New Dog

This is Zillia. A few days after I had Sadie euthanized there was a house fire a county or two over. The firefighters discovered over 30 dogs in the house. The three people who 'lived' there had basically moved onto the back porch and allowed the dogs free run of the house. The people at the shelter guess she's between 3 and 5 years old. When they brought her (and the other dogs) in she was skinny and pregnant (the pregnancy was aborted due to inbreeding). Basically none of the dogs had been out of the house in at least three years, which means that for a lot of them they'd never seen grass before. Zillia was the last of the group at the shelter. Remarkably (at least I think) she hasn't had an accident indoors yet-- though she is also doing her best to not go to the bathroom at all; and she's learning to mind her manners a bit and keep her paws on the floor; and she doesn't have a problem with being crated, which is also incredibly nice. Why she likes sleeping on the food container, which now has a blanket on it, is beyond me, but she thinks it's great; so it's now the food container/ buffer to keep cat toys from being batted under the stove/ new dog bed. Now and then Sappho, the cat, sits at the kiddie gate that's blocking the kitchen off and spies on The Beast, but she's not too happy about the addition. I brought her in when she was around 10 weeks old and was quite feral, and she always considered Sadie to be some sort of mutant mama cat, so I was hoping she'd be happy to have a new companion, but we're not there yet.

Hopefully our rag-tag little group will all learn to get along and help each other out.

Second Guessing Recent Decision

This is a bit off topic, but I didn't know where else to post it, and I could use a bit of advice/ support.

I put my dog Sadie to sleep about 7 weeks ago. At the time I honestly didn't know that I'd ever get another dog. Long story short, I adopted a rescue dog this afternoon. She's 3-5 years old and spent her entire life living in a house (by which I mean she didn't set a paw outside that entire time) with over 30 other dogs. I thought I would feel better having a dog that I could help, and I knew that I was adopting a dog who would be a challenge (we're talking no previous housebreaking training at all to work with, and a fear of outside), but I wanted to take in a dog who needed a home--Sadie herself came from a shelter and it just felt like the right thing to do.

But now... there's a strange dog in my kitchen, who has no house manners at all (she's already tried to jump from a kitchen chair onto the counter), and she's growled at my poor cat, who I thought would be happy to have a new companion-- she loved Sadie and has been missing her-- but instead looks terrified, and she was already a skittish cat.

I know that there's always an adjustment period (and I certainly didn't think that I'd bring her home and by tonight we'd all be sitting on the couch together, one happy and trained family), but I'm terrified that even though I thought this was what I wanted to do, and that I was ready, that maybe I made a huge mistake. Maybe my initial impulse about not knowing that I ever wanted another dog was the right one, and the recent feeling that it would help to help another dog was wrong. There's also the thought that maybe Sadie is upset that I brought in another dog, and did it so quickly after she died. This wasn't something I ever saw happening (adopting again and so quickly-- just a few weeks ago I was saying that I wasn't ready), but I did think about this-- I accidentally stumbled on her, and couldn't put her out of my mind, and spent a couple of weeks thinking about whether I really wanted to adopt her, how hard it would be to train her, how soon it was after Sadie's death, etc., and I honestly thought that it was the right choice.

Iwant this to work, but suddenly I'm panicking.

How Do You Know How You're Doing?

This is going to be long, so I apologize now .

Originally I posted on the sickness board. My dog—Sadie, a beagle mix (she looked like a ‘supersize’ purebred and I always joked that the ‘mix’ was part garbage disposal, part vacuum cleaner, and part bottom feeding fish); I’m not entirely certain of her age; I adopted her from a shelter 5 ½ years ago, and her paperwork said she was 5-6 yrs. old then, but I’ve learned that the shelter tends to regularly underage their dogs to give them a better chance of being adopted as quickly as possible-- had just been diagnosed with transitional cell carcinoma, given a prognosis of 6 mos. to a year, and I wanted to see what kind of experience people may have had with chemo in this type of case. After my first post, things unexpectedly changed and I went from what I thought was a side effect of an anti-cancer med. and what already seemed like a prognosis that was too short, to what was most likely a bleeding tumor and a couple of days. I’m just going to cut and paste from there to this board:

