Lymphoma Monster

I finally told someone I had started a blog. I told Ed. I also told my little sister. I was so nervous even though I share everything with them.

Ed is my favorite person. Whenever I stop and think about it, I am always blown away by how much he loves me. I was a little afraid of what he'd think of the blog. I don't know why. Well, this tall, strong, solid man of a man sat and cried while reading my blog. I kissed the top of his head. He was the best doggie daddy to Nick. I couldn't have found better if I wanted to or tried to.

Ed was a bit confused though. He wanted to know how anyone would know what I was bloggin' about if I didn't give any background on Nick? I guess I really didn't think about it. I started this blog last week on Wednesday because I needed a…

…GIANT BOX…one I could just dump all of my thoughts and anguish into. And then close the lid. Open the box. Close the box. Open. Close. Sign in. Sign out. My blog. My giant box.

I've been doing that for the last 6 days and it has felt so good. Kind of like forcing yourself to throw up just to force the nausea to go away. Such a relief.

I have been meaning to write about how Nick came into our lives. I’ve been meaning to tell the tale of the lymphoma monster that slowly chipped away at my beautiful dog. It’s funny, I wanted to start a blog when we first adopted Nick. I was going to call it the “Nick Chronicles”. I’m so sorry I waited so long.

Soooo, in mid-2005 we started talking about getting a dog. Neither one of us had ever had our very own dog before and we were so excited. This was going to be our first 'baby'. We had 2 important criteria; (1) we wanted to rescue a dog and (2) we wanted a dog that wouldn't try to harm our parrot, Captain Morgan.

We had a third tentative criterion, and that was that we didn’t want too young of a dog since we both work full time jobs. We've known many people in our lives who’ve brought home young dogs when they really didn’t have time to walk or exercise them on a daily basis or train them properly. Puppies need hours of work every day in their early years, and we just didn't have that kind of time. So, it had to be an older dog who'd be a bit more mellow and already trained.

Ed has loved Golden Retrievers all his life. I love all dogs and always have, but I didn't want to get a dog that would shed so much fur. I've had friends with GRs and the fur was out of control. I wanted to get a beagle or a hound of some sort. Ooooh, but Ed had his heart set on a Golden. He began searching rescue sights for Goldens. I also scoured the Internet and local papers.

Hurricane Katrina wreaked its havoc later that summer. It broke my heart to see all those poor dogs in the midst of that chaos. I felt horrible for all the poor souls suffering in that inferno, but I've always felt especially sympathetic towards elderly humans and the animals. They are the last group of living beings that most of us think of helping out in a disaster. I tried to rescue a Katrina dog, but all the ones that were flown into San Diego were adopted out before I could even put in a request. And if they weren't adopted out, the process to rescue one was so difficult to navigate that I just gave up. I won't go into details, but it was a nightmare. What I will say is that if you were someone rich, famous & important, than you wanted to adopt a Katrina dog because the “photo ops” were priceless. It was a media frenzy and all the fancy people wanted to be in on the action, they wanted their picture on the front page of the papers. Sigh.

I’ve always been drawn to old dogs. I adore elderly people, maybe that’s why. I am very close to my 93 year old grandmother and she often tells me how lonely it is to be old. Even though we all work, my family and I still see her every day. However, she still feels ‘forgotten’. She craves constant human companionship. I believe that old dogs must feel the same way. They feel forgotten because they can no longer offer “puppyhood” to their owners. Old dogs, just like my grandmother and other old people, want to spend their “golden” years in comfort, with stable companionship and surrounded by love.

Ed found the noble folks at GRCGLA (see earlier post) and they came out to complete a home inspection. We saw a dog named Nick on their website. He had a huge curly mane of fur around his head. I'd never seen a curly Golden before. We asked about him and found out that he was 12 1/2 years old. Whoa Nelly! His family had had him all his life. They were moving and couldn't take both of their dogs with them, so they kept their young dog and turned Nick in to the shelter. I was so angry to hear that! If I had to make that difficult choice, I would have turned in the younger dog because he is more likely to be adopted. It made me so sad for Nick. They dropped him off with a bag of red delicious apples and waved goodbye. He must have been so confused and scared.

Rescues can only accept fixed dogs and Nick was no such dog. Soooo, at the grand ol' age of 12 1/2 poor Nick was not only kicked out of the only home he'd ever known, he was also neutered. Ouch! It is extremely painful for dogs to be neutered later in life. It took Nick many, many weeks to be free of "ball sac" soreness! He was in the rescue organization for 2 months before he was adopted. I can't imagine how difficult that must have been for him.

