The last post was "published" today but it was written many moons ago. I have taken a break from writing and mostly because there has been little change since the beginning of Mack's situation in December and the last few months and that makes me smile. Thank God! Thank God there has been so little to write about him and that is a good thing. In two days it will be four months post surgery and the only thing stronger and more definite is the love I feel for this little guy and the unbelievable proportions and depth it's gone to. If you could see him now you would see a fully grown out curled up dog, sleeping dog who is at rest. He doesn't necessarily have the same energy levels he did before, but then again, we have to remind ourselves he is 13 years old.
It's ok that I took a break from writing, no one is reading my blogs, so I can just take a rest from the constant rumination and thoughts that this blog can bring out. If I start thinking post surgery I start thinking about counting out the months, then I go from there to what the doctors have said about this and then I get depressed. If I were to believe he was not cancer free, it would mean that if we're lucky we have about 12 to 18 months or less with him, but I don't go there. I believe he is cancer free and we will have him for his natural, long life. I can't believe anything else and refuse to accept that we did this for nothing. He is cancer free. Period.
For all intents and purposes, he is a totally normal dog. Eats like a fiend, runs outside to explore the yard and sits on the deck and loves the outside and the sun. He runs pretty much where ever he is going and if he knows I'm coming home, he will bark and whine and run around me when I get in the house.
He sometimes even initiates play with our other dog Oreo and sniffs the air like he was a puppy again. When we feed him he dances to his dish on his back legs even though the one leg has no cartilage or knee joint left and yet, he sleeps on his back and relaxes only when I'm home with him.
Sadly I had to break him of his habit of sleeping with us on the bed. I was not getting any sleep and sometimes I think he wasn't either. If I tried to move and he was right next to me, it was like I was sleeping up against a wall of dog. He would not budge and so I would have to cede my space and eventually find myself sleeping on the very edge of the bed. It wasn't working for my back and I certainly know it wasn't really allowing him to sleep freely. He was vigilant with where I was on the bed, at times sleeping with his back legs against my back and kicking me when he moved. It was not good for me and I had to convince myself he'd be better off in his own bed. Besides his bed has the same mattress we have! His crate his is own space, I think it works out ok that way.
He is still the love of my life, I say this because it's so true. Something about this dog from the very beginning was a love affair and he felt it too. I know he did, because I was the only one who could have him in my lap as a very tiny puppy and he would just go to sleep. No one in the family ever got him to do that because most of the time he was a wild and crazy dog~but with me, he calmed down and stayed in my lap the entire time I was there. I would look for him when I came in and he would come up and grab my hand and want to play. A truly wild and energetic dog and he stayed that way for a long, long time. Until of course we got his biological sister and that changed the dynamics of our play time. We thought we were doing the right thing by getting him a playmate, only to find out that she was not a sharer of toys and dominated the play time whenever we tried to play with him. We have to literally lock her out of a room and play with him for a little while just to have that time. Or go where she won't go and have that quiet and loving time alone. She turned out to be very jealous of his attachment to me because she is attached to me and she considers him an interloper. We have to continually correct and protect him from that attitude and as long as we have him, he will be the top dog, no matter what Oreo thinks.
We go along on our way on this journey and pray we are spending quality time with him. We were away for ten days and it was such a long time to be gone. I wanted to be home as soon as we left and couldn't wait to get home when we head that way. It is so like a child that you hate leaving him. It was way too long for me and I was never so happy to get home and have him in my lap. Just the happiness and frantic way they greeted us told me that they had missed us.
Life moves along at this pace and it is ok that I don't fill pages of this blog with anything more than for now, Mack is a winner. He is strong, healthy and gaining weight and he looks great. We are due for some new pictures of his four month recovery and then I'll send them along to his veterinarians and hope they enjoy knowing of a success story. That is what I consider him, the miracle dog.
My sweet Mack, you are like a Mack attack to the heart.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
The More Things Change
It's such a beautiful day outside and we spent some part of it just sitting in the grass, Mack and I, looking at the trees and for Mack, smelling whatever was blowing in the wind. Usually his habit is to lay down on the deck, lay there with the sun shining into his eyes with his eyes shut. But all of a sudden he was up and gone and around the corner from me, laying down on the grass that is nearest the side of the house. Odd behavior in some ways but at the same time this is the first time he's actually gone off on his own without knowing where I am and been out "exploring". He used to walk the entire yard and sniff everything and everywhere and so this little change in habit was either a good sign or not, hard to know.
The last few days I've felt a sense of unease about him. He is still eating great, has been going to the bathroom just fine, drinking water, and sleeping pretty soundly, but in some ways there is a sense of anxiety on his part whenever I'm not in sight of him. Even when he's with me, he seems restless and ill at ease. I can't tell what all is the matter because for some reason I'm not speaking Mackese, but he seems to want to tell me something and I'm not getting the message. I try so many things, like do you want to go out? Do you want a treat? Do you want to lie down? Do you want to sit in my lap? And none of these are the answers he seeks. I can't get into his head and I wish at times I could read his mind, but he's like a little infant that I can't comfort and with it comes frustration and worry. That has been the last two or three days. Last night I finally relented and gave him a benedryl because as the vet. said, the skin irritation is coming back to bother him and he has more and more spots that are flaring up again. They look so angry and red that the spray has to be done almost twice a day. Always in the same spot and area and he licks them till they are raw. We have yet to figure out what causes this but it seems to come at the same time every year. If we could figure it out I'd keep him away from it all the time, but the vet. says it's more likely to be a pollen based issue, since it's seasonal.
