Dog Lived (and So Will I) (6 page)

I grabbed the leash and left the exam room. Seamus followed, baying away:
We’re going home! It’s time for home! Take me home now, Mom! Let’s go home! I’d like to go home. Home is good. Also, feed me. Oh my God, feed me!! So hungry! Come on, Mom, let’s go home now! Here’s our car! We’re going home! I love home. Food is at home! AAAAAARRROOOOOOOOO!!!

I drove home, steering with one hand and rifling through my purse for tissue with the other. Tears flowed down my face, and I wiped them away again and again before giving up. I sniffed and tried to inhale deeply at the stoplight. I turned to Seamus in his crate in my backseat and petted him through the bars until the driver behind me honked. I cursed the driver in my mind.
Fuck you for not caring about anything except where you’re going! Fuck you! My dog has cancer!!
I slammed my hands down on the steering wheel.

When we got home, Seamus immediately began the hard work of pulling his stitches out with his teeth. Beginning what would become a lifetime pattern, I felt so bad for him I could not reprimand him in the slightest. I couldn’t say “no” or raise my voice to him. Instead, I tried simply explaining to him that if he continued to do that, I’d have to put that awful plastic cone collar back on his head and that would be awkward and uncomfortable. If that failed, I continued explaining, blubbering through my tears, I had doggie diapers at the ready to prevent him from chewing his rear end, and neither of us wants to go there. He stopped tearing at his stitches momentarily and instead cocked his head and looked at me expectantly. I just wanted to hold him and cry into his silky, soft puppy fur and feel sorry for both of us. He just wanted to have dinner, chomp on a few squeak toys, and chew on his rear end. It was Chris who had to put up with my crying, sniffling, and general ranting over the phone. I think I said “unfair” at least a dozen times, preceded by a few
fookin
’s without the Irish brogue.

I tried to get Seamus to sleep on my bed with me that night, but he wouldn’t. He preferred the comfort of his own bed and toys, where there was far less drama. He slept soundly, snoring loudly. I know this because I was awake listening to it all night.

I couldn’t call the veterinarian surgical oncologist until normal business hours the next day. I called at eight in the morning. They didn’t open until nine. I called at nine exactly and got a recording. I called again from work, and again, until finally I reached someone. A someone who told me the earliest available appointment was six weeks away. Six weeks! The dog could die by then.

I explained that my dog had been diagnosed with cancer. Cancer! I cried. Not surprisingly, the veterinarian oncology office did not move my dog to the front of the line of other dogs who had…right, cancer. But she did offer that there might be less of a wait at their Los Angeles office. That office was sixty miles away from me, but only ten miles from Chris. I called. They had an available appointment two weeks away. I took it. I’d drive sixty miles. I’d drive a hundred miles. Three hundred miles. I just needed my dog to be treated. I needed cancer to go away.

Seamus had two more weeks to recover from the first surgery before we’d be meeting a veterinarian surgeon discussing the possibility of a second surgery. I had two more weeks to try to wrap my head around the fact that my adorable, funny little beagle had CANCER.

I left work shortly after five in the evening. I’d been useless all day anyway. All I could think about was CANCER. The word was heavy in my brain. My puppy had CANCER. And I’d left him home, medicated, wearing a cone collar, with stitches still in his rear end. I hurried home, pulled my car quickly into my garage, jumped out, and raced into the front courtyard on my way to my front door.

Immediately, I was accosted by a yelp from behind me. And not a beagle yelp. I spun around.

“Teresa! Your dog has been barking all day. All day. It’s making me crazy! How can you leave him like this? It’s ridiculous. He barks all day, every day. I can’t take it. I. Absolutely. Can. Not. Take it. Not anymore. No more!”

My neighbor across the street, a cotton-candy blond woman in her seventies whom I’d only met once, was at my courtyard gate, and indeed it did appear my dog, or something, had driven her insane. I think I saw foam coming from her mouth.

Seamus was at my feet in an instant. And still howling.
Ohmygawd, Mom! Where have you been! It’s been terrifying here!! I’ve missed you! Get in the house! Get in the house now! Also, feed me!! Ohmygawd feed me! So hungry!! Oh, and pet me, yes, yes, pet me! Noooooooowwww!!! Must cuddle noooooooooooooowwwwwwwww!!!

I tried to calm and control my howling dervish of a beagle, while addressing my enraged neighbor and choking back my own tears. “I’m sorry. He’s recovering from surgery. And I just found out he has cancer. So I’m sure he’s a mess right now.”