We fell in love with Nick and wanted to soothe him after all he'd been through. Ed drove up to Orange County on November 3rd to pick up our senior puppy. I was at work that day. I was so excited and also a bit nervous. (I know it sounds crazy because Goldens have such a great disposition, but I was afraid Nick wouldn't like me...I was nervous he'd somehow sense that I initially didn't want to get a fur laden Golden Retriever!)

I left work early that day at about 3:30. I was so excited I almost rear ended someone at a red light. Once home I found this curly, fluffy ball of red golden fur lying on the ground next to Ed's couch. Nick looked up at me and I was in LOVE!!! I'll never forget that feeling. *Sigh.* I miss him so much when I think back to that first day. He was on the smaller side for a male GR, only about 65-70 pounds. (I hated it when people thought he was a girl dog because of his size. Grrr!)

The first day and a half of his life with us Nick didn't eat anything at all. The rescue had given him to us with a bag of dry kibble, but he wouldn't touch it. He was so depressed and wouldn't budge from his one spot. Nick was still very sore from his "ball removal surgery". We were very worried about his disinterest in food. I had an appointment with a vet for the very next day. We wanted to get a check up even though GRCGLA had already run a bunch of tests. Nick didn't eat anything the day of the vet appointment either. After the vet appointment I was desperate for him to eat something!!! It had been over 36 hours and he still hadn't touched a thing.

After the vet appointment (where we found out that save for some old age arthritis, Nick was in good shape!) we stopped at the Pet People. Normally, dogs go gaa-gah in a pet store, but not Nick. Nope! He just moped about behind me. I was lost amongst all the different brands of dog food. I didn't know what to get him. All I knew is that I didn't want to feed him "filler" dog food. He was in such good shape for such an old dog that I wanted to enhance and maintain that with quality food.

Along came Rastafarian Jack, a white surfer dude with natty dreads that would have rivaled Bob Marley's. (His parents own one of the best frozen yogurt stands in the city.) I gave Rasta Jack the low down on Nick. His wise opinion, "Well, it seems to me that the old boy is depressed and just plain pissed off at the world." Thanks, Jack! Jack suggested we lay out a "buffet" for Nick. That way Nick could pick out what he was interested in.

Jack set out four dog dishes with different kinds of dog food. Nick slowly made his way over to the buffet. He carefully sniffed each bowl. Sniff, sniff. Nothing. He walked back over to me with his head down. I rubbed his head and cooed in his ear, begging him to please eat. I think he understood me because he turned right around and made a beeline for one bowl of food. He polished it off lickety split! I was giggling because I was so happy! He sniffed at the other 3 bowls, but decided to just go back to the empty bowl and try to lick up the last morsels.

So, Merrick Dog Food it was! Yippee!!! Nick apparently had very discriminating taste. I found out Merrick is a brand of dog food with human grade meat and all kinds of bells and whistles. Merrick's Grammy's Pot Pie looked like something I would actually eat! Nick just loved his Merrick dog food and it made me so happy to see him gobbling up his food.

Nick must have had a very controlling family because he'd always come up to us with his head down. Overly submissive and mellow. I tried to break him of that habit, but he never gave it up. It was cute to see him do that when he was around toddlers so that they could reach his head for a pet, but I didn't want him to feel so constrained and subordinated at home. He also had severe muscle atrophy in his back legs and big, thick callouses on his elbows and hips. His former family kept him in the backyard on a concrete patio which explained his calloused joints. He was never exercised which explained his muscle atrophy.

We began to slowly build Nick's muscles for him. We started out with very slow, short, leisurely walks. Within a few weeks Nick was going for 40 minute walks with a couple of hills thrown in for muscle development. We always walked him twice a day and sometimes he'd have enough in him to do two 40 minute walks! We were so proud of him! He perked up within a couple of weeks of being with us and became such a total *love bug*. Everywhere we went in the house he’d follow. He became so affectionate and happy. He loved everyone, especially children, but for some reason he was nervous around other dogs and he’d bark at them. That is not like a Golden Retriever, but Nick never got over his distrust of other dogs. (Poor Mackie got the brunt of that distrust.)

