CJ update 2/14/19

I’m posting this for my future self, so I’ll have a record of this process. Happy for others to read it, but it’s not going to be particularly interesting to anyone who doesn’t know us. And if you follow me on FB, you might want to scroll down to the end–everything else has been on FB as it was happening.

While petting CJ Sunday evening Dec 16, I noticed a swelling at the base of her tail. I assumed it was an abscess.

Got her in to the vet the next day; they sent us home with antibiotics. I was mildly surprised they didn’t open and drain it.

There was no noticeable improvement over the next few days; on Friday, she went in to have it removed, and the tissue went in to be biopsied.

Left on Wednesday, December 26, on a long-planned trip to California and (briefly) Mexico.

On Thursday, the check engine light came on in the van. I got it in to the Sprinter dealer in Medford. As I was waiting for the work to be done, the vet called. Biopsy was back, it was cancer. We discussed options. It would cost around $1000 just to find out if it had spread and if so, where. This on top of $1000 in vet bills already paid, and another $1000 to be paid on the van by the end of the day. Then, if it had spread, there would be the decision on treatment. Presumably surgery and chemo or radiation. More thousands of dollars. She’s coming up on 12 years old–how many more years would that buy? At what cost in dollars for me and pain and misery for her? The last time I had to make this decision for a dog, I had opted for surgery, only to have her die anyway a few weeks later–all it had done was make her last few weeks even more miserable. I decided I wouldn’t be doing that with CJ, so why spend $1000 to find out whether and where the cancer might be, and then do nothing? And this trip was long planned and from Monterey on was in conjunction with my brother and his wife. So we went on our way the next day.

Sunday, Jan 13, we drove through LA (a huge deal for me, though I have to say LA is nowhere near as bad as Chicago to get through or around) and got a spot at South Carlsbad State Beach. Brother and wife stopped at Disneyland for a couple of nights. Monday, CJ was very low energy and had diarrhea. It could have been something she picked up, or it could have been the cancer attacking her guts. I fussed and worried, and finally called my sister in law. We agreed to not do Mexico, but maybe still do the San Diego Zoo Safari Park; we’d meet up in Escondido for that.

But Tuesday, CJ seemed to be doing better, so Mexico was back on. HOWEVER, as we drove to the border Wednesday morning the DEF light came on in the van. Oh, and one of the tires had a slow leak and was having to be topped up every day or two.

Sparing the details, we decided at the last minute to skip Mexico, turn back, do the Safari Park, and then head home (skipping a planned visit to Joshua Tree NP because of the shutdown).

Finally made it back north of LA, to my great relief. Southern CA has its good points, but I really don’t do well in high-population areas these days. That is, I’ve never liked them, but since retiring to my small town, they bother me even more. On the way north, we stopped at a county park outside King City, which allowed me to breath again, and at which CJ got a good off-leash walk which she thoroughly enjoyed:

It was hard to get a decent picture of her because she was running around so much, checking out the brush and just zipping past me, but here are a couple more. Although you can only see her tail in the first one.

Skipping more trip details, we got back home Jan 25. By then, I was pretty sure, based mostly on the fact that CJ was not eating normally and losing stamina noticeably, that the cancer was doing its thing. But she was still enthusiastic about walks, though I had to keep them shorter, and would eat chicken and rice, so I was beginning to contemplate her end but didn’t feel it was imminent yet.

Then on Sunday Feb 3, she seemed to have a good day. She ate with good appetite, and we took a pretty good neighborhood walk. However, shortly after the walk, she asked to go out, and I noticed her just standing near the stairs in the back yard and staring out at the gorge. It reminded me of Leakey (best dog) at the end of his life, during his brief “good time”s, just standing and looking around and sniffing, so it concerned me. By bedtime, it was clear she wasn’t feeling well–she had refused all food at suppertime–so I made up the downstairs bed and left CJ to sleep on the couch rather than asking her to go upstairs for bed.

Somewhere around midnight, I heard her in the hallway–she had managed to get down off the couch and get that far and collapsed. I spent an uncomfortable night (couch, then one inadequate layer of foam on the floor), with her on one of her dog beds on the floor next to me. I honestly couldn’t understand why she had deteriorated so fast, and began thinking each day that maybe this would be her last. I really, really don’t want her to suffer a lot, but that’s always a balancing act, because I also don’t want to lose her too soon or deny her any amount of decent life.

On Monday, I got some pain meds (Tramadol) for her, and it did seem to help. On Tuesday, I made up a more comfortable bed for me, essentially transferring the van bed into the living room, and eventually brought down more bed layers for her.

The next three days were hard. On Wednesday I wrote this on FB: “CJ is essentially starving to death. She hasn’t eaten anything since Sunday, though I offer something several times/day. She is getting up to pee and then taking some water, and doesn’t seem to be in pain. But nor is she having any fun, though she does respond to petting.

So far I haven’t been able to decide to pull the plug, so to speak. I know—know—she’s not going to magically recover, so why keep her going? But she’s not obviously suffering, so why have her euthanized?

