Chemo Buddy

In fall of 2008 Geoff and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary, owning our first home for a year, and the pregnancy of our first child. A few weeks later we were devastated to find that our Coonhound Chester had an aggressive form of cancer.

We did everything we could to make him comfortable and give him quality of life and we were pretty successful for a few months, but on Christmas day 2008 we realized that it was time. After everyone had left we headed out for the emergency clinic where we said our final good-byes and allowed our good friend to end his suffering.

We had known the day was coming and in an attempt to make things easier on us, we had decided to transition a new puppy into our household a few weeks earlier. She was only 4 weeks old when we took her in. She was a sad case. Her mom had died in childbirth or shortly there-after (we don't really know) and the people that owned her parents decided to split up the litter of puppies too soon.

We had been searching for Coonhound puppies in a variety of places and came across her on Craigslist. At the time I was working a weekend of 12 hour night shifts, but after working 7pm-7am on a Friday night, we packed in the car on a Saturday and drove a few hours to go see the last available puppy. We promised we wouldn't make an rash decisions and we held to it. After seeing the teeny puppy, we drove to see a young Bloodhound that lived blocks away from my parents in Appleton.

Then we turned around and headed back home so I could be back to work that night. If we would have had enough time we would have stopped to pick up Esther on the way back, but instead we called and made arrangements for Geoff to head back and pick up baby Esther after I went to work for the night.

Esther was too little to go outside to go potty so initially we had to puppy pad train her. We also had to formula feed her around the clock. Then as she got older she didn't have appropriate puppy socialization skills so we took her to puppy classes and eventually put her in doggy daycare.

We have been absolutely mad about her from day 1. She has always been a major part of our household. She was madly loved by our other dog, Jefferson, and even our kitties. Esther was only 7 months old when E was born and she is even a part of his birth story.

 

She has always been a lover. Always. She is great with us, she is great with our kids, she is great with our zoo...About the only time she gets into trouble is when we let her come out to the barn to see Aggie, our horse...and to be fair, she only gets into trouble because she wants to play with the horses and the chickens...

When she first came home with us she was actually smaller than one of the little 6" tile squares in our master bath. We would carry her around our house in a little laundry basket. It wasn't long before that laundry basket was upgraded to a rubbermaid bin and eventually a little dog crate. Regardless, she traveled around the house with us everywhere...well, and in the car too.

In fact, I'm pretty sure the first time we left her home by herself (well, what I mean by that is...in the house without another dog) was that Christmas night in 2008. We took our other dog, Jeffy, with us so he could have time to say good-bye to Chester and all of us could comfort each other.

When she was appropriately old enough we had her spayed. She had a hard time with the anesthesia and her labs showed that she had some elevated kidney values.

Periodically, we have had another scare or reason for concern, but nothing significant. The biggest problem Esther has had is chronic ear infections. Unfortunately those ear infections have seemed to morph into something bigger and more difficult recently...Something that this week resulted in intermittent vomiting and shaking.

 So I took her to the vet clinic this morning. Our wonderful vet did a full exam and some blood work. He felt she would benefit from some IV fluids, so I left Esther at the clinic for the day.

I had clinicals and I missed my first appointment of the day to take Esther to the vet. I was frustrated, but there was no other option in my mind. On the other hand, I was amazed to find that Esther wagged her tail when we pulled into the vet clinic and she was mostly willing to go to the back room of the vet clinic when I left.

I checked in with Geoff throughout the day to see if he had any updates and it wasn't until after 5 that I got the message that the news was bad. Her kidney values were terrible. Geoff was already at the vet clinic and I headed out as soon as I could. I called and talked with our vet on the way and decided that Esther would come home with us for the weekend and I would give her subcutaneous fluids. The other options were leave her with an IV at the clinic with someone to check on her every few hours, or to send her to the emergency clinic.

In all honesty her prognosis is probably not very good. I don't even know what to think right now. She is my best buddy. She sleeps with us every night. She is always there on chemo days...really, she IS my chemo buddy. She follows me around and if it was up to me, I would take her everywhere with me. Really.

I just don't understand how to process this. Why can't this horrible black rain cloud go away? Why!?!?! *%$^$!!!! I can't emotionally afford this right now! I can't financially afford this right now! I just don't know what else to do, other than blog...and even with blogging I just can't seem to find the words to express what I need to say right now. So I'll leave you with what I can manage to choke out...

Please pray for us. Please pray for our beloved, Esther. Please pray for healing, and peace, and comfort, and whatever else you can think of. Please pray for my friend that still found the energy to run to the door and greet me when I came home tonight or has followed me from room to room since then. Please pray that somehow everything works out the way it is supposed to and that we can focus our love and attention on our friend who deserves so much more from us right now than us worrying about how we are going to pay for giving her a chance to heal. Just pray.