Nick's diet was pretty much moistened Merrick kibble with some Merrick canned food. I highly recommend Merrick dog food if you’ve been searching for a new dog food. But, there was more than Merrick that Nick loved to eat. Nick absolutely LOVED healthy human food. LOVED IT! I'm not talking about hot dogs and such, things that most dogs would swipe in a heartbeat. Nope. Nothing made Nick quiver more with delight and anticipation than the smell of steaming broccoli. Oh boy! He would dance around the kitchen like a mad court jester, huffin' and puffin' for his broccoli. Don't get me wrong, Nick would swipe contraband food as much as the next dog (he is a Golden after all), but nothing drove him nuts like broccoli, not even the smell of chicken on the grill. We’d never known a dog who loved “healthy” foods as much as Nick.

Ooooh, how he loved chopped grilled chicken, steamed broccoli, brown rice and yogurt all mixed together. He had an apple every night. He freakin' loved his nightly apple snack. On the weekends we'd sometimes make him scrambled egg whites with a multi-grain pancake. For his birthday and his one year anniversary with us I made him a turkey & broccoli meatloaf with a mashed potato icing. I could go on and on. I would spend hours on the internet finding homemade dog food recipes so I'd get all the supplement and nutrient info. I'd say that about 1/3 of his diet was food we'd prepare for him and the rest was his dog food. He was such a good eater.

On the first day of summer last year Nick got his very first summer haircut. June 21, 2006, he looked so funny running around!!! He looked like a puppy with his short hair. The only thing I regret about that haircut was that his curls were gone and were going to take a while to grow back in. Aaah, Nick and his curly lion's mane and his little curly lamb's butt. *Sigh.* I miss his curls!!!!!!!!!

A few days after his haircut, we noticed that his left lip was a bit red and swollen. At first we thought maybe the groomer had nicked his lip with the clippers, but the swelling wouldn't go down. Nick's regular vet (Dr. F) wasn't available, so Nick saw the associate vet (Dr. T) at the same clinic. Dr. T said she'd never seen anything like Nick's lip before, but that he probably just got a thorn stuck in his lip or something. I don’t know how he could have done anything like that, but she gave him antibiotics anyway for 10 days. After just a few days of the end of the antibiotic regimen the lip was redder and more swollen than ever.

Ed took Nick back to the vet (Dr. T once more, not Dr. F) towards the end of July and she put him on antibiotics again. I was confused about simply prescribing another round of antibiotics since it clearly didn't do anything to help Nick the first time around. I called Dr. T and asked her if the lip should be biopsied because it was so red and so swollen. Nick was also beginning to have a little trouble eating. She said 'no' because the next round of antibiotics was for a longer period of time so that should help his lip. I asked her if she thought maybe this was cancer and she said,"Oh, no, no, no. Nick will be fine." To this day I'm sooooo angry with Dr. T for being so sure that is was not cancer even though she had "never seen such a presentation on a dog's lip". I should have pushed harder for a biopsy, but I trusted Dr. T to know what was best for my sweet boy.

The second round of antibiotics helped for a few days, but within no time Nick's lip flared up again. This time it was spreading further down his lip towards the other side of his mouth. I took him in again myself and this time Dr. F was available. She put Nick on a third round of antibiotics, but she said that she wanted to clean Nick's teeth, extract one of them and then poke around in his lip to see what answers she could find about his red lip. She thought it could be periodontal disease. I asked her to please biopsy the lip anyway just to make sure. By this time there were other little "presentations" on Nick's skin and I wanted answers!

It was mid-November when Nick went under for this teeth cleaning and the biopsy I had been requesting. I was visiting my family in Chicago for Thanksgiving when Ed called me. I almost passed out when he gave me the news....

NICK HAD CUTANEOUS LYMPHOMA.

Dr. F didn't think he had longer then 5 weeks or so. WHAT?!?! She was "very sorry to give us the sad news". Dr. F and Dr. T were very, very lucky that I was 2,000 miles away because I was FUCKIN' PISSED OFF!!!!! Had I been in San Diego I would have driven straight down to the vet's office and gone crazy on them!!!

My anger immediately turned into worry for Nick. I couldn't believe that we were going to lose him so soon after only having him for one year. We wanted to know if there was anything we could do to help Nick. He was in such good health otherwise even if he was 13 years old! Dr. F referred us to the Veterinary Specialty Hospital to see an oncologist. Cutaneous lymphoma is a very rare form of lymphoma in that it doesn’t appear in the lymph nodes, the organs or the intestines. It appeared only in the skin.

