Time Travel

It's 4:42am and like most nights, I'm wide awake, waiting for morning and thinking of things. One thing is that we got at new coffee maker. I've been watching the clock since 3:43.  The coffee maker makes its debut at 6am. We've been drinking instant for about a month now and it's getting old. Another thing is my dog and best friend Princess - the star of this blog. Also, how much I love and appreciate my wife, friends and family. They are the reason in a big part for my happiness. Wife K takes all of these awesome photos and provides endless loving support. I'd especially like to mention my oldest daughter Lins. I am so proud of her. She's accomplished so much and her kind loving heart is the reason we have Princess. Lins has placed a lot of other dogs in great homes - including her own. She's the reason this blog exists. She's also a great writer! I'm a fan. Follow her blog at:

http://dogsbooksandtheworld.blogspot.com/

Anyway, I'm definitely up so let's make the most of the precious time.  

Princess is the real reason I'm up. She starts each night sleeping on her bed. But much later, I'll wake to find her staring inches from my face. That's her way of politely waking me. Pre-cancer spoiling, it was always reserved for going outside. Now it's for permission to get up on the bed. She still remembers some of her manners.  Two of her other techniques for waking us are the single hand lick or paw on the bed.  They're extremely subtle when you think of  the tools she has in her arsenal. She's got the ominous growl tool, incredibly loud bark tool, or if all else fails, mouth full of teeth tool.  Thankfully all are reserved for rare occasions.

Most times and with most things subtle is better. Princess broke out the ominous growl tool when KK came in late a night ago. She loves KK but could not tell at first if the late night traffic was friend or foe. I slept though that entire incident. Wife K did not. I'm thinking that dogs are telepathic. Fifty two minutes to coffee maker blast off.

If I were to begin our story today,  I'd start with; " A long time ago, in a place far away....." That's the way it feels. So a long time ago in a place far away, we got a terrible diagnosis. If time travel were possible back on October 17th, I'd have been tempted to jump the gap to December 18th - exactly 60 days forward.  That was the amount of time it took Navy to be completely free of cancer. Why live through it? Just get past the 60 days like it never existed and resume as before.  Impossible?  Not at all.  Time travel is very possible and practiced by millions each day. Focusing in a negative place and shutting out the rest is a sort of time travel. It's also a necessary human survival tactic. Hard to appreciate the smell of roses when you are running from a tiger!  On October 17th we faced our tiger and time travel presented itself as a tempting and comforting possibility -to be used sparingly. We did some, but recovered to pass most of these 63 days the old fashioned way - by living and appreciating every minute. That's the key, jump the gap if you must - then recover.  This blog helped and happily, there's been great living along the way; fall concerts, birthdays, breakfasts at the Coffee Cup, Halloween, and now preparing for the great holiday season with family and friends. Wouldn't have wanted to miss any of that. This one big negative back on October 17th tempted me to skip the rest. What a mistake that would have been. Stay in full appreciation of family, friends and great moments. Keep your chin up and as they say, it'll all work out.

Princess is doing very well this last week. Her leg is still lame but she's using it occasionally.  Outwardly she seems healthy and now weights 86 lbs. That's up 11 lbs from October 17th. Yesterday, she made a good attempt to woosh at the bus stop, played with her ball and shredded a cereal box to bits in the living room. She's happy and animated. She gets up to greet everyone and wags her tail a lot.  We added Fosamax to her protocol two weeks ago and she's shown improvement. Since Princess has bone cancer, Fosamax, which builds bone mass and has been shown to be toxic to cancer cells, is a logical ingredient. Wish I had thought of that earlier. In fact, I didn't think of it at all - Gene did. Thanks again Gene.  Anyway, now you all know about Fosamax. Princess will have a  follow-up visit with Dr. Chris for next week. Pending the outcome, we plan to ask him about adjusting the Fosamax dose from ten to 20 mg daily. Big headed bed sleeper just walked into the room. Four minutes to go till blast off. Have a great  day, a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Our Family to Yours

No News is Good News

No news is seldom good news when it comes to cancer and it's been a while since I have written. Sorry if you've assumed the worst. There's no bad news.  Princess is still here with us, in good spirits and doing relatively well.  We're continuing her treatments twice each day and have added 10mg of Fosamax once daily. She has no apparent negative side effects and still goes outside each day on her own and can climb the stairs to the house. She still gets up to greet us, eats like horse and sleeps every night on the bed - we've created a monster in that regard. OOPS! Her leg is lame and there are no long walks anymore.
 
I've been reading stories of your dogs in similar circumstances. Like ours, they begin with a family's  account of horrible news and then a hopeful treatment plan. My heart goes out to all of you but in almost all cases, there's no end written. What happened? Even the story of Navy, the Golden Retriever cured by the very treatment we are using has no follow-up past nine months.

I've committed to documenting our journey to its eventual outcome. It's at times, heartbreaking and exhausting. But thousands of you have viewed our pages and know our story.  Hopefully our sharing has helped some of you. What have you tried? Are there any families with recovering or cured dogs out there? If so, what has worked?  I'm not sure how much time the rest of us have with our Princesses. If you've had success with something,  please share.

 








Eventually, life goes on.
 

Beautiful Moments

The news that Princess's cancer had progressed upset us. Our friend Gene even had a specialist friend look at the x-rays to confirm.  Good news is, you cannot tell by the way she's acting. She's not letting facts spoil her fun and her spirits are high. Truth is, Princess doesn't know or care about her long term prospects.

Watching her reminds me that sometimes, it's best to be in the moment - in full appreciation mode. She thinks; I'm feeling pretty good right now, run and play. She doesn't think or care about anything past the next five minutes. She's always in the moment.  I walk by, she follows. You'd think that she'd figure out that I'm coming back the other way in a minute or two. Humans have to think long term and many times, ignore the moment. It's crucial to our survival.  Can you imagine the credit card bills and hang-over's if we thought like dogs?

We're trying hard not to project our grief and disappointment onto Princess. That would overshadow the many beautiful moments that we've had and are still possible with her. We're sad that this relationship will not last forever when it never could have. Princess lives for visits from friends, hugs, short walks, playing, wooshing, eating, and bed jumping (sounds like a dating profile). They are all reasons for her to wag her short tail and enjoy the moment. To Best Dog, it never mattered how long, that's a human point of view. 

It's been 44 days since her diagnosis, She continues to do well and weighs 83 lbs. She eats and sleeps well, goes outside, hangs out in the sun and plays with her ball. Her leg is very lame. Yesterday, she shredded a foam soccer ball, took a short walk, got lots of hugs, had a cheese party, laid in the sun, played with her kids and slept all night in the middle of the bed. Not a bad day. We're planning on a follow-up visit with Dr Chris after the holidays.