While I knew the dog was unaware of his diagnosis, something did seem wrong with his emotional state, even more than normal.

“I’m sorry about that, but it’s not just recently. He howls all the time. Every day. All day long. All the time. I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t.”

I was no longer crying. I was dismayed. He howls all day long? What? Neighbor, you’ve lost your mind. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that. I haven’t had problems with him before. And often Chris is home with him during the day, so I really don’t understand how it could be every day.”

“Oh, Chris is gone a lot more than you think,” she said, eyebrows raised meaningfully.

Great. So my dog has cancer and my boyfriend is running around servicing every female in town. Well, maybe that’s why the dog was howling. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

I turned and headed through the courtyard to my front door. One glance at the doggie door and I could see what the problem was.

The cone collar was in the courtyard, right in front of the doggie door, where it had no doubt dropped when Seamus with his cone head got stuck in the opening. The door opening was not big enough for the cone to fit through. He must have barked for quite some time before eventually working himself free of the cone. He was no longer wearing cone or collar (it was attached to the cone). I thought about heading over to my neighbor’s house to explain what had happened but chose instead to focus on the dog and his stitches.

Dog diapers it will be. Although as a backup plan, doggie diapers seem flawed. Beagles are not dogs to be restrained or contained or…put in diapers. Beagles are smart, cunning dogs with intense motivation to get what they want (usually food). Beagles are very, very clever dogs.

And not surprisingly, diapers are no match for a beagle. Complicating matters, I’d bought the wrong size—and I still dispute that a beagle could be a “large,” but I’m not sure what chain of command to follow for a beagle diaper dispute. When I put the diaper on Seamus, I could only close up one side. The other side flapped open with the protruding section of adhesive tape virtually inviting him to bite it and tear the diaper from his hind end, flinging it into the middle of the living room. Or the kitchen. Or my cereal bowl. After several failed attempts with the diaper, the cone and tightened collar were returned to service. But I couldn’t risk his getting stuck in the doggie door again.

I worked from home for a few days. I alternated between drafting trusts for families concerned with the legacies they’d leave to their children and shouting, “Seamus, NO!” or “Seamus, stop!” Seamus alternated between scratching at his cone, slamming the cone (and sometimes his head) into doorjambs, and lying at my feet looking up with his wide, sad eyes begging for a reprieve or at least a doughnut. My resolve weakened by the minute. Chris came over midweek and took over Seamus-watching, although I suspect he knew I needed watching nearly as much.

Finally, the stitches dissolved and I could leave the house again. I was able to return to my office, go grocery shopping, and rejoin the human race. Seamus was able to use his doggie door unencumbered, sit comfortably, and continue his mastery of the household. We’d survived the surgery, but there was still the upcoming appointment at the Veterinarian Cancer Center. As difficult as the cone of shame had been, it was nothing compared to what lay ahead. I knew he had at least one more surgery, or, I hoped he did. I hoped they’d be able to cut the cancer out.

I found myself staring at the dog—the very healthy, hyper, happy dog—wondering how he could possibly have cancer. With the cone banished, he was fine. He was back to all his usual tricks, and he was no longer subject to any humiliations, other than his person randomly bursting into tears, cursing the gods, and hugging him embarrassingly close.

My humiliations, however, were to continue. A few days before I was to take Seamus to Los Angeles to meet with the specialist, an anonymous note was slipped into my mailbox.

Neighbors,

Your dog has been wheezing and barking for hours this evening and this is not the first time!!!!

My question to you is:

What is wrong with you “people” that you cannot take care of your dog? Why must your dog cry and cry all night without your paying any attention to it?

Shame on you!!!!!!

For subjecting your dog to endless suffering, and your neighbors to your dog’s endless barking.

Sure, I’d been a little crazed since the diagnosis, but I didn’t think my status as “people” really needed to be questioned. And the dog had not been left alone all night without any attention being paid to him. More likely the dog was outside, having freely gone there of his own volition through his doggie door, in an attempt to get away from his clingy, cloying, crying wreck of a human.

What was wrong with me? What was wrong with my dog? Well, cancer is what’s wrong, people! Cancer! But how to explain this to a neighbor who may not even like dogs? Was Seamus barking all day long? Chris and I both suspected the letter came from the same neighbor who’d greeted me at the gate in a rage. So was the dog bothering the whole neighborhood, or was he merely barking at the mailman and maybe the gardeners and perhaps even a pedestrian passing by and this neighbor had no tolerance for dogs?