When I first saw the Veterinary Specialty Hospital (www.vshsd.com) I thought, wow. I mean WOW!!! How come humans didn’t have this kind of a facility? My own doctor’s building looks like it was built in pre-WWII times. VSH was full of compassionate doctors, a horde of vet techs and assistants, advanced medical equipment, a linear accelerator for radiation, research facility, YOU NAME IT!!! It is truly an amazing place. The work they do with dogs and cats that have cancer benefit humans because their research is shared with other facilities.

Dr. Blaise Burke was Nick’s oncologist. Ed and I thought of him as some kind of a comic book superhero because of his name: Blaise (pronounced like ‘blaze’) to the rescue!!! He was so good with Nick. He didn’t try to dumb down medical terminology or patronize us when we asked thousands of questions. I did a lot of research online regarding cutaneous lymphoma and I always came to Dr. Burke with sheets and sheets of questions. He never once rushed me through my discussions with him. I love the type of doctor he is. I wish there were doctors like him for us humans. Lucky dogs and cats!

Dr. Burke told us that radiation would help Nick’s lip. We found out later that the “presentations” on the rest of Nick’s skin was also lymphoma. They looked like little flat, plaque-like patches of skin. They’d get red and inflamed like blisters. The blisters would open, bleed and the area would eventually scab over. The blister-like lesions would burn and itch, which made Nick lick like a lunatic at his lymphoma sites.

Dr. Burke said that chemotherapy would be needed to treat the rest of Nick’s disease. Dogs handle chemotherapy very well and the result could be that Nick would live longer and more comfortably, at the very least another 6 months, possibly longer. Ed and I were hoping for much longer, of course.

Right about November of last year I found this blog:

http://spinningtumor.blogspot.com/

A woman named Liz who used to write the wittiest column about roses for Regents Nursery up in San Francisco is the same woman who authors this blog. I came across her blog because I was trying to find her to get an answer about one of my standard roses. The blog chronicles her battle with lymphoma. Her blog is written art. I have been one of her blog “lurkers” since November. I often wanted to leave her a comment about Nick, but I always chickened out.

Reading her blog, I actually learned a lot about medicine (Prednisone, a catabolic steroid that defends and destroys like a schizophrenic robot), a lot about the side effects of chemo and how to deal with them (dogs tolerate chemo very well, but Nick did lose fur, severe lethargy, disinterest in food and he did have radioactive pee & poop), a lot about our human bodies (I now know what a ‘superior vena cava’ is!), a lot about how to maintain sanity in the face of any disaster (witty storytelling, 2 adorable dogs, Dixie and Dolly, good friends, good family, a zest for her surroundings and an incredible sense of herself), a lot about how to appreciate my Ed and not ever take him for granted (I wanted to go down to Louisiana and beat her guy to a fuckin’ pulp!..she deserves a million times better), a lot about our country’s broken, sad healthcare system….hey, I can go on for pages here, but how about you just go and check out her stupendous blog? You’ll be hooked as I have been. I pay good money for magazines and books that aren’t as well written as her blog. Don’t be shy if you’d like to “pay” for her written art, there’s a donate button to the right. It took her a long time to put that Pay Pal button up and she deserves it.

It was uncanny how Nick’s chemo and Liz’s chemo appointments ran parallel to each other. Many times Nick’s appointment would fall on the same day she was scheduled to go for her treatments. Bizarre, huh? I took great comfort in the fact that Liz was fighting such an intense battle and she was winning. I prayed and hoped that Nick’s little body could do the same. I knew he had the fighting spirit, but I prayed that his physical body would keep up.

Liz’s body before lymphoma was a physical masterpiece. She always worked out and trained to get her body in peak physical condition with beautifully sculpted muscles. Being in such peak shape really helped Liz when her body had to fight and rebuild itself. I truly believe that if Nick’s previous owners had given him any exercise at all he would have had a fighting chance against the destructive force of Prednisone.

The radiation on Nick’s lip was a success. But, the chemo only stabilized the lymphoma monster, which meant it didn’t go into full remission, but it didn’t get worse either. We decided to stop chemo in April. Nick’s lymphoma was not showing any signs of doing anything more than just stabilizing so Dr. Burke didn’t want to continue chemo. He did keep him on the Prednisone though because of its cancer fighting properties.

