May 14, 2017

I would love to tell you that I was a beacon of strength and hope at this precise moment in time.  The reality is that this was me at my worst.  This was my darkest moment on this journey so far.

I decided to lay in bed all day on Mother’s Day and binge watch the new Anne of Green Gables series on Netflix/Hulu.  Not kidding.  Marley laid with me, of course.  I kept looking at her and crying.  Her tail would start quickly wagging and she would flatten her ears against her head.  She gave me the eyes of “Momma, don’t cry.  It’s OK.  We’re OK.  This is OK.”  She didn’t know that this was NOT OK.  This is not even CLOSE to being OK.  This is bullshit.  This was not fair.  This was not at all what I envisioned for her.  I tried to sleep.  I tried to not think about it.  I tried to just turn off my brain.  It didn’t work.

She has cancer.  Yay, us.  Yay, her.

Fuck this.  Fuck that.  Fuck the world.  Fuck everything.  Everything sucks.  Why didn’t I fight harder or find another vet who would have amputated her leg instead of FHO?  This is all my fault.  She has cancer left inside her and now she is going to die.  Like now.  More internal struggles and whining and crying ensued.  I questioned everything.  I questioned my abilities and my strength.  I questioned if I was over-doing it…under-doing it.  I questioned if this is what insanity felt like.  Everything whirled around like a tornado in my brain.  Everything just hurts.

My son brought my Mother’s Day present into the bedroom.  Gosh, how pathetic that made me feel.  Not only was my dog dieing of cancer but now I am a shitty Mother who can’t even get out of bed on Mother’s Day to go be with her family.  It was a beautiful heart-shaped ruby necklace, package of double-stuff Oreos and a bag of Haribo gummy bears.  I am only completely embarrassed to admit that after accepting the gift from my son, giving him as much of a heartfelt hug and kiss as I could muster and he ran out of the room to go back outside, I tore into those Oreos and polished off the gummy bears in no time flat.  Stress eating.  Yeah, it always makes you feel worse.

About 9PM that night, I had enough with myself.   I decided to go into work.  I downloaded Dr. Dressler’s Dog Cancer Survival Guide.  I had been feeding Marley a completely ketogenic diet since April and had her on a few supplements.  I printed out the book and put it into four different binders and began to study it.  I evaluated the supplements that I had versus what Dressler recommended.  I purchased more supplements.  I purchased more supplies.  I read more studies and forums (this is where I first found Tri-pawds forums.)  I sent out the emails to a Holistic Vet for consult.  I also sent out an email to Laps of Love in-home Vet in our area to setup a consult for hospice care/pain management but most importantly for her to meet Marley so that she wasn’t a stranger the day we would be making our final loving decision for her. And I went to the store to make Marley a new batch of food.

I was done feeling sorry about this diagnosis.  Either we are kicking cancer’s ass or we are going down swinging.  But regardless, Marley is going to have every fighting chance.

The next week was filled with consults with various vets including Dr. Matt at Integrative Veterinary Services in Howell, Michigan whom I highly recommend.  We went through the regimen Marley was on and he recommended the addition and deletion of a few things.  We discussed her diet and how she was tolerating the supplements.  We had a week post-op check at MSU that week that went good.  No chest mets on her rads.  Her bloodwork was continuing to improve.  Her pneumonia was still there but smaller so we extended the antibiotic a bit further.  We met with Dr. C of Laps of Love and spent a couple hours with her getting to know us.  And I had my cranial sacral/healing touch friend over who taught me how to do basic healing touch therapies on Marley.  All of the pieces were starting to fall into place.

More importantly, Marley started using her leg again!  She was actually weight bearing on it.  Wow, were we all surprised.

I see you smiling!

We decided to take Marley on vacation with us over Memorial Day to go visit my family in Virginia.  This was a trip that we originally were not going on because of Marley, her prognosis and her recovery.  My brother told me to bring her along.

We decided a trip would probably be good for all of us.

May 9, 2017, and we were finally bringing our girl home after her surgery and recovery from Pancreatitis and Pneumonia 8 days post FHO op.  Boy was everyone relieved to have her home!  She was too!  It was a joyous 24 hours.