I knew Seamus barked when I left, but it seemed he stopped after a few minutes. And he barked when I came home, but in an excited greeting sort of way. It had not occurred to me that he barked the entire time in between. Was that even possible? Had that just started happening because of the surgery and the stress he’d been under? When I lived in the rental condo, those neighbors never said anything about a barking problem.

Still, there were signs. Seamus had an unusually high anxiety level. I knew that. He hated to be left alone. He was vocal about my coming and going, his breakfast and dinner, and everything in between. I didn’t like the way the neighbor was handling her complaints, but much as I wanted to, I knew I couldn’t ignore them either.

With my cougar status out of the bag, my neighbors gathering pitchforks at my gate, and the holidays approaching, it was clear my holiday curse was continuing. I’d be taking Seamus for his oncology appointment and another surgery, and I’d be spending Thanksgiving with Chris’s entire family at his grandmother’s house. I hoped numbers would be on my side—surgery number two would get all of the cancer, and the sheer number of siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins at Chris’s family Thanksgiving would produce at least one ally—or maybe just someone more objectionable than me.

I put Seamus’s crate in the backseat of my car and opened the door to the crate. Seamus nimbly leaped up, walked into the crate, turned around, sat, and waited for me to close it. Once I closed the back door to my car, he barked until I was in the car with him and the car was started. Then he quieted and calmly sat looking ahead at the road through the crate for the entire drive. But when the car stopped, the barking began.
I’m back here! Take me with you! Is there food around? How about a burger? I smell burgers! Or the beach? Is that the beach? Take me with you! Come get me out! Get me! Let me outta here!! Noooooooooooooooooow!!!!

We were at the veterinarian oncology office, but Seamus didn’t know that. He just knew he wanted out of the car with me.

The Veterinary Cancer Center is housed in a modern facility in a gentrified Los Angeles suburb. The building has an open loft feeling to it, industrial with splashes of vivid colors—orange, magenta, lime green—and a green-tinted cement floor. The artwork is particularly attractive, including large black and white photographs of the doctors and their own animals. It’s as nice as a place that you never want to be can be.

The facility was also not far from Chris’s apartment, which made it easy for him to join me for the appointment. The three of us sat in the waiting room, Seamus sniffing, me sniffling, and Chris doing an admirable job of entertaining and distracting both of us.

“It’s like an art gallery in here almost, don’t you think?” he said.

“I like the photography.”

“And that painting,” he said, pointing to a large oil painting of three women having cocktails at a bistro table, with three dogs at their feet.

“Makes me think this is going to cost me a fortune.”

“I was thinking that, too.” Chris stood and got a dog biscuit from the bowl on the reception counter, which Seamus had been straining to reach. He gave the biscuit to Seamus, who swallowed it nearly whole and barked for another one. “May as well get your money’s worth,” Chris said as he reached for a second biscuit.

A vet tech in purple scrubs walked toward us.

“See-muss?”

“It’s pronounced Shay-mus,” I said as I rose to greet her.

The technician wrote at the top of Seamus’s chart in large letters SHAY-MUSS. (Later, when somebody mistakenly referred to Seamus as a she and I corrected her, she dutifully wrote “BOY” on the top of his chart.)

In the exam room, there was just enough time to observe more stylish animal-themed artwork and chairs covered in William Wegman–designed fabric before the oncologist joined us. Dr. Gilbert was probably in her thirties, with a bob haircut and wide mouth with large white teeth that I managed to see despite the fact that she didn’t smile.

“I’m Dr. Gilbert,” she said, apparently to the manila file folder, since that’s where she was looking.

“Hi, I’m Teresa,” I said, extending my hand in her general direction. She didn’t take it but turned her gaze to Chris instead.

“I’m Chris,” he said. “And this is Seamus.”

“Fine. I’ve reviewed the biopsy report, and I suppose you know this isn’t good.” She launched into a lengthy monologue of things I couldn’t understand, while my mind stayed stuck on “isn’t good.”

“The biopsy shows a right perineal mast cell tumor, and the margins are not clean. Blah, blah, blah…aggressive…blah, blah, more blah…surgery…blah, blah…difficult. Blah, blah, blah, blah…quality of life. Blah, blah, blah…chemotherapy…Blah, blah, blah…The prognosis is likely a year.”

I grabbed on to one of the few words I understood. “Chemotherapy for a dog?”