But the weekend looms, and it can’t be done on the weekend, and they need some notice to arrange it, and what if she DOES begin to suffer, say, at five o’clock Friday?”

Happily, that was the low point (so far . . . ). Thursday she was able to eat a bit, Friday a bit more. By Saturday she was hopping up onto the couch again, and taking short jaunts outside.

Monday I called and got an appointment with the vet for Wednesday, which I’ll describe shortly. Monday and Tuesday we took some walks that we had to drive to, and she was hopping into the car just fine. A week earlier she could barely get to her feet, so she is indeed doing MUCH better. OTOH, not fully back to health, nor do I expect she ever will be. Saturday and Sunday nights she woke me asking to go out three times each night, and she still basically eats only cooked chicken and rice (I’m buying whole roasted chickens from the Safeway, and she does approve of them). I got some cans of food from the vet on Friday intended for animals with delicate appetites, and she has gotten through five cans of that from Friday-Wednesday, eating it sometimes and refusing it others. I cut the chicken up into little bits and mix it with the rice, add in some of the gelled chicken juice, and microwave it just long enough to liquify the juice and mix it all together. Feeding small amounts 3-4 times/day.

Here’s what I gleaned from the vet yesterday:

A possible reason for the sudden decline last week is that the kind of cancer she has involves blood vessels. It can lead to swellings which fill with blood (this is essentially what I had first noticed back in December), which can then burst. She may have had a bleed into her abdominal cavity (not her digestive tract, since no blood has appeared in her stool). This would explain both the sudden decline and the gradual recovery.

My strategy for feeding her is good. It’s OK if she wants to eat grass (I was worried about the grass clogging up her system, but she said it generally slides on through and not to worry.) She suggested adding canned pumpkin to the mix once she starts regularly on the Tramadol, which can be constipating and apparently canned pumpkin helps with that. I got a new supply of Tramadol, and a few pills of Gabapentin for when the pain becomes more severe (enough to make me secure about weekends. I have a dread of her taking a turn for the worse on the weekend and not being able to do anything for her). The Gabapentin is also sedating, which will help us get through the night better.

When it’s time to give up and euthenize her, they will come to my house. If I call in the morning, they’ll do it the same day unless their day is utterly impossible. They will also take care of getting her cremated, which someone here in Coquille will do. Normally, they take the body away after euthenizing, and the ashes go to their office for pickup–no extra charge for the service over and above the euthenasia and cremation. I can handle the cremation if I want to–haven’t decided about that yet.

I tried her on the pumpkin yesterday, and by itself she won’t touch it, but mixed with chicken etc. she was willing. I don’t think I need to worry about getting her to eat it until I put her on the Tramadol regularly, which so far I’m not. Not only because she doesn’t seem to be in pain, or even particularly uncomfortable, but. . .

Last night I tried to give her a Tramadol at bedtime, hoping for getting through the night without her waking me up. It did not go well. Up to now, she’s taken them just fine, but last night she was working it up and out no matter how well I stuffed it into her throat. I finally gave up, but I was upset, not so much for that pill, but because of what it implies for how things will go when she really needs one. I was stomping and muttering, which always upsets her–so she fled upstairs. I contemplated things awhile. She had slept through the night before. She had gone upstairs as per our prior routine (the cats had been shut in their bedroom for the night). She did not have a pain pill in her. There was a chance she’d need to go out in the middle of the night, which is harder on both of us when we’re upstairs. But I miss my bed, I miss not having to get up off the floor to go pee, and I miss sleeping upstairs. Decided to risk it, and it was OK–she not only didn’t wake me in the night, she didn’t go out in the morning until the rain cleared a bit after breakfast.

Today has been pretty good. She’s eating, we’ve taken a couple of short walks between bouts of rain, and I don’t know whether it was sleeping through the night, or just feeling good about being back to our normal routine, but I’ve felt better today than at any time since her precipitous decline.

I’m leaving the bed setup in the living room, but will try sleeping upstairs again tonight. At some point, I expect she’ll have to get me up in the night, but when that happens we’ll spend the rest of the night downstairs and we’ll go back to that. [She interrupted me at this point, insisting that since I had fed the cats she should also get something. She ate most of a can of the vet food, which she doesn’t really like but is willing to eat in the late afternoon/evening when she’s hungry. I’m pushing it mostly so she gets a more balanced diet.]

Tomorrow I may drive over to the coast, to do some shopping and to go to Shore Acres to watch the waves break on the rocks, which should be impressive with the storm surge that accompanies rainstorms. If so, will take her along and see how she does.

This is just the middle of this process. I’ve been through it many times before–it’s the price we pay for having pets. Cats and dogs, anyway. This time is both the same as and different from previous times. For a few days it was one day at a time; it’s now a few days? a week? at a time, but at some point it’ll be back to one day at a time, and then eventually over. I’m grateful for the reprieve though, and very glad I didn’t have her put down when she was at her most poorly last week, which I was thinking maybe I should do at the time, except I couldn’t bear to let her go yet. And glad now for what I was worried at the time was mere selfishness.

Time for wine.