The ups n downs of life – this is the ride. Surfing over, and through, that dreaded word - “cancer.” (Part 4/finale)

Part 4 of “The Elephant in the room” mini series

Now, after surgery, banging around the house with a Cone Of Shame, doxie Doodle’s eyes are a little less glisteny. The indignity!

Cone no mo! Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDairy.org

But, cone is good – it helps protect those eight angry black stitches on Doodle’s head. Those pesky, annoying, scratchy itchy stitches…

Wieners are thin-skinned anyway, with tiny, pointy faces. They’re almost all nose and some eyes and there’s not a lot of hair or skin (or maybe even excess brains) left for a comb-over for the hole she cut.

Our lady vet must have run out of room. Some of his charismatic doxie forehead wrinkles got removed in the process.

It was a face-lift, like his eyebrows were raised all the time, exclaiming “WHASSUP, DUDE?!”

Normally, aren’t we all up for a little face-lift in middle age?

But it’s really weird on a middle-aged doxie.

I didn’t shoot a lot of pictures of his bad side until it was OK. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

I didn’t shoot a lot of photos during this time of our lives.

I waited until emancipation day – the day the cone came off – to resume my normal hundred-plus--dog-pictures-per-week habit.

It was the right thing to do.

We have a dog blog but the cone of indignity was plenty to deal with. You know, doggie HIPPA and all.

My baby doxie a year after surgery. From his good side. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDairy.org

His head zipper slowly melted, from angry raised red skin, to flat, bald scalp.

I clipped the stitches out myself with tools from my own personal disasters.

Doodle was a rather patient patient, which is so unlike the humans of my family.

Another eight stitches swam beneath the surface of his little forehead, and they’d dissolve on their own in another month, vet lady said.

I can’t breathe until biopsy results come back.

I can’t breathe, just thinking about it.

The elephant on his head.

In the room.

The surgery.

How quickly things can change.

Fear.

The Big C.

Doodle, Christmas 2017, after flying with me to his grandpa and grandma’s. Here, living with the shadow of cancer - before elephant surgery. Photo: Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

Before that bad year, it was four surf dogs on board - including me. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

Phone call, please don't take me back to last year when my old blind dog, Dude, got sick and never recovered.  

I miss my Dude, surfing life, and surfing waves with our Surf Dog Diaries family.

Even after losing one eye, then two.

Surfing with glaucoma. Cancer. And Alzheimer’s.

I miss my Elvis, proud basset nose rider on my surfboard. Seeing Eye dog for his blind brother. And me.

Since that crappy year of dog disasters, we’re still trying to find our Mojo, Doodle and I.  

Trying to act like the house isn’t painfully empty of another 40 toes, tap dancing when the food bowl calls.

Surfing with one dog, not three.

But after the adjustment period, the grieving and the trying-to-act-normal-again, I think Doodle is secretly happy to earn the top dog spot.

He lived in the shadow of the basset boys.  

He has now expanded to fill the void.

He shows me the way through grief – without blinking a stitched-up eye.

Now, no more fast-growing tumor that threatened to take over his head, and our lives, secretly ruining Christmas.

No more elephants.

His or mine. 

Doodle’s only seven and a half - 49 in dog years. Too young for cancer.

Right?

My sweet son. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

RING, RING! 

The dreaded vet call came today.

Biopsy results.

Heart in throat moments until the vet spoke….

“A sebaceous adenoma, nothing to worry about. Should not recur or grow back. It’s all good news!”

But I read up on it –

“Adenomas are a cutaneous condition characterized by a slow-growing tumor usually presenting as a pink, flesh-colored, or yellow nodule”.

Hmm, that’s weird, I thought the elephant on his head was grey….

And Doodle’s tumor grew from zero to one-half-inch in less than a month, which is both fast and huge on a four-inch doxie brain.

His tumor was also not slow growing. What does that mean?

Google said, “Adenomas are not significant on their own, however may be associated with a genetic condition that predisposes individuals to cancer and particularly colorectal cancer.”

Which begs the question; do they do doxie colonoscopies these days?

OK. So we’re back to fake normal. Totally inappropriate thoughts.

Whew!

A couple of years ago, the biopsy wasn’t so rosy for my blind dog Dude.

He had bad cancer that spread.

Still, we cheated death until the very end.

He never stopped living.

We stole another two years out of his cancer’s life.

My brave little doxie walks the plank of life…. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

THE MORAL OF OUR STORY IS THIS:

NO MATTER WHAT THE DIAGNOSIS –

WE’RE IN IT TOGETHER.

