So, when my baby 13 year old shih tzu was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma in her jaw, there was almost nothing out there to help guide me in my decisions. Nothing. Had no one gone through this before? Had no vet written about this? I was at a loss. The vet coldly told me that Greta, my shih tzu was older so I could always put her down. I was offended and almost freaked out all over the walls of the tiny exam room. How dare you be so insensitive to suggest that? Of course I knew that was an alternative, but in my fragile state, I wanted to strike her and hard. This was my child, you imbecile. Tell me my options before even say that I could just cut her life short.
We opted for surgery. It was a removal of part of her jaw. Many dogs had gotten by just fine after this surgery. During the surgery, they called and said that it had spread and that it would be almost all of her lower jaw to be removed. We gave the ok. We had a hard time after the surgery. She looked so different and was in pain from the surgery. Why was there not more out there to tell me how to deal with this? The cancer specialist/surgeon had not prepared me at all. Their suggestions on how to care for her were way off. We found our way and finally got through it after figuring out what Greta needed. After a week, Greta was happy and eating. Thank god. We had had so many bottles of wine trying to figure out if we had done the right thing that night we brought her home. I finally had found a happy rhythm of how to feed her, clean her and make her happy. I had no guidance but my strong will to make sure my baby was happy and adjusting.
After this period of recovery and adjustment, I wrote a long piece online about my experience. It was sharing how I decided to have the surgery, how I cared for her, and how I found a way to feed her and make her happy. I posted this into a site. I wanted to put this out there for anyone going through this hardship. Since then I have had 12 responses thanking me for my story. The responses were from people who had questions and wanted my input. My husband even spoke to someone on the phone who was struggling with this possibility and needed our input. I am truly touched by every email thanking me for sharing and telling me how it helped them through a tough time or how my story helped them find a way to feed their animal when he would not eat. I saw how much we needed each other. We need people to share their different stories online so that we may find our way in difficult times.
If you have gone through something where you learned some lesson, share it. It will help more than you know. Thank god for the internet. Use it to reach out. What do you do when you are diagnosed or find out that a certain situation is staring you in the face? You google it. Be the voice of experience for someone. You never know when you will need this online community to help you through a new and difficult time.
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written in 2007
Do you ever feel sometimes that you are marked? This year has been brutal. I have had four major losses and wonder when life is going to let me breathe. I wonder if anyone else feels like that. Don’t get me wrong. I have been blessed. I really have. I have an amazing family and I was lucky enough to find an out-of-this-world love at an early age. So I do not take these things for granted. Not in the least. But life has really shown itself to be a struggle in the last 7 years or more.
Life is bittersweet. That is what I have said, but now I am really living it. You seem to get the idea, growing up, that life has a certain path and anything is possible. You know that if you follow your dreams and do what everyone else has done then you will be happy. It seemed so simple then. You were young and full of confidence and cockiness. I think I felt this way until my later 20’s. This is when I started learning life’s harder lessons.
I was angry at life and bitter. But then we moved on with hope and happiness after every hardship. That is how we are. We have each other and we always find a way to be happy and find our next goal in life. I know, now, that there are no promises in life. You have to carve out your happiness. You have to create those great times. The hard ones will come on their own. I guess this makes life all the more richer. I am thankful for love. Love of family, love of my husband, love of my animals. The connection with people and those emotions are everything in this life. Know that.
I am here to talk about what I see and experience. This is a recount of the amazing times and the truly hard times. It is all worth it. However, finding that there are not necessarily any balances in place in life…it is truly an unknown journey. I am constantly recalculating the ways that I can find to cope with the struggles as I push my way to all of the joy that is there to be relished. I want my life to be grand. I want to not be overwhelmed by the setbacks. This is my pursuit of life, love and happiness.
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