Chloe Taught Us How to Live One Day at a Time
After Chloe had her surgery to remove the growth on her small intestines, we had a vet appointment to discuss the results of the pathology. The vet was very somber and said he wished he had better news. He told us that it was hemangiosarcoma and that there was a more than 99% chance that she would die within 1-3 months without chemo, and in 2-6 months with chemo, which would be awful for her, so he strongly recommended against chemo.
I was devastated when heard this news . I did not want to leave her, not even to go to work. I was worried I would come home and she would have died – alone – without me, and worse, the other dogs would be there in the house with her, and it would be horrible for them if she died and I was not there. It was not a good situation.
When my first two dogs had died, I had learned a lot about grieving, for example, how important it is and how healing it can be to cry and to let yourself experience the loss and the sadness. In those instances I worked my way through the grief and I gradually got better. With Chloe it was different. Crying did not help, it did not get better. And she was still here! And I was crying – a lot. It took a little while, but at some point it hit me: She was still here! She had survived the surgery. And – I had no way of knowing if she would be here for one month or two or three, or if I got super lucky maybe even longer. If I cried for that long my head might explode and it would be awful for the dogs. It also became very clear to me that none of us know how long we have, we could die tomorrow or 50 years from now, I could get run over by a car tomorrow and leave Chloe behind instead of her leaving me behind.
So I made a decision. I decided to enjoy every single day I would have with her, one day at a time, be that her last day or the first of many. I decided that anticipatory grief was not for me, nor is it productive, as I can not see the future. I would make her life as special as I possibly could. We played and snuggled, we went for at least one walk a day. The boys seemed to understand very clearly that they had almost lost her and heaped affection onto her. She had gone from being one of two females and one male, to being the only female with two males who were just crazy about her and she loved the hell out of it and them. She spent hours licking their heads and various other body parts, and enjoyed herself completely. She totally bloomed!
I figured out something that would turn out to be the most fun she had ever had: I bought a plastic kiddie pool and two dozen feeder fish at the pet store, the 15 cent kind people to feed their piranhas. She had an insane amount of fun fishing and would catch several fishies a day. (the vet did say she should eat more protein =)) I have never seen her that happy. She was obsessed with her pool and would be in there for hours trying to catch the little fishies. I had to make her come in when it got too hot in the middle of the day. In the morning all dogs used to race to the front door to go outside to do their business, after we got the pool, Chloe would first run to the patio door to check on her pool, and then to the front door. Another girl dog visited once and Chloe decided sharing was not for her, so she “marked” her pool by peeing in it =).
As for the vet saying she had a less than 1% chance of living 1-3 months, well he forgot to send her that memo or she just decided to be a one percenter. She lived another one and one half years, which turned out to be the happiest of her life. She she died without any evidence of hemangiosarcoma in her sweet little body according to the necropsy CSU did. She beat hemangiosarcoma! She is Super Chloe! And she dressed up as Super Chloe for the annual Halloween Party at the Golden Retriever Rescue the next year.