DON’T LET FEAR STOP LIFE.

OR DRIVE LIFE.

SURF THAT BIOPSY INSTEAD.

-The end-

Just a little nip/tuck facelift on my doxie. The elephant is gone. A true story, Part 3

In the first two episodes, I discover a fast growing tumor (the elephant) on my doxie’s head, at Christmas. After denial, we’re headed to surgery. We don’t know if it’s malignant.

Brain surgery on my baby.

It was yesterday.

But the lobotomy was really mine.

It happened in the O.R. of an OR country vet.

It might as well have been Hollywood – the end result was a Nip, Tuck on Doodle’s melon. His dog face. His brain.

Just a little face-lift. On my boy toy doxie.

He came home, shaking. Poor baby was fragile. He had hollow eyes and looked like he’d seen the devil.

Glistening eyes guy (my nickname for him, when I adopted him at the shelter) was on the edge of resignation.

OWWW!!!! Poor baby! Brain zipper healing, but hard to look at. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

One eye was sort of square shaped, not round. Not liquid lava. Not his usual sparkle face.

He didn’t want to drink water.

None of the usual swagger.

That “I own the world” attitude, shriveled.

His sweet little red carpet face was scarred, with big, black stitches taking up half of his forehead, which altogether measured maybe four inches tops, on his biggest brain day.

The square eye was only half open and the good eye, sagging. Gone was the light.

But then he saw me, square eye and all.

All nose, tiny forehead. Not a great set up for forehead surgery. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

He bounded down the hall

(well, at least those last ten feet) at the vet’s…

… like a greyhound…

…. and my eyes lit up, too…

… arms wide open….

… running to each other…

… like a slow motion movie scene...

… those… last… ten… feet… before….

REUNITED – AND IT FEELS SO GOOD!!!!!

And it was…

“SO, WAY BETTER THAN WHEN YOU COME HOME FROM WORK!”

… like that Cone wasn’t there and the head zipper was no big deal and nothing had ever happened back there behind that lobby door, down the dark hallway, in the OR O.R., under anesthesia.

I picked him up, like a fragile newborn (so, not my norm.) Usually it’s….

Get yer butt up here right now, my little rug rat!

Smother mother.

But Mother Theresa, that thankfully I was instead, cradled him gently in her arms.

It was the longest eight hours… in history…

…between the time I dropped Doodle off…

… and that longest day…

… that day I worried and paced.

Finally, late afternoon the vet called…

“It went well. He’s groggy, but he’ll be ready for pick up at 5:30.”

… Another eternity…. hours and minutes and seconds… and split seconds later until…

REUNITED – AND IT FEELS SO GOOD!!!!!

It was a black hole of time and worry and nervous energy and angst and irrational thinking.

Hopefully I didn’t balance any checkbooks during that time, or write important dossiers on world peace.

And of course, not a wink last night.

Fits and starts, for the last few weeks, since I booked the surgery.

I was so afraid to hurt my little zipper head, but I needed to share our heartbeats, chest to chest, like puppies.

In a lobby full of people.

Hey, they’re dog moms and dads. They know.

But it was such an intimate moment; ideally no one’s watching.

I pressed him close (OK, maybe I crushed him to me…)

I was there for him.

He was there for me.

One big, long moment of silence.

Time stood still.

With so much to say, in so few words.

As only a dog can do.

While I paid about a thousand bucks to bust him out of that happy/sad, awful/hopeful place.

Dearly departed Elvis at the vets. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

That place that could change his life, his fate, his future.

And mine.

So easily.

Nice people. I am SO THANKFUL they are there.

But it’s a dirty little secret that all vets know; that I learned working at a zoo – animals don’t like, or trust, their vet.

Avoid, hide, avoid, hide!

This is not their happy place. Or yours.

Twin bassets Elvis n Dude with double donuts. The new cone, with less shame. But it only works when you don’t have a head injury. Doodle here is working on his therapy dog skills a few years ago. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

Shame and cones and please make it stop

Doodle needed pain pills four times a day. I hoped he wouldn’t become an addict - there are some holic tendencies in our genes.

Now, antibiotics were urgent, too.

He couldn’t go outside, he couldn’t get wet or dirty.

What does a dog do, without wet and dirty?

A dog that lives to surf with me, that can’t get wet?

Heck, I can’t live without getting dirty. Isn’t that the whole point? Hence my surf spinster lifestyle, surfing with dogs, well into my 50’s. When normal people know better.