It comes to me at times when I look at him that more has changed than stayed the same for him, since the lively and spirited little Mack is not with us anymore. I can't relate the new behavior to his old one and find that he seems different to me in more ways than the way he looks and that bothers me more than I realize. I guess it comes down to the thought that we took him in one way and he came out another and with it came the attendant changes in his spirited personality that I thought would not be effected. They didn't tell us we'd have a different dog when he came home and that with his new appearance he would be deaf and so that makes me wonder all over again was it worth it to do that to him, to change the very dog he was before to what he is now. He is far more anxious than I realize, he shivers at times, he begs me to do something that I can't figure out, he follows me from room to room, cries more when we're not in the house with him, looks all over for me when he can't see me in a frantic search for security and sleeps less soundly sometimes and coughs in his sleep and sometimes seems to struggle to get the next breath. Snuffling is fine, but when he seems to have difficulty breathing, that is not fine. Before the surgery, he didn't need me as much, he was independent and funny and boisterous and playful and interested and happy and just as happy when we were there as not. This new dependence on us you would think would be flattering but it's worrisome because this is not the dog we had before. He is different, and I wish as the saying goes, "the more things change the more they stay the same" would in reality be true for him, but the more things changed, the more different he became. Maybe this change in behavior comes down to the deafness factor and the inability to judge the world by sound. It would be rather frightening to have that happen and not understand what is going on in your life and relying on sight to guide you. I'm sure that it has something to do with some of the changes we see in him.
But then I have to remember that he's a dog, with the acceptance of his life just the way he is and how he is with no angst attached. He is not worried about what he's doing or how he's acting because he doesn't think he's different. I just know the subtle differences that he has now because I'm more attuned to them and see them as significant and worth noticing. I can't know how this will play out and that influences me to worry more, that is the biggest difference that could relate back to my sensitivity about this and his new behaviors. At least I hope that is the case. I keep thinking improvement will mean a return to his old self a bit more every day and when I don't see that it does worry me.
The last few days I've felt a sense of unease about him. He is still eating great, has been going to the bathroom just fine, drinking water, and sleeping pretty soundly, but in some ways there is a sense of anxiety on his part whenever I'm not in sight of him. Even when he's with me, he seems restless and ill at ease. I can't tell what all is the matter because for some reason I'm not speaking Mackese, but he seems to want to tell me something and I'm not getting the message. I try so many things, like do you want to go out? Do you want a treat? Do you want to lie down? Do you want to sit in my lap? And none of these are the answers he seeks. I can't get into his head and I wish at times I could read his mind, but he's like a little infant that I can't comfort and with it comes frustration and worry. That has been the last two or three days. Last night I finally relented and gave him a benedryl because as the vet. said, the skin irritation is coming back to bother him and he has more and more spots that are flaring up again. They look so angry and red that the spray has to be done almost twice a day. Always in the same spot and area and he licks them till they are raw. We have yet to figure out what causes this but it seems to come at the same time every year. If we could figure it out I'd keep him away from it all the time, but the vet. says it's more likely to be a pollen based issue, since it's seasonal.
It comes to me at times when I look at him that more has changed than stayed the same for him, since the lively and spirited little Mack is not with us anymore. I can't relate the new behavior to his old one and find that he seems different to me in more ways than the way he looks and that bothers me more than I realize. I guess it comes down to the thought that we took him in one way and he came out another and with it came the attendant changes in his spirited personality that I thought would not be effected. They didn't tell us we'd have a different dog when he came home and that with his new appearance he would be deaf and so that makes me wonder all over again was it worth it to do that to him, to change the very dog he was before to what he is now. He is far more anxious than I realize, he shivers at times, he begs me to do something that I can't figure out, he follows me from room to room, cries more when we're not in the house with him, looks all over for me when he can't see me in a frantic search for security and sleeps less soundly sometimes and coughs in his sleep and sometimes seems to struggle to get the next breath. Snuffling is fine, but when he seems to have difficulty breathing, that is not fine. Before the surgery, he didn't need me as much, he was independent and funny and boisterous and playful and interested and happy and just as happy when we were there as not. This new dependence on us you would think would be flattering but it's worrisome because this is not the dog we had before. He is different, and I wish as the saying goes, "the more things change the more they stay the same" would in reality be true for him, but the more things changed, the more different he became. Maybe this change in behavior comes down to the deafness factor and the inability to judge the world by sound. It would be rather frightening to have that happen and not understand what is going on in your life and relying on sight to guide you. I'm sure that it has something to do with some of the changes we see in him.
But then I have to remember that he's a dog, with the acceptance of his life just the way he is and how he is with no angst attached. He is not worried about what he's doing or how he's acting because he doesn't think he's different. I just know the subtle differences that he has now because I'm more attuned to them and see them as significant and worth noticing. I can't know how this will play out and that influences me to worry more, that is the biggest difference that could relate back to my sensitivity about this and his new behaviors. At least I hope that is the case. I keep thinking improvement will mean a return to his old self a bit more every day and when I don't see that it does worry me.
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