Sometimes you wonder why you grab onto something and think it sounds so positive and then the next minute it seems as if it has millions of cracks and crashes to the floor, shattered, and you stare at it like you want to scream, please give me something to hold onto.
After trying to mull over in my mind what all my husband related to me about the conversation with the dental veterinarian, I was still left with so many questions. Going to our regular vet was the key that I thought would unlock our door of confusion and light our way like a lamp. But unfortunately that didn't happen and so I was left with a feeling of despondency worse than the original feeling when we got the diagnosis. I wanted an honest assessment of the situation and I guess I just didn't ask the right questions to get that so I left there with a referral to an oncologist who I think was their way of saying, let this person be the one to dash your hopes. I don't want to be the one. The only comforting thing I came away with was the fact that our vet of over ten years said even if she'd done a dental cleaning all these years, she wouldn't have ever seen this coming. I had felt so guilty about not seeing this sooner, not having his teeth cleaned as regularly because I feared the anesthesia, and I had avoided the issue by never making a dental cleaning appointment, only to find that nothing I could have done sooner would have changed what we're going through now. Maybe a little less bone taken out, but the same diagnosis. Second guessing oneself is par for the course I guess. It was comforting but still so wrong on so many levels.
To top it all off my vet. in all her years of practice has not seen a case of osteosarcoma in the jaw area, so I'm sure she felt wholly unqualified to give me much advice other than to say that the oncologist I was going to would give me the most important information I could use to decide what to do.
So that was Thursday morning and I spent the rest of the day going over and over again what she said and doing endless Google searches looking everywhere that I could find someone or something that would guide me further into the world of osteosarcoma. Call me a masochist but I wanted to know the truth, the whole shebang so I could be prepared, knowledgeable and somehow educate myself about this dreaded cancer.
Meanwhile, soft food for the Diggie, who slept with me last night and laid so close to me that I found myself on the very edge of the bed, butt to my back for almost the entire time we slept. He, resting so peacefully, stretched to the full extent of his little body, and me, still only able to sleep on 1/3 of the bed. Amazing what a little dog can do.
He looks at me with those beautiful brown eyes and waits for me at the door, wagging his tail and doing his little song to me and I think, how can I say goodbye to him? My little boy who has been by my side all these years. Always ready and waiting on me. But what if my decision or our decision changes him in some way that he isn't that same little brown eyed puppy? What if I take that part of him that is so special and unique and somehow ruin it. Tough times ahead for me on this journey and everyone has an opinion.
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