Home from MSU

It had been a stressful week to say the least but the stress was continuing to build as I was waiting for her biopsy results to come back.  Originally it was supposed to take only a week.  But here she was coming home 8 days later and we still didn’t have the results.  I know Dr. W’s office was tired of me calling morning and night like clockwork for those results.  I was sure that it was osteosarcoma.  After spending days and nights reading about the presentation, medical studies, treatment options, I knew it had to be what she had.  It was the only logical thing to make my stoic gal be in the amount of pain she was in.

It was Saturday, May 13th, when Russ and I were sitting on our back deck playing outside with the two- and four-legged kiddos, drinking coffee and enjoying an otherwise relaxing Saturday morning before Mother’s Day.   I made my morning phone call to Dr. W’s office asking if they had biopsy results.  The receptionist responded, “Oh, yes, we have them right here.  Dr. W will call you on Monday with the results when he is back in the office.”  Nuh-uh…that’s not how this is going to go at the moment, my dear. I calmly said, “Ok, that’s great, please have Dr. W call me when he has a moment.  Can you please fax them over to Marley’s doctor at Michigan State?  Here is the fax number.” (Which of course is my fax into my email because I was not waiting two more days for Dr. W to call me.  I can read a pathology report just fine thank you.)  I hung up the phone and sat on pins and needles…bouncing around like a little girl until I had to stand up and start pacing.  Russ kept eyeing me as he was watching the girls and her boy play.  He whispered to me “Relax.  You can’t change the results.  Just breathe.”

My email dinged that I had a new message.  I took a deep breath before I opened it.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

That’s not what I wanted to read.  I had known all along but I still had hoped that somehow I was wrong.

Osteosarcoma and cancerous cells were present at the margins.  Happy Mother’s Day to me.

Damn skippy, Marley’s Boy…damn skippy.

My husband, Russ, and I drove Marley straight to MSU Veterinary Center in East Lansing.  He had joined me at that point with it encroaching on midnight. And he agreed. We couldn’t let her go out like this.  She was our tough girl.  It was a stressful car ride.  She didn’t want to move.  She didn’t want to pick up her head.  Car rides are one of her most favorite things in the world and there was nothing in her body that elicited any kind of enjoyment.

We pulled up to MSU Veterinary Center about 2AM and they came running out with a stretcher.  The Vet and his tech picked Marley up and put her on the stretcher and whisked her away into another door while we went to check-in.  After 30 minutes or so, the doctor came in to discuss Marley.

They had stabilized her and put in a new IV with fluids.  He was going to get her some good pain meds and she would be evaluated first thing in the morning once the full staff was in.  He said “You are in the right place.  We have every kind of specialty represented here.  This is where Marley needs to be.”  And within 15 minutes, we walked out of MSU without even getting to say Goodbye to our girl.  I got it.  The key was getting her stabilized.  She was where she needed to be now.

Within 12 hours, we had a diagnosis: Pancreatitis and Pneumonia.

I was both relieved and, again, pissed off that this diagnosis was missed at the previous clinic that had her hospitalized.  But I did my best not to focus on that.  Marley was in the right place NOW and that was what mattered.  A feeding tube was placed the same day.  Her bloodwork continued to be monitored.  She was started on a new slew of medications.  And she slowly gained strength for the next three days.  MSU was about an hour and a half drive from us so I could only see her once a day.  But I braved the afternoon traffic every day (minus an onslaught of expletives every dang drive) to go see her.  The 3-4 hour round trip drive was worth the 15-20 minutes of time to lay with her and see her face and scratch those ears.

Marley -n- Me Hanging at MSU

On the fourth day, the Vet called for her afternoon check-in and said the last step was getting Marley to eat again.  Her bloodwork was continuing to improve but her eating was the last step to be able to release her.  I decided to take Marley’s boy with me to see if she would conjure up some strength to eat for him.  They have a special bond and love for one another.  As a Mother to both the two-legged and the four (three!)-legged variety, my greatest happiness is the true love and respect that my human son has for my furry children.  If anyone could entice her to eat, it was him.  I wasn’t really expecting her to start eating.  She had refused for the staff since she had been hospitalized.  I had started doing the research of what it was like to have a dog with a permanent feeding tube, thinking this was the next logical step.  Marley had now been EIGHT DAYS without food.  Her current feeding tube had only been providing Clinicare, a liquid nutritional supplement.