“Yes, it’s cancer; we treat it just like we would in a human. Dogs tolerate chemotherapy quite well actually.”

I wondered if the dogs thought so.

Chemotherapy seemed almost as frightening as cancer itself. I remembered my dad, when he’d worked in a hospital and later as well, often commenting that the treatment was worse than the disease. In my office, we’d had a client diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer about a year previously. She continued working throughout chemotherapy, no matter how tired or pale or bald she got. I remember wondering why on earth she would keep working. I thought I’d probably quit everything if it were me. And probably refuse the chemo, too. It was all too horrible. But this doctor was telling me dogs tolerated chemo better than humans. How much better?

“What do I need to do?” My brain was scrambling to process information, and her mannerisms weren’t helping. She continued making notes in her file and not making eye contact. She had yet to look at Seamus. I didn’t think she knew if the dog was a beagle or a Rottweiler or, for that matter, a cat.

This was her business, I supposed. And she probably needs emotional distance. But this wasn’t business to me. This was my dog. He shared my life. He was a vital part of the alphabet of my life. And I think I was still hoping there’d been some terrible mistake. A two-year-old dog could not have cancer. I needed empathy.

“You can do the surgery consult today with Dr. Tracey. We’ll get an estimate of the cost of the recommended treatment. If that’s acceptable to you, we can schedule the surgery here or in our Tustin clinic.”

“If it’s acceptable to me? Okay. Well, what other options are there?”

“Well, not everyone can afford surgery, so we try to give other options. In his case, without surgery and treatment, we would be discussing how to keep him most comfortable for the remainder of his life, for however long that might be. It would be a matter of sustaining a quality of life for the time we could.” She was without sympathy for me or the dog. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t even looked at Seamus, let alone petted him like everyone else had done. Maybe that’s how she got through her day—Rule Number One: no sympathy.

My dog is going to die. He’s two years old, and he’s going to die. I wanted to cry, but I was fighting it back. Something told me not to cry in front of this woman. Rule Number Two was probably “no crying.” I quickly replaced the urge to cry with the urge to slap her. To blame her. I couldn’t slap her, of course, so I was out of options. No crying, no slapping…and I wasn’t comprehending much either. I looked to Chris.

“Is surgery what you recommend?” Chris said.

“Yes. Absolutely. We have to do at least that,” Dr. Gilbert said to Chris. To me she said, “If you can’t afford it, we understand. Not everyone can afford the care that’s required. You just need to let me know what you want to do.”

We’d been in the room with her for all of five minutes, and she seemed to feel I was wasting her time. Was I supposed to have signed papers, given my dog anesthesia myself on the drive in, and wheel him into the surgery now? Was I allowed no time to consider options? Were there options? “I want to do whatever I need to do for him,” I said. “Just tell me what the best thing to do is. The cost isn’t the issue.” Cost was an issue, but not the issue.

“I’ll set up the surgery consult,” she said. And she left, without ever looking at Seamus. I handed him another biscuit to make up for her neglect.

Chris and Seamus and I waited alone in the exam room to meet with the surgeon for the consultation.

“I hate that doctor,” I said.

“She’s not very warm, that’s true. But it’s a hard job. Maybe she’s having a bad day. Anyway, she’s not doing the surgery.”

“Thank God for that. She’s like a bitchy sorority girl. Like we’re in rush and not everybody gets a bid. As though anybody wants to rush this kind of sorority.” I mimicked the “Well, if you can’t afford it” speech but was cut short when another doctor walked in.

The surgeon, Dr. Tracey, was a tall, thin woman with short, curly, light brown hair and a demeanor that conveyed confidence and compassion in equal measure. As soon as she entered the exam room, she sat on the floor, calling Seamus to her and pronouncing his name correctly. He gladly went to her and put his face right up to hers, sniffing her in, wagging his tail. She scratched his ears, petted his head, and only then, having won over the dog, did she address Chris and me, continuing to pet Seamus as she talked.

“Seamus is a sweetie. He reminds me of a hound I used to have. Great, great dog.” Seamus crawled into her lap and turned to face me, sitting calmly. He approved.

I exhaled, relaxing slightly. This was good. She was good—a nice contrast to Dr. Sorority Chick. If someone’s going to be operating on my dog, I wanted her thinking of a dog she had loved. I wanted her doing everything she’d do for her own loved one. I wanted her to save us both.

