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