We pulled up to MSU and I was actually the most nervous sitting in the waiting room.  This would determine some next big steps…

And then much to my surprise this happened:

Marley Eating for Her Boy

And this:

Marley Eating for Her Boy

And this:

Marley -n- Her Boy Love

And, of course, this:

Marley -n- Her Boy Love

Our girl was back.

May 1, 2017 Marley had FHO surgery with Dr. W.

We picked her up same day and boy did she struggle.  She laid on her dog bed crying, drooling, wouldn’t eat, would only minimally drink and overall was very uncomfortable.  I knew I had made a mistake bringing her home after such an invasive surgery.  So I spoke to the Emergency Clinic and had her hospitalized overnight to keep her on fluids and more comfortable.  The next morning I was told she could come home.  I was a bit leary that she had perked up overnight so well.  I asked that she stay hospitalized and the afternoon Vet whom I knew and he also knew Marley take a look at her to release her later.  That evening, I received a call from the tech that she was ready to go home!  Still leary, I asked if Marley had eaten and she said that Marley had eaten like a horse.  I was pleasantly surprised and headed out to go pick Marley up.

At pickup Marley was happy to see us but still very out of it.  I stopped at the first McDonald’s to grab her some chicken nuggets and a burger to see if she would eat…things she would never normally refuse.  I offered a small bite of each to her and she turned her head and laid it down in the dog bed.  I knew she was not right still.

That night we had experienced more of the same…whining, drooling, wouldn’t eat and she refused to take any water.  I called back up to the Emergency Clinic at 2AM, honestly, pissed off.  I asked what Marley had eaten, at what times, how much and who had monitored her.  The woman came back on the phone after pulling her file and stammered that she didn’t quite know the details but that she ate probably 1/3 – 1/2 can of wet food twice.  I told the tech that I didn’t believe her and to have the Internist call me in the morning.  I sat up the rest of the night sitting next to Marley petting her, dozing on and off with my head on the couch…trying to comfort my gal.

Now concerned that it was May 3rd and my dog had not eaten for almost four days (had to fast the night before surgery), I left the next morning as soon as Petco opened and bought Castor and Pollux canned food, milk replacement and some syringes.  I came home and made her a canned food milkshake.  Marley refused to eat so I slowly syringe fed about 2CC’s of wet gruel into her mouth.  10 minutes later she vomited and then she urinated herself in her bed.  This was NOT my dog.  She needed hospitalization now.

Back up to the Emergency Clinic we went.

Taking Marley Back to the Emergency Vet with Her Boy May 3, 2017

That night she wasn’t much better.

The next morning, I visited her and she was even more despondent and would barely walk.  I spoke to the Specialist Internist who was convinced she had an infection at the FHO surgical leg.  She said she would speak to Dr. W. to see what he wanted to do.  Marley’s WBC had doubled and then doubled again from last night to this morning.  I asked if we should be doing X-rays, Ultrasounds, Urinalysis, etc to see if there were any other causes and the Internist said no.  I left with a tearful Goodbye to my gal and went back to work.

That evening, I went back to see Marley with her Aunt Kelly.  So let me tell you about Aunt Kelly for a moment.  Kelly has been my best friend since I was 15 years old.  She walked into my HIgh School one day and all the girls hated her because she was confident, outgoing, said what was on her mind and beautiful.  I knew she would be my best friend from the moment I met her.  And now, 22 years later, she is still my best friend.  She has celebrated me at my best and she has picked me back up (or kicked me in my behind) at my worst.  It is our little joke that my husband is also Kelly’s husband, as she is still single and looking for that right partner in life.  And Marley is, of course, our baby.  This dog is not just mine…Marley is just as much Kelly’s.  OK, back to the story.  🙂

I had gotten off of work late and couldn’t get up there til 11PM.  The internist never called me before she left.  The tech came out front and said “Marley won’t walk anymore.  Want to come back to the treatment area to see her?”  Umm, duh.  Yeah of course we do.

What I walked back to, I wasn’t prepared for.

Aunt Kelly Giving Marley Good Wishes May 4, 2017

Marley couldn’t stand up.  Her face had sunken in.  She wouldn’t hold her head up.  I was watching my dog die in front of my eyes.  And nobody seemed to be terribly concerned about it.

I walked up to the front counter and told them to prepare discharge paperwork and get a traveling IV ready because we were leaving.

And out the door I carried my baby, my world, my pitbull.