Dr. Tracey explained the cancer, the surgery, and the need for clear margins. A mast cell tumor is like a skin cancer and is common in some breeds, like boxers, but not beagles. Mast cell tumors can have a high survival rate, but can also be aggressive and terminal, particularly when the tumor is located in a highly vascular area, such as where Seamus’s was, which increases the risk it has metastasized. When the tumor was excised, the pathologist would check to see if there were cancer cells in the margins of the tumor—if there were, that meant cancer cells were still left behind in the body. If the margins were clear, that meant no signs of the cancer, at least at that point.

No cancer. That would be good, I thought. He might not be terminal.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve got it all. Cancer cells are extremely small and difficult to detect until there’s a mass of them. But if we aren’t seeing any cancer on the edges of the tumor, we’re at least hopeful the cancer has been removed.”

Okay, hopeful. I’d settle for hopeful. “And if it isn’t? If the margins aren’t clear, do you do another surgery?” I said.

Dr. Tracey, still sitting on the floor, petted Seamus and gave him a green dog-bone shaped cookie, which she’d pulled from the lab coat pocket he’d been sniffing. “Not in this case. I will cut as much as I can, but there’s a limit to how much we can excise because of where this tumor is. If I cut too wide, he’ll lose some bodily functions and it becomes a quality of life issue. This is a highly vascular area. It’s very delicate.” She looked directly at me. “I will do everything I can for him.”

I watched as she petted Seamus gently. I could see she cared, and in that moment I believed her. I believed in her, and I’d trust my dog to her care.

“Thank you,” I said. “When can we do the surgery?”

With Dr. Tracey’s patient assistance, we made arrangements for the surgery. For me this meant paperwork and a discussion with Chris as to whether I could skip out on the family Thanksgiving if Seamus’s recovery necessitated it. For Seamus this meant sedation, an ultrasound, a blood draw, bone marrow aspiration, and a few other pre-op procedures and tests that were not clear to me. The bill for the day: $2,035.68. And this was before the surgery.

Chris and I went to lunch and waited together, quietly for the most part, while Seamus was tested. I grabbed tissues and wiped my eyes and blew my nose, while Chris rubbed my back. I called my mom to see if she would be able to watch Seamus on Thanksgiving Day as he recovered from the surgery, if need be.

Later, on the way back home, with Seamus sleeping soundly in the backseat of my car, I asked Chris what I’d been afraid to ask Dr. Sorority Chick.

“Did she say Seamus has a year to live even if I do the surgery and chemo? Or is it a year if I do nothing?”

“I think it’s a year even with the surgery and chemo. But we can make it a really good year for him.” He reached over and rested his hand on my leg.

I cried the rest of the sixty-mile drive home.

That night Chris and I sat out in the hot tub on my back patio overlooking the city. The hot tub was our new “tub talk” locale, befitting a sleek and elegant cougar den.

“I need to do this. I know it’s crazy expensive, but I can’t just let him die,” I said.

“I know. It’s okay. I think you should do it.”

“You don’t think I’m crazy for spending that much money on a dog?”

“No. I know how much that dog means to you. And you can afford it, right?”

I wasn’t sure I could. No one gets a divorce, let alone two of them, and doesn’t see their finances take a hit. And all the traveling I’d been doing was not cheap. And I was missing work while taking the dog to his appointments. My law partnership worked on what we’d lovingly called an “eat what you kill” system. In other words, if I wasn’t working, I wasn’t earning. But I didn’t discuss my finances with Chris yet. “I think I can afford it. I don’t really know. I just know I have to try.”

“I know. He’s your baby. You know I support you both.”

“Thanks.”

We were quiet for a few moments, our legs entwined under the hot water, each of us leaned back relaxing into the soothing jet streams of bubbles.

“It’s funny, though. You’d do anything for this dog and you take really good care of him. But…” He paused and sat up, moving toward me, his hand coming to rest on my knee. “…you never wanted to have kids?”

I sat up. We’d had this conversation before. It was probably the biggest hurdle to our “is this long term?” discussions. I was maybe technically still of childbearing age physically, but I was never of a childbearing mentality. I’d been clear about that from the beginning of my relationship with Chris, as I had with my second husband. (I’d been less clear with my first husband; he, actually, probably crystallized the “no children” decision for me with his own childish behavior.) I didn’t have nor did I want children. There were a lot of reasons for this, including a long line of ancestors who did not seem to have any natural maternal instincts. I felt sure I shared that much DNA. Besides, one should not have to go searching for reasons or be talked into having kids. My biological time clock never went off. I doubt it ever even existed, let alone ticked.