April, May and June were great months for Nick. He did have to be washed pretty regularly with a medicated shampoo and conditioner to keep the insane itching and burning at his lymphoma sites at bay. Nick had a couple of “old dog” symptoms that popped up, but he was doing well, he was happy and he had an appetite. I had high hopes that he’d reach his two year anniversary with us and that he’d make it to his 15th birthday.

The only thing that changed in those three months was that Nick no longer had an appetite for dog food. After his last round of chemo he showed signs of nausea and stopped eating dog food. So, we had to make all of Nick’s food at home on a weekly basis. Chicken breast stew thick with veggies, potatoes and brown rice, pasta with grilled chicken and broccoli and yogurt, baked turkey meatballs with oatmeal and broccoli, salmon, etc… I had to add supplements to the food since he wasn’t getting them from his dog food anymore. It was in May that Nick fell in love with Trader Joe’s Rice Pudding. (I have all of my recipes if anyone is interested. Dr. Burke helped me a lot with figuring out what to put into his homemade food.)

There were times I was so very tired and didn’t feel like making a pot of food for him for the week. It was a lot of prep work and long cooking times, but there was no better reward than seeing the content, “Oooh, I’m so stuffed!” look on Nick’s face after a good meal.

On July 3rd, we were able to leave work early because of the holiday. I was so excited to go home and just chill out. But, my day (and week) soon took a turn for the worse. I was behind a girl on her cell phone who slammed on her brakes and came to a complete stop for no reason on a freeway on-ramp. I tried to avoid hitting her, but no such luck. It took me 2 ½ hours to get home because the highway patrol took so long to frickin’ get there. My car is still in the shop to this day.

Later that night we took Nick for a walk. It was late but we wanted to wait until it was dark and cool. We weren’t even 2 blocks into the walk before Nick began limping hard. We turned around right away and Nick practically fell trying to walk home. His limping was so severe. Ed picked him up the final block and carried him home. Nick was in an immense amount of pain, which scared the shit out of me. He never, ever exhibited any signs of pain or discomfort in the time we’d known him. It was frightening to see my baby like that.

I called his oncologist’s office and they told me to bring him in, but Nick couldn’t bear to be touched. At 12:30 that night I drove to pick up Tramadol (a doggie Percacet) from the hospital. I stayed up with Nick until 3:00 to make sure he’d fall asleep. The Tramadol was a blessing because it took his pain away and he slept.

Nick didn’t get much better on July 4th. He had a real hard time getting up and sitting down. His left rear leg just wouldn’t hold any weight. As hard as it was for him, we took him to see the emergency vet (Dr. Tong) at his oncologist’s office. Without any extensive testing, poking and prodding, Dr. Tong couldn’t really tell us much except that his leg was not broken. We didn’t want Nick to go through more traumas and stress with testing, surgery and what not. Dr. Tong said what had most likely happened is that a ligament had sprained or that his hip might have given out. We spoke to Dr. Burke who explained that prolonged Prednisone use will cause the ACL and other ligaments and tendons to rupture. “Prolonged use” usually doesn’t mean 8 months (which is how long Nick was on it), but since Nick’s over all musculoskeletal system was so weak to begin with due to lack of exercise in his younger years, the Prednisone made easy work of my poor Nick’s body. We took him back home and were told to keep him comfortable and to monitor him.

Well, I had a bad, bad feeling. An awful, sick, burning feeling. It felt like there was fireball in the pit of my stomach and an ice pick in my heart. I knew. I just knew. My baby was slipping away and I knew. In the shower I cried and cried for the day I knew was going to be coming so very soon. I tried to talk to Ed about Nick possibly not making it much longer, but he didn’t want to discuss it all. He felt that Nick would be ok if we helped him walk and that he’d pull through. I’ve had the ACL in my knee repaired, so I know that there is no “getting better”. It’s surgery or a lifetime of impairment and pain. Ed didn’t want to discuss it all. He looked so pained and scared that I decided not to push him anymore.

The next day I thought long and hard. Ed and I had discussed a long time ago that when the day came we wanted to have Nick go in peace and at home. One of my very good friends, Adriana, once told me not to wait so long that the option of having Nick pass away at home would be taken away from me. Meaning that if we waited until there was an emergency where we’d have to rush him to the hospital, then he would have to be put to sleep while there. She used to be a vet tech and had seen it too often. I didn’t want that to happen to Nick.

