to die.

Of a splenic tumor.

What causes these things? Hard to say, of course. Or is it?

Cancer is, well, I know what cancer is. I’m an intuitive, I have actually talked with cancer. Ultimately it’s symbiotic. Ultimately, cancer wants to pair with organisms, like humans and animals, and something different will come of it, but the DNA is too different right now. So cancer kills its ‘host,’ and then itself when the host dies. More on this later, honest.

But cancer is also epidemic right now.

Of all the things I thought would get Murphy, a splenic tumor never occurred to me. I wonder if her inherited platelet disorder and the tumor are related. If the spleen, which filters platelets, and Murphy’s body collaborated over the years to keep her healthy and vigorous, and the collaboration created this tumor. Which means removing it could kill her. Removing the spleen, with all the blood vessels, on an old dog with developing heart issues, including arrythmia, and a platelet disorder, well, no.

She deserves better. To be vigorous and healthy to the end. Quality over quantity.

How could I make that choice for her? Choose to refuse surgery?

Because I’d make the same choice for myself.

There are truly horrible things that come from this, as I’ll explore in later posts. But one of the most horrible is that I may have killed my dog by doing what I thought was the right thing. The thing we’re all told, that’s pushed by vets, by the shelter community, by breeders.

We don’t question it. We’re told that we should spay and neuter our animal family members early.

I always wondered about this. Sure, it’s convenient, especially for female dogs, since dealing with a dog in heat is complicated and annoying. And there’s the talk about male dogs being less aggressive. But don’t we interrupt their bodies’ natural growth process? Don’t we mess up their hormones, and all those chemical reactions that nature builds into them to keep them healthy?

We don’t spay or neuter our teenage children, so why are we doing it to our pets? Because we’re encouraged to be stupid and lazy.

Here’s why we absolutely need to re-think the spay/neuter issue.

Look at this article: The Long Term Health Risks and Benefits Associated with Spay/Neuter in Dogs, published in 2007 by Laura J Sanborn MS. I ran across it in spring 2011 while interviewing a respected breeder of golden retrievers in California. That’s the first time I heard that it is well documented that early spay/neuter can lead to all kinds of serious, debilitating, life-ending medical problems.

Like the cancer they say Murphy has.

Which would mean that all the years I cared for this beautiful dog didn’t matter, because I killed her when I spayed her as a puppy. Like we’re encouraged to do to be responsible owners.

Responsible family members.

And my other kids? Also mutilated as babies.

So I have three good reasons to go to war: Murphy, Alki, Grace the Cat. And when Murphy is gone, I’m going to war:

war against the shelter and rescue community, which refuses to acknowledge this issue because their agenda is to be the new puppy mill: socially accepted and sanctioned by the state and ignorant but earnest animal lovers
war against the veterinary community, for its silence on this issue
war against the people who adopt animals, know the facts, and go along with it, because it’s easier
war for the people who don’t know and so can’t make the right choice, whatever that is for their family: because somebody has to tell them

Do you live with animals? Did you spay/neuter early? Did you know this?

You know it now.

What will you do next time?

Join me. Let’s go to war. For life.

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 3

January 23, 2012 by Robyn 2 Comments

Murphy is dying. Can’t stop it, might be able to slow it down a bit, as long as she’s comfortable. Not sure.

All I’m really sure about is that she’s dying.

And that many people, including well-meaning friends, are idiots.

I’m sure most idiots don’t mean to be, well, idiots. But here’s a painful situation where all you can do is laugh at them, because what you really want to do is scream and cry and yell.

People say, “She doesn’t look like she’s dying.”

Well, what the hell does dying look like? Ask them that, nobody seems to know. They shrug, embarrassed, because truth is, in our ridiculous self-centered, youth-blinded culture, we have no idea what dying looks like. Because we don’t have to look at it. So we don’t.

Instead, we assume that death is old, debilitated, too feeble to walk, too sick to care, crippled and pathetic. Kept alive by a blind faith in technology and a refusal to let go until there’s very little left to let go of.

Death is something we lock away in nursing homes, or ignore until we can’t anymore.

People say, “She looks good. Are you sure she’s dying?”

Idiots. Yes, I’m completely sure. Don’t like it, but I’m sure.

And you know what? I’m glad she looks good. I’m glad she feels good. I’m glad the idiots are saying things like, “She doesn’t look like she’s dying.”

Because I realized that my life with my animals and theirs with me has defined a new way of living together as multi-species families. It’s defined a new way of looking at the human-animal bond.

It looks at animals as equals. At lives as valuable. At choice as real.

At death as part of the process, part of our lives together.

Ironically, it’s only at the end of a beloved animal’s life that I realize we are defining something more for multi-species families: we are defining what death looks like.

Death looks like Murphy. Vigorous. Happy. Tired.

Dying.

We don’t like it. But we’re living with it. Until it’s here upon us. And then we’ll say goodbye.

Not one second sooner.

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 2

January 17, 2012 by Robyn Leave a Comment

my dying dog So dogs with splenic tumors can abruptly die, or abruptly go into just about dying. Meaning in Murphy’s case, the tumor could rupture and she’ll bleed out.

The words ‘bleed out’ and ‘my beloved dog’ just don’t make sense together. They really should never make sense together. Apparently that doesn’t matter.

Besides that, what the hell does ‘bleed out’ look like?

So I’m out there, walking Murphy and Alki, getting ready to pick up their poop. This is a fact of life, picking up dog poop, all part of that mystical, smelly real life human-animal bond, not the reason why mine is a multi-species family, but part of it. At least I’m not paying for college.

No, I am not a poop voyeur, I’m just someone who really does clean up after her dogs. And, well, poop comes in all forms, depending on how the dogs have digested whatever it is they’ve chosen to eat.

I cook for Murphy and she disdains things on the street, so I know what she’s going to eat, unlike her brother, Alki, who eats whatever he can as quickly as he can because he knows damn well he shouldn’t.

Murphy eats what I give her to eat.

So I was surprised to see big red globs come out in her poop.

My heart stopped. What, is she bleeding out? There were no signs! What the hell does bleeding out mean, anyway, and why should I have to know this? This can’t be happening.

Besides, that’s really round globs of … cranberries.

I’d put whole cranberries in her food, and Murphy had just pooped them out intact. One by one.

Anybody who saw us at that moment would think I was crazy. Laughing. And crying. At once.

« Previous Page