Sydney Sue

We are now eight and a half weeks post-diagnosis. Up until last week, she'd been doing really well. So well, in fact, that it was hard to remember that she is still sick.  Starting a few weeks ago, she began leaking urine when she slept. After first, I thought maybe she was just too tired to get up to go outside, but it's pretty constant now when she sleeps, and it's more than a leaking than a release of her bladder.  This is, apparently, one of the side effects of Prednisone.  We now have washable potty pads everywhere, and I am getting really good at scooting one under her whenever she lays down.  Last week, I came home one day, and she had a giant sore on her back leg that was easily over an inch in diameter, and oozing and bleeding a bit.  I thought it might be from her leaking, and the urine staying in her fur, and their skin is so thin and sensitive, so I started bathing her with an oatmeal shampoo, and making sure I carefully rinsed her after.  Another sore appeared, and then a third on in the middle  of her back.  That's when it became apparent these weren't from her skin getting irritated.  I make sure to keep jammies on her so she can't irritate the sores more by licking at them; but, when she leaks, the jammy soaks it up, and she lays in wet urine. I'm not sure which is worse, her wearing wet jammies until I can change her out when I get home from work, or her digging giant holes in her skin.   I asked Joyce at Retirement day what was causing the sores, and she said it was a side effect of the prednisone, from the skin thinning. My mind racing, I asked what happens when there are more and more sores?  My heart dropped when she told me that was when it was time. I was not expecting that answer.  The reality of this finally hit me.  I couldn't stop crying over it.  I think I had really been avoiding the realities of dealing with cancer.  It's one thing to be careful about feeding more, keeping the weight up, giving medications, bathing, treating sores, checking her every day to judge her health.  It's another thing to be dealing with things I can't fix.  Yesterday, I noticed her waistline is considerably wider than it was before. I had first noticed it maybe a week before, just a slight thickening in her waist. I attributed it to the extra food she is getting to keep her weight up, but over the past few days, she seems to be bonier everywhere else, except her tuck.  My guess is that she is now in Stage IV, and her liver is now involved, and is inflamed.  I will make a vet appointment for Tuesday and have the vet examine her. As always, I don't want her to be in pain, or be uncomfortable. I don't know the ramifications of this, except that obviously we are getting closer to the end.

I thought, when this started, that once I got over the shock and sadness from the diagnosis that I would be able to get through this. I know that dying is part of life, and I really do believe that the life and the happiness and love is completely worth going through death. I really do believe that.  I thought, somehow, that would carry me through this, without becoming a complete wreck.  I think I'm really wrong about that.  I think this is going to be so much harder than I thought.  I'm really struggling with it, and I'm not sure why. It's just so raw, and so real.  It isn't going to be a simple phone call and a house visit from our vet. It's going to be the reality of dealing with all of the lasts, of making sure she isn't scared, or hurting, of being there to hold her when he gives the final injection, of seeing the life disappear from her eyes.  This is a life that I signed up, willingly and gladly, to guard and protect and love.  Death feels like a really big failure to that commitment.  Even though I know it is unavoidable.  Now I am beginning to understand that is the root of the pain on my part, not anger over cancer or being in a situation that is difficult to deal with.  I know that she knows she is very loved. She is happier now than she has ever been in her life.  She loves her life, I know that with all of my being.  That does bring me some comfort. The sense of failure is the hard part to deal with.