In the surgery scuffle, Doodle had dental work, too.

Poor baby had a front tooth pulled. He couldn’t chew.

I had to feed him soft food, like a geezer.

Might as well add a diaper while we’re at it.

The indignity of it all.

Speaking of…. The Cone of Shame. Closing in, like a vice – squeezing down on your joy, your independence, your ego, and your happy-go-lucky-doggie-attitude.

Your ability to cope.

To surf. Anything. Everything.

Doodle’s brothers Dude and Elvis a few years back after they had tandem surgeries. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

Dudes and Cones

No dog I ever knew, not even my Dude, the Dog of Dignity Despite Dire – could handle the Cone Of Shame.

Dude took losing eyes and other body parts in stride and I have never met a braver soul.

But that Cone deeply pissed him off.

Which was how I knew he’d come back after surgery. Getting pissed off at a cone makes perfect sense.

Poor baby Doodle was barely holding on. Post anesthesia, my stud muffin doxie that normally owns the surfboard, was fragile and listless.

It hurt to look at him.

My Doodle, apres brain surgery. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

I hand fed him food and pain pills.

He shook violently, even under heavy covers.

I flattened him against my body and my heat filled him up and my heartbeat ticked along with his.

Tia, the cat, flattened right in there too, purring.

Heartbeat syncing up, 3:1.

Her fuzzy fur coated one side of the doxie. I was the other half. After about an hour, my soft-oozy-white-middle-of-the-Oreo-cookie baby dog finally fell asleep.

We curled up and stayed in bed and watched bad TV - murder mysteries on desert islands, secret life of pets, sappy romances.

And we spooned up together like it was good TV and all that bad stuff in the real world couldn’t get in. Like bed was our safe place. Home.

It was nothing but that torrential Oregon rain and grey of January and that bad stuff was laughable on TV -- far, far away; outside the warm and fogged-up windows. Spooned up with this tiny dog of mine and an obese cat and this big ‘ol Cone that we all tried to ignore, like the elephant in the room.

And the laptop that lived in bed with us and our other bff was there, spooning with us too - Netflix.

Old Blue, our creaky historic farmhouse, sheltered us from the storm.

We could hear our quail friends, calling outside. Just like normal.

Vet lady’s post-op instructions said food and water in small amounts after anesthesia and fasting. Soft food only, every few hours. Feed, wait 30 minutes or more, then feed just a little more. Do not give a full meal.

We started with a handful. He wasn’t fooled. He knew I was short changing him. For once, I didn’t cave, because I am his mom and I need to care for him when he can’t care for himself.

So we snuggled up and waited an hour. Then he got just a little more baby food, and he gulped down the antibiotic in a smoky pill pocket. And we rolled back to bed and he was out for good.

I drank a lot of wine for medicinal purposes and was so glad he finally checked out and slept the night away. All three of us did.

Doxie expandable

The vet had a hard time getting Doodle under. I know that feeling, it’s his special gift. Sparkle of joy. Life force energy. Way outweighs the dinky doxie.

When he first started traveling with me, carryon bag style on airplanes, I tried every pill they had to chill him out – anti anxiety medicines, mellow yellow homeopathic drops, doggie downers - nothing worked. I didn’t want him out; just slower.

Finally, I tried a quarter of Elvis’s old Tramadol pain pill – and, bingo! In small amounts, so he didn’t become a stoner - a statistic in the US opioid epidemic.

Drop that cone and walk away…. Doodle’s Emancipation Day! From his good side. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

His inquisitive little brain and liquid eyes and proud barrel chest and curlicue tail usually weighs 16 pounds. But he was 18.8 at the vet’s today.

My baby is… Good God, he’s middle aged! 49 in dog years! How did that happen? Is he filling out in middle age, like the rest of us?

Did he get a little fatter this winter? Did the tumor make him gain weight? Was it too many Christmas snack sessions? Or was it my fault, after losing both bassets in one year, and spoiling my only remaining dog son?

Does Jenny Craig do doxies?

---

Life after surgery – a.k.a. three words:

BACK TO NORMAL

(whatever that is)

LIFE IS GOOD.

Brave little doxie faces his future. Walk the plank - and trust what’s at the other end. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

There’s a but…

Biopsy sample to be tested for the Big C. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

… well, everything except that nagging feeling…

… the gut-punch that won’t go away.

That terrifying ten day wait…

… to find out…

biopsy results.

- Continued- in Part 4, the finale, next week.

