On Life, Death and Possibility. Coming to terms with terminal cancer.

Babe with all of her fur on.

After the lung surgery.

Babe is having a difficult time today.  Her breathing is irregular, she has no appetite, save for the things she cannot safely eat.  She coughs in the morning and her breath has the familiar odor of the cancer growing within.   She has come so far, survived so much.  It has been ten months since her diagnosis to the day.  She has outlived the predictions by more than half a year, and still, I struggle with the fact that I must be ready at any time to let her go.  The Oncologist say that this dog got sick because of a genetic predisposition.  Somehow her blackness and whiteness, the  possibly of being related to the Bernese Mountain Dog is diagnosed as the cause,  and a more appropriate therapy is therefore conveniently dismissed.

That’s like saying that because Black people have a genetic predisposition to Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which is relatively rare across the population,  it does not warrant close investigation for it’s underlying causes in the Human race.   Histiocytic Sarcoma is related to Hodgkin’s in humans.  There is evidence that environmental causes, namely common pesticides and herbicides give rise to this rare cancer in mammals.  Babe and I were exposed to these chemicals while goose chasing for nine months on a local golf course.  Over time I discovered the research evidence linking this specific cancer to my dog’s lethal lung tumor.  Nobody wants to to give this notion credence.  They cling to genetics, which I believe is a form of denial that is no less egregious than sublimating any medical research because it’s impact is limited to a given minority.  It is medical racism.  And singleminded ignorance.  You may be more likely to die from exposure to Dioxin or PCB’s because your are Native American or Hispanic or Black.

Does that invalidate the clear evidence that we are killing ourselves with the chemicals we use daily,  even though it occurs based on blind trust that our welfare is being protected?  This stuff is being used in schoolyards, and golf courses and playing fields, parks around the country.  I lost my sense of smell after exposure to Casoron, and never knew the risk I was being exposed to.  Recent studies produce clear findings that this herbicide causes direct damage to the olfactory nerves in mammals,  But who is paying attention?  We see an enormous rise in childhood autism, ADD, and in genetic disabilities overall.  Again environmental causes are high on the list of suspects. We are paying a price right now that will affect a generation.  These cancers in our dogs are the canary in the coal mine.   So yes, I know, I am just about my Dog. But this dog saved my life, and I am tired of not standing up for her, and what that salvage represents.

Today as the sun threw its last light into the living room, Babe scratched at the carpet to make a more comfortable resting place.   That’s when I noticed her feathers.  Those elegant feathers on her forelegs had finally grown out after being shaved off the day of her first surgery.  I was angry that day.  I cornered one of the vets.

“What you just did, my dog may not live long enough to grow any of that back.”

From then on, before allowing any procedures, I would scribble a diagram making it clear what fur was acceptable to remove and what was not,  short of compromising the operation.  I asked the surgical staff sign off on these instructions.  I know.  Damage control against all odds that it might make a difference.

the fur defining order

More humiliation…

She kept her breast fur, but at one point or another lost hair from nearly every other part of her body.  What an indignity it is to be shaved, stripped of what makes you one of a kind.  A dog’s fur suit pronounces  “This is who I am”  to the world of the living.

So today I decided I needed a photograph.  Right now.  I need yet another photograph to show the world her beautiful feathers.  Out of the ten thousand images of Babe, suddenly I have to be sure.  I have to document.  As if taking pictures will prevent the inevitable, as if a copy, a comment, a record will ever be as good as the original.  This is how we delude ourselves about life and death.  We con ourselves into the belief that we can hold onto the good,  and ignore bad things, when all we really have is the moment we live into.

Life is an ever flowing stream of Nows.  We live in microscopic slices of time each inviting us to be present and participate.  To the extent we think this or that, create squirrel cage commentary in our minds, or even attempt to stop our thoughts altogether we are challenged.  Any attempt to control the Now eludes us.  We are still stuck just a few seconds or hours behind or ahead of  What is.   All we have is the invitation.   All we can do is surrender to that invitation and be present.

I have tried to let go and trying acts like a rubber band, some insurmountable force that resists in direct proportion to my desire.  My only real choice is to get present to the moment without filtering or judgment of any kind.  On any given day, these glimpses don’t last long but when they do there is immediate freedom.  To be fully involved with all the senses.   To make the choice to follow life, flow into it and down its current rather than listen to a mind that struggles against it. This is my challenge.

We go out into the fading light, and a voice within tells me this could be the last time I take her photograph here,  along the river as the sun goes down.  How shall I take them?  Should I force her expression?  Should I ask her to sit or stand.  Look your best, even though you are dying from the inside out.  (I can make her ears point by  promising her a sausage.)   Babe reluctantly offers me her right forepaw.

Each in their own way, my previous dogs have been very clear about their time to die.  They all lived long lives.  Babe is the first to face cancer.  Once a close friend asked,  ”Have you considered the possibility that your dog is staying alive just for you?”  I made  a commitment to Babe not to exchange her quality of life for needless suffering on account of me.   I am her job.  Caring for me has been her work for seven years.   It is difficult not to telegraph my fears,  my clinging thoughts, for these are transparent to dogs.  Babe would willingly make such a sacrifice.  She has done enough.

Preparing to wade the Little Nestucca.

Without question,  Babe saved my life.  She propelled me by sheer means of who she is into a new way of living.   If I wish to honor her, that work needs to grow beyond the suffering we endured, the mutual salvage we accomplished.

This miracle began with a chance meeting years ago at the tail end of a dog catcher’s truck.  This dog came to me.   She has the right to leave on her own terms.  My job is to be ready to receive that moment with the same respect, the same awe that I hold for her elegant feathers in the evening sun.  I pray for the courage to Suit up, Show up, and do the next thing.  These  words are on an index card next to my bed along with another one that says “No Horizontal Thinking!”

Stay in Today, do the next thing.  This is my work.

My mom was the youngest of a family of thirteen.  My mother who was the precocious daughter of a Methodist Minister in a small farm town in Idaho used to quote scripture wistfully in the last of her days. “Sufficient undo the day is the evil thereof”  she said to me once.  “And What  is that supposed to mean?”  I asked.  She smiled as if she had been reading tea leaves. “Same thing your people say.  One day at a time.”

(this article has been updated from the original posting in January 09)

On the water front.

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~ by christopherkliks on April 7, 2009.