Shelby is doing amazing – just 6 weeks post-amp – what a fighter she is! I am so proud of my girl. She really lives each day and moment to the fullest and I learn more about her daily and when I didn’t I think I could be MORE in love with her, I am. She is my inspiration, my light, my everything. The good news is that she definitely seems to have relinquished her hold on my bathroom. She uses it more now as a ‘passive aggressive’ kind of sort of “F-U” to me if she wants to pout. Saturday night she was being a royal PITA (pain in the ass) and I told her to back off and she looked right at me, turned around and walked into the bathroom. I told her no and she came out and she was fine so it’s definitely apparent that the bathroom is her “go-to” place to annoy me. She sleeps each night (soundly) on her bed by my bed. She doesn’t start off on the bed and I did hear her turn around a couple of times last night. She also seems to breathe louder or heavier (or maybe she has always done that and is just a sound sleeper now).
I find myself doing it less and less each day BUT I still worry about every little thing she does and wonder if it’s the lung mets or the cancer or the amputation. Shelby is a strong-willed, fiercely independent dog and she tries to show me that daily. On our walks, she will cut corners, sometimes fall and sometimes slide and I know I could make it easier for her to force her to avoid the cracks in the road but I try not to. Now I open my front door and let her go down the stairs (as she used to) to the grass and she takes off like she’s free! Does it make me nervous? Every. Single. Time. Is she fine? Absolutely.
She plays a bit more in the evenings with me. She had chemo last week and it took a lot of out her this time. She was super sleepy, would eat and then crash (food coma) but yesterday she wanted to play and pulled out some of her toys to try and engage me. She also always has a mischievous look in her eyes when I leave for work that makes me wonder what she’s up to all day. We’ve had a couple accidents in the house but I think that was due to over feeding her veggies (she was probably getting more fiber than most humans do since I eat a ton of veggies and was tossing her some extras).
She should get her mushroom therapy this week and we are eager to get started on that for the cancer. We got the all-clear from her vets to exempt her from her vaccinations due to her cancer and chemo.
We spent a great long weekend together and I try really, really hard to focus on the good and not think about what those long weekends will look like if she’s not by my side. We’ve seen a lot of our Tripawd friends lose their battles this month and it breaks my heart and it makes it all very real to me and what we are dealing with. Cancer – human or dog – is just flipping awful. It’s heartbreaking to see those posts and yet I feel a sense of responsibility to click on them, read the stories, offer our condolences and hold them in our hearts. We are all in this together. As much as we don’t all want to be a part of this “group” – this group continues to be a great source of comfort to me; through the good and the bad.
And our weekly dose of cuteness …