It's Groundhog Day! No more shadow hanging over my doxie. After surgery, the elephant in the room is gone! Part 2

A miniseries, part 2

In part 1, last week: After that year of loss, I had one dog left. My doxie, Doodle. Next thing you know, an elephant grew on his head. A fast-growing tumor. At Christmas.

So, after some denial and procrastination…

knowing full well I had to be a grown up - and actually grow up….

I had the elephant in the room surgically removed.

From my doxie’s head.

It was last January and the vet cut it off of, and out of - my dinky doxie.

My snicker doodle poodle.

Doodle with a head zipper, post surgery. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

My punkin’.

My nugget.

My long, low wiener with the thin, glossy red carpet on his back.

Glistening, expressive eyes.

The only dog I have left this year, after the worst of all my 50+ years on Planet Earth. 

Doodle is the only dog to wrap his paws around my neck, and lean in close as if to whisper some secret-something as I’m propped up in bed. I’m sipping coffee and fiddling around on the laptop, trying to wake up, trying to write our dog blog.

And then, BOOM! The magical moment – the dog kid hug!

The most wonderful way to start your day.

Life begins again.

Doxification!

The cat should be in charge.

Tia stands guard over Doodle, post surgery. Photo: (c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

Tia presides over the bed and sees those hugs – “so un couth – so un-catty! “

But she’s cool. And warm. She’s a soft and fuzzy presence in our lives.

She does the full-body crush – “just a little pressure,” but in a good way.

Her bone-shaking bass audio, the kitty vibro-purr leaf blower- passing- snow- blower- in- the- night.

She is our anchor. She took over that role after Elvis passed away.

What happened to the scaredy cat, so terrified when I brought her home from the rescue place? It took her two full years to get used to our house.

Now she’s head dudette of the family.

Maybe she would have booked the doxie brain surgery much sooner that I did.

Not, like me, bag him up and take him on a plane under the seat back to our old hometown at Christmas to visit the human family, like nothing was wrong with his head – or mine.

What am I, the middle-aged, middle child here? Non-Alpha in my own home?

Step away from the doxie.

The cat of the house is in charge.

Doodle and the cone. Looking ahead…. Photo:(c) Barb Ayers, DogDiary.org

The second elephant in the room - was mine

The other elephant, the biopsy of the first, took its toll on me while we waited to hear if that grey tough-skinned hard knob of a growth on his head – the brain elephant - was malignant.

Or had grown through his tiny skull and thin skin… into his actual grey matter.

They say, always, ALWAYS get growths removed from the head of your dog quickly – since it can so easily grow into the skull and all the good stuff beyond. I read it on the Internet, so it must be true.

I didn’t need that Internet fact in my own brain, that’s for sure. That’s why I froze.

I’m not proud of that, mind you.

In theory, I am supposed to be good in emergencies, what with the nickname Disaster Girl and all.

I am that person you, and your County, hopes you never need. Because that means the worst possible thing has happened to your community. I am Emergency Manager for Hood River County.

Which is a misnomer, really; I don’t do emergencies – only disasters.

Clearly I suck at emergencies. Not cool-headed, cool-skinned – reptilian enough.

Cops and fire guys and 911 dispatchers I work with, easily juggle DV (domestic violence,) code 3 (lights and siren) fire and police emergencies, high speed chases, meth heads and MVC’s (multi vehicle crashes) while nibbling chocolate chip cookies and texting their friends.

Not me! I am a basset. Soft and fuzzy.

But, make no mistake, I can ride the ups and downs - I am a surf dog. I managed the Hood River County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) for a month during the Eagle Creek Fire. Together with so many dedicated people, we rode that mother of a fire, until it dwindled out.

The big C… … so common in our lives. In dog life.

Why is that and can it please just stop?

Groundhog Day… the chance to start over. Will we emerge victorious?

Love so pure and easy and free, from my doxie boy. Who was, for a while, my Elephant Man.

I was crushed by doubt and fear.

I was clingy through stitches and waiting periods.

Clinging to hope.

Asking for life to go easy on us.

Praying like life depended on it. Oh, that’s right – it did.

Praying that even if it was originally malignant, the great life force in the sky would quite simply change those biopsy results, change my doxies’ fate - and return a happy ending instead.

The 2nd elephant in the room was the biopsy.

The longest 10 days in the history of the planet while I waited for that elephant to land.

Or sit and stay, like a dog. 

Or go.

That shrill phone call of dread…  from the vet.

With biopsy results.

(continued next week)