There is a home euthanasia vet out here that everyone talks about. She was recommended to me by people from all walks of life. (http://kristi-freeman.com/main2.html) Dr. Kristi Freeman only does home euthanasia and from everything I’d heard she was incredible. I called her office and just started to cry. Her assistant, Mandy, was so understanding and so kind to me on the phone. I made a tentative appointment for Monday, July 9th at 1:30 pm. I explained that I wanted to give Nick the weekend to see if he’d show any improvement. They told me that I could schedule, cancel and reschedule my appointment as many times as I needed to. I felt better then about making the appointment.

We spent the weekend with Nick just keeping him comfortable. He slept a lot because of the Tramadol, but he’d liven up in the evenings. He couldn’t take his walks anymore, but he still walked around in the backyard with a gentle limp. I monitored his every move. I broke down and told Ed about the appointment I’d made with Dr. Freeman for Monday. I thought he’d be angry about it, but he was so supportive. He said that he was afraid to think about it. He was relieved that I could handle making that call because he couldn’t bring himself to do it. So, he and I watched Nick’s every single move. Nick still had his appetite, which gave us hope.

That Sunday evening, we felt that we had been given our Nick back. Oh, you should have seen him. Of course, I’m crying thinking back to it. He rolled around in the backyard, he smiled, he wagged, he walked around after Ed, he took care of his doggie business and just looked like good old Nick. We were so happy! I got the video camera out and recorded Nick standing there in all his curly, golden glory. His beautiful fur glinted away in the setting sunshine. I’ve watched that video every night since Nick died.

Ed and I decided to cancel the appointment for Monday afternoon with Dr. Freeman. Nick showed us that he was going to be able to deal with his leg as long as we didn’t take him on walks. He was careful on that leg, but he got around pain free, which was the most important thing to us. We were so thrilled that Nick was going to stick around a little longer.

Our joy was short lived. Monday evening I decided to sleep outside in the living room with Nick. He liked sleeping out there because it got a bit warm in the bedroom for him. Ed had been sleeping in the living room with Nick for pretty much the last 6 months. I’d only done so a handful of times, but that Monday night I told Ed to go ahead and sleep in the bedroom.

At 3 am my sweet boy’s wet nose nudged me gently. He needed to go potty. (Nick never got the hang of the $500 doggie door we installed for him, so we always had to let him out.) We went out in the backyard. He sniffed around for bit and found a perfect pee-pee spot. In the middle of his pee both of his back legs just buckled from under him. My heart fell to my feet. He tried to right himself and get back to the patio, but he just fell down and couldn’t get back up at all. I woke Ed and we carried Nick inside. Nick was shaking and still trying to pick himself up but he couldn’t. He still needed to poop and finish his pee-pee so Ed and I carried him outside. I held him up from the chest using a long towel as a harness. Ed held up Nick’s butt so he could relieve himself. I looked at Nick’s poor face and he was just mortified. He was always shy and private about pooping in front of us anyway. What I wouldn’t have done at that moment to have spared him that indignity!!!

I gave Nick two more Tramadols. His pain was very obvious and very difficult to witness. His breathing was very labored and he was not able to work his back legs at all. We tried getting him to stand many times, but his back legs were not functioning. His back paws kept folding back so that he was on standing on the tops of his paws. After repeated tries, Ed and I just looked at each other. Now we both knew.

At about 4 am I left a voicemail for Dr. Freeman at her office. I had cancelled the 1:30 pm Monday appointment only to now need an emergency appointment for Tuesday. I knew she had a full day of appointments and we prayed that there would be an open spot for our Nick. We didn’t want to stress him out by having to take him to the hospital.

Mandy spoke to us a little after 8 am and told us that Dr. Freeman had a 12 noon appointment available. I knew Nick was in pain, but selfish me, I was so relieved that we’d have at least another 4 hours with him. We spent the next four hours at Nick’s side. We talked to him, we kissed him, we rubbed him, we just loved him. Nick was lying on the carpet by Cap’n Morgan’s cage. The Cap’n was so quiet all morning long. His normal morning squawking routine was silent that day. He’d walk over to the edge of his cage table and stare down at Nick, and then walk back to his cage. He did that all morning long and didn’t utter one little chirp. If I didn’t know any better I’d say that bird was just as sad as we were and that he knew exactly what was happening.

