life fur real
You see , no matter how scared I was , or how much pain was in , or how miserably isolated from the rest of the world I felt , my dogs reconnected me to the life I had before I had cancer . They were what I knew would not change . They represented the things that cancer could not , and would not , take away from me . While so much of what I had worked for my whole life was being taken from me , my dogs were unchanging beacons of hope that my life would return to normal . They motivated me to be strong : to wake up when all I wanted was to sleep , to paint when all I wanted was to cry , and to work when all I wanted was to stare into space .
unpredictable abilities . You spend countless hours wondering what is going on in your own body while the world passes you by . You think to yourself that , even though everyone is texting and calling and bothering you all day and night , you are alone . You ’ re on an island . Nothing seems real and even less seems hopeful . Of course , you ’ re told to be positive . But you aren ’ t armed with , or taught , any of the necessary skills about how to be positive in this hopeless situation . Your mind races . Your body can ’ t keep up .
Your independence lasts as long as it takes for you to shower , or the few brief moments in line at the pharmacy . Eventually , you acknowledge that someone must do the grocery shopping for you . Every day the faces of other patients on your same schedule mix in with the faces of your doctors and nurses , all smiling , yet none of them even come close to making you feel any better . You beat yourself up for not being like the cancer patients you see on TV or movie screens , the ones who stay positive and make it through the nightmare stronger and better than before . You are disgusted with yourself for feeling anything other than thankful that you at least have a chance , when so many others don ’ t . You can ’ t sleep . You hate this . You hate the world . You even start to give up a little , buried beneath the pain and hopelessness .
And then your dog walks into the room .
My dogs were everything I had and the only things I really needed . When I slept past my medication time , Molly would paw my cheek until I woke up , and give me that deep grunt reminder to get up and take my meds . It ’ s the same grunt she uses to remind me to give her a bacon treat , and the same grunt I get when she needs me to stop what I am doing and pay attention to her . She would stand and watch me take each pill , as if she knew exactly what I was doing . At one point , when I was too sick to sleep in my bed , I needed to be closer to the toilet than my bedroom would allow . I took a pillow , a blanket , and Molly into my bathtub and we all slept there for a weekend . Yes , she was with me in the tub , and the boys were outside the tub , on the floor . I was thankful that I had her with me in that tub , and even more thankful that I didn ’ t need to make the trek from the bed down the hall to the tub for at least two days .
When the taste of food changed and nothing was appetizing , and my ability to swallow was nearly gone , it was Beaux who would remind me that I needed to eat . He would sit on the island in my kitchen across from me and watch as I struggled to consume whatever version of eggs I could manage , the yogurt that I hated , or the mashed potatoes that had the consistency of water . I noticed he had stopped begging ; at that point I knew I wasn ’ t eating anything anyone would desire . I was thankful that I could at least swallow those few things , and that I had a partner over lunch and dinner . Eventually , the treatment and the resulting swelling caused frequent coughing and choking . A simple cough got Kep ’ s attention , his ears perking up . If it were stronger , he
20 Life Unleashed