For Chami, it is best to go out this way. Twelve years old, beautiful, and strong, Chami has suffered very little in her life, nor seen much failing of her body; until now. It has only been a few days since she gave up food. She vomited for the first time on Saturday, then three times more on Sunday night.  We had her re-hydrating and on IV meds at the vet first thing Monday. But since Susan, our regular vet was not working that day we still able to determine what the matter was. The substitute vet thought it might be poisoning or remnants of the pain meds she’d started. I pointed out the new, and growing, lump deep in Chami’s groin area so the vet took some cells from it but said they looked inconclusive. She wasn’t familiar with Susan’s old microscope but I wondered if she just didn’t want to voice her thoughts. Yesterday, with Chami seeming to be on the downhill slope once again, we went back to see Susan. I asked Bob to come along because my suspicion was that Chami’s body was shutting down and we might just have to give her that “final” shot. Susan did a thorough exam and wasn’t certain of the problem and we started talking about getting some X-rays and such. I mentioned that the vet yesterday had aspirated the lump but hadn’t been certain of the results. Susan apparently wasn’t aware of this so she popped out of the room to take a look. Only a minute later she was back. The picture on the delicate sheet of glass beneath the microscope revealed a story only seen through the power of thousands. Though we could not see what was going on with Chami, except with the use magnification, Chami’s failing body new that something was amiss deep within; and I new it too, intuitively. With her cancer metastasized throughout her lymph system there was nothing much left to do except let her die.

 

We explored a number of options yesterday and the one we almost chose was to kill Chami right then and there. I was having a hard time accepting it, however, though it was probably best for Chami. We ended up giving Chami a powerful IV dose of Cortisone to help her manage the nausea, which prevented her from eating and drinking (nausea caused by nasty chemicals leaking into her stomach from the swollen, cancer riddled lymph node), and dull any pain. We took her home to see if it had any effect on her–often it doesn’t–and to give Bob and I time to adjust to her impending death, and make plans for getting her body back to the ranch, where we will bury her. The one thing we won’t do is let her suffer. But it is hard to read a dog completely, even one as demonstrative as Chami, so we struggle from hour to hour about the choices we make for our Golden Girl.

 

Today, the shocking result of yesterday’s shot is that Chami seems as good as new. She was a bit whacked out last night from the drug since Susan gave her a dose best for a dog that is going to die, or be euthanized, within a day or two.  She didn’t sleep much and just wanted to eat. We have a bunch of easily digestable canned food from the vet and she scarfed an entire can–it quarter cup doses–throughout the evening last night and she continues to seem famished. She is, however, incontinent, so Bob and I blanketed the living room floor with plastic drop clothes, covered her bed in a plastic garbage bag, with old ranch towels for comfort, and then we set up a bed on the floor next to her where we spent the night. We got up with her 5 times throughout the night to take her outside to pee, and to clean her up when she didn’t quite make it. Today, her demand for food is constant but we are able to keep her hydrated by mixing lots of water in with it.

 

For a change we went out to Shevlin Park for an afternoon walk since the sun shined on occasion through billowing thunderheads. Chami walked and trotted and played in the creek with a big smile on her face. I continue to cry, often, because she seems so vital (with the false sense the Cortisone brings) and I can’t get my heart and mind around the concept of being so alive one moment, then a cooling lump of lifeless fur the next. We will put her down tomorrow or the next day, whenever the steroids wear off. We have taken care of business in town and can leave for the ranch to bury her whenever necessary. Still, Bob and I both agree that as long as Chami keeps smiling and dragging huge sticks from streams, like she did on our walk today, that we can’t possibly make the call to end it. What a conundrum we face. Should we kill her while she is still happy and enjoying life (so she doesn’t have to suffer at all), or wait until she starts slowing down and shutting down, and, hopefully, only has to suffer a little bit?

 

We went over the process for putting her to sleep with the vet yesterday: the sedative to relax her and make her sleepy, then ten minutes later an IV overdose of amphetamines to stop her heart. That last part takes less than a minute and there is no pain, no suffering, just a floating into a deep and final sleep. I have to acknowledge what a blessing it is to have such a smart, holistic and carrying vet to go through this with. She had tears in her eyes when she came back in the room yesterday to tell us about the metastasized cancer. She cried when I broke down. She gave us hugs when we left. I trust her input on all the choices we face, still they are our decisions and Bob and I must make them together.

 

I’ve come to realize today that my incessant crying is only partly about losing my sweet dog, and just as much about the in-your-face scream of this impending death forcing me to me to accept the passing of time and acknowledge that I am getting older and my own life is moving, inexorably, toward a close. I’ve been afraid of death most of my life. It was a real problem when I was young, the idea of my parents and others I loved, leaving me forever. I ignored death in my twenties. I faced it head on for a spell when my beloved nephew, JB, died just as I was moving into the final years of my thirties.  Fortunately by then my life was completely nestled in at the ranch, swathed in nature, and my time was often dedicated to spiritual contemplations, which made death seem an acceptable part of life. But I’ve been away from nature and my spiritual immersions for a couple years now and I realize this has separated me a bit from many of the tools and beliefs I held closely, which, I believe, made death and dying more acceptable. Chami’s impending death is starting to inspire me to take a closer look at how I am living, and dying.