Those four hours were the longest and the shortest of my life. The finality of what was about to happen hit me and I had episodes of crying fits. I could not imagine my life without my sweet boy’s face every morning to greet me. Nick was thirsty, but couldn’t drink. We fed him water through a syringe and massaged him. Around 11:30 am we noticed that his back legs had turned purple and they were cold. That was so hard to see. His breathing was so deep, long and labored. I knew he wasn’t in pain because of the Tramadol, but he was shutting down. It killed me to see it.

Dr. Freeman is the eighth wonder of the world. How she can do her job and not break is truly a force to reckon with. She was the perfect balance of medical professionalism and of compassion without being overly emotional. She got to know Nick for a few minutes, talked to him, massaged him, gave him a kiss and let us say our goodbyes. She let us take our time. She talked to us and explained everything so gently. She sedated him and then waited to put him to sleep. She said the euthanasia takes 5-10 minutes usually, but Nick was gone in about a minute after she began the injection. It was 12:35 pm on her little Timex watch when she told us, “He’s in heaven now.” I want to think to that he was so ready to go and that he just couldn’t take it anymore.

When Dr. Freeman began the injection, Captain Morgan erupted into a frenzy of squawking, screeching and wing-flapping. It sent shivers down my spine. He’d been so quiet all morning long until that moment. He was losing his best napping buddy and he knew it.

Dr. Freeman handled our Nick gently and lovingly. She treated him in such a noble manner. His poor little body was so ravaged by the lymphoma. I appreciated how clean the gurney and sheet were for him. I appreciated how neat and precise she was in her aftercare. I didn’t know what to expect and Dr. Freeman exceeded any expectations I could have conjured up. She took our boy to Dr. Burke. He wanted to complete a post-mortem exam for research and for future cancer treatments. If our little Golden boy could help even one other cancer patient, be it dog or man, we were honored. He was such a great dog and so brave.

Someone once told me that cancer is not what usually kills people (or dogs), but rather it is the drugs, chemo treatments and the physical toll the treatments take on the body that will kill a living being faster than the cancer will itself. I think that’s what happened with Nick. I really do. His lymphoma was pretty stable, but it was the poison Prednisone that turned his poor tendons, ligaments and joints into dust. I truly believe that.

It has been a week since Nick went to his forever home. I have not yet had a day free of tears. I thought yesterday was going to be that day, but I cried last night. I haven’t been able to put his doggie dishes away. When Milo was over on Saturday I couldn’t let him drink or eat out Nick’s doggie dishes. I haven’t washed Nick’s sheets and towels. I can’t. Not yet. I still have a pot Nick’s chicken stew leftover. I have his broccoli. I did share the chicken stew with Milo. He loved it, of course. My Microsoft Outlook calendar entries for Nick remind me of what medicine to give him each day and at what time. The entries recur for the entire year. I can’t bring myself to delete the rest of the calendar entries.

Ed really wants another dog soon. There is a huge part of me that desperately wants to give another rescue dog a home. But, my heart is full of only my Nick right now. I feel guilty for thinking of allowing another dog into Nick’s home. I don’t know if I have any room in my heart right now for any other dog. It is filled with memories of my beloved boy.

Nick sent me a rainbow the other day. Ed says that was a sign from Nick that he wants us to get another dog. I don’t doubt that Nick would want us to adopt another dog because he was such a loving and giving creature. But, I like to think that Nick sent me that rainbow because he knew his mommy was hurting. He wanted to let me know he was ok and he was happy. I need to believe that.

Let me leave with a little story about Nick…

He was not a “licker”. Nick didn’t lick at all, licking being the equivalent of doggie kisses. He had his own special way of loving on me and that was by pressing his head against my thigh when he stood next to me. Oh, it melted my heart every single time.

But, I remember when I got my bar exam results and found out I had not passed. I was so upset. Nick just looked at me for a bit as I sat and cried. Then he leaned up to my face and gave me one lick. Just one. He licked the tears off the left side of my face. Just once. That’s all. And it was all I needed.

He loved me in failure. He didn’t care. Nick was my best friend.

"Pictures on the nightstand, TV's on in the den

Your house is waiting, your house is waiting

For you to walk in, for you to walk in

But you're missing, you're missing

You're missing when I shut out the lights

You're missing when I close my eyes

You're missing when I see the sun rise

You're missing."

"You're Missing" -Bruce Sprinsteen