It was the beginning of another a busy year.  I work as the Finance Manager for my husband’s company as well as run a dog rescue and a financial advising company.  My husband’s company was actively growing and was demanding of his time.  Our son was two going on 16.  Our two dogs, Marley and Rosie, were aging but doing well.  Clover, our sweet old man cat, was just our usual fat-man happy Clover.

In the beginning of April, we went in to see our normal vet with Marley.  Marley was diagnosed with Addison’s Disease (auto-immune disease) in 2009 that requires monthly steroid injections and every other day prednisone.  This vet visit, I talked to her Vet Dr. J about some off and on lameness in her hind area.  After X-rays to check for arthritis, she came in to say that she had very mild changes to the hip bone so she sent us with some Tramadol and an order to keep an eye on what we thought were arthritic changes.

Two weeks later, Marley had all but stopped using her left leg.  The Tramadol wasn’t enough and she would not bear any weight on it, just toe-touch.  I took her in to the emergency room Easter Sunday because something was very wrong and I couldn’t handle watching her in pain anymore.  The Vet examined her and determined that she was expressing a severe amount of pain so we did bloodwork and X-rays.  20 minutes later he comes in and says “Well, I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that Marley’s bloodwork is perfect and every level is within range and I see only very minor changes in her hip bone.  The bad news is that I have no idea why Marley is in so much pain.”

Hmm.

Luckily, I had my best friend with me, Kelly, who is also an orthopedic surgical technician (for humans) and we were able to review the X-rays and she noted some odd discoloration with the ascetabulum.  The Vet we saw basically dismissed what she saw and we paid the bill and left.  I walked out of the emergency hospital and called MSU Veterinary Hospital.  They are renowned here in the midwest as being one of the best Veterinary Schools and Clinics..albeit I knew my wallet was not going to like it.

Three days later, we were at MSU receiving a full orthopedic exam and radiographs.  The orthoepdic vet, slightly stumped, said he too was surprised at her pain response with so little change in the X-rays.  We both noted muscle wasting in her left hind leg.  He examined the ascetabulum area and said he saw minor arthritic or bone degenerative changes but again, nothing to warrant the pain she was showing.  But the X-rays really did not so anything extraordinary.  I left with more pain meds, Gabapentin now, and three weeks of rest and low activity to see if Marley would start feeling better.  Better did not come.  She became worse…despondent…slowed in eating…got dandruff…would shake/hide/whine in pain.  I was almost at my wit’s end.  Why couldn’t I figure out what was hapening to my dog?!

Two days later, the Vet from MSU called to say that the radiology report came back and they noted either bone degenerative disease or a tumor.  He went on to say that would explain the pain and if it was a tumor then it was likely osteosarcoma.  Everything else drowned out once I heard that word.  I knew it was osteosarcoma after he said the word.  I had already spent the past two days researching everything that could possibly be afflicting Marley and this had come up over and over and over again.  My eyes welled up with fear.  What did this mean?  Was this her death sentence?  How much pain was she in?  Was it worse than I thought?  Oh dear God, I cannot lose her yet.  We talked about treatment, why he didn’t recommend a biopsy and instead wanted to do FHO surgery. I did my best to hold myself together on the phone.  I did not know how I would afford the surgery he was quoting.  I did not understand how this went downhill so fast.  Why Marley?  Why us?  This dog is only 11…she can’t be dieing already!  FHO surgery was scheduled in three weeks at MSU.

I called my primary vet to talk through with them MSU’s findings.  I was able to consult with Dr. W, who owns the multiple clinics of our primary vet.  He also specializes in orthopedic surgeries and is well known in the metro Detroit area.  I took Marley in to see him a week later and he saw the pain that she was in.  He recommended FHO surgery as well.  I looked at him and said “Dr. W.  I would feel a lot better about this if we just amputated her leg.  Whether this is cancer or bone degenerative disease causing the pain, the amputation will fix this.”  He took Marley back to do chest X-rays and to take a new X-ray of her left hip.  He brought her back in and said that he couldn’t amputate.  He could not cut off my dog’s leg without knowing it was cancer ethically.  I acquiesced.  I understood where he was coming from.  And I have been working with him for years with dogs that have come through my rescue needing orthopedic interventions.  I trusted him to know what was best even though every fiber of my body said I should have an amputation done.

The next day, May 1st, Marley went in for surgery with Dr. W.

One Week Prior to FHO Surgery