Feb 5: Thanks for the concern and the links. I've decided to try the chemo for a session or two to see how Sadie does and then decide if it's worth it to go the full course. Right now the main concern is that she's started to vomit and defecate blood as a result of the piroxicam. The vet is going to prescribe something to try to protect her GI tract from the effects of the med. They caught the cancer early enough that there's a good chance that the prognosis may be for a year, but given how agressive it is that may be optimistic. Especially if it turns out that she can't stay on the piroxicam. At that point I think it's down to 6 mos. at the best. It's not an easy thing-- I wish I knew what she wanted me to do, or not do, for her.
Feb. 7: She's now anemic enough that a blood transfusion is necessary. They also found a new mass this morning. Even if they manage to stabilize her the mass will have to be dealt with, and if it's contributing to the bleeding, or doing all the bleeding, then a transfusion isn't going to help. I'm afraid that she's not going to come home.
Feb 8: I found out this morning that the transfusion didn't work and her blood count had dropped again. Since it wasn't the piroxicam, at least alone, causing the bleeding the only way to figure out what was bleeding would have been surgery. But the only way to operate was if her blood count was higher. The only alternative left was to put her to sleep; so I went in and said my good byes and rubbed her stomach while she died.

I want to thank Qorquis Dad and JenniferLynn (ironically, your thread is what turned up in a search I was doing and led me here in the first place; and it’s helped to watch you get through this), for taking the time to reply to my original posts—it meant a lot to me.

Since then I’ve posted a couple of responses to other people’s threads here when they’ve said something that seemed to speak directly to me (the day I read Kim’s post about the tail wagging and guilt I’d been thinking all day about watching my own Sade’s tail wag that morning and how I felt like I’d betrayed her); and Swipe mentioning a possible bleeding tumor and wanting to make sure she knew that her instinct about what that meant was a good one.

So, why I'm writing this post now. I've thought that I was handling things okay-- up days and down days, but typical given the cir%%stances. I've been trying to make sure that I don't let myself fall into a deep depression--making myself go out now and then, talk to people, interact with the world, all that. Thankfully my 'boss' was incredibly understanding, she has a 14 yr. old dog herself, and had no problem with my taking time off for the initial surgery, and then the hospitalization at the end when it became clear what was going to happen, which gave me a chance to stop and grieve and not worry about anything else. And I honestly don't feel like I'm falling apart.

But, the week after I had Sadie euthanized I was back at work (I'm a universtiy lecturer) and I overheard one of my students complainging to another student about how little teaching I've done this semester, I've cancelled three classes because of this, and how she doesn't understand how I can get away with it, and part of me still wants to tear into her because she has no idea why I cancelled, or that I had department approval; and I don't feel like I should be so bothered by her comment. And then I couldn't fasten the first two pairs of pants that I put on today, so I'm guessing that there's a tiny bit of emotional eating going on. And I've spent a lot of time here-- feels almost compulsive. And while I'm two classes down today and two more to go, getting up in front of people and speaking all day and having to be coherent and professional and completely together is taking more out of me than it usually does, and really I'd rather be at home curled up on the couch.

It doesn't help that aside from a cat, thank goodness for her, I live alone and there's no significant other in the picture, and most of my support system is out of state, meaning that I feel like I'm in this by myself. On a completely selfish front, it was so hard to go home that morning and know that there wasn't going to be anyone there to give me hug and hold me while I cried. But, the people in my life, even if not geographically close, have all been supportive and kind and sympathetic and ask me how I'm doing, so it's not like some people who feel like there isn't anyone at all who's there for them.

I'm just worried that I can feel so much like I'm handling things on the one hand, and that the down times and the crying now and then are normal and part of the process, and the healing is taking its time and working the way it needs to; but on the other hand feel like there are all these little signs that even though I think I'm doing okay, I'm not doing as well as I think, and maybe that means that I am going to completely fall apart and not even see it coming.

Is it possible to feel like what you're going through is normal grieving and part of the process and that you're getting through it the way that you need to, and then find out that you were wrong? That even though you're trying to be as open with yourself as possible and doing whatever you need to do, that you've somehow managed to burry part of it so far down that you're not dealing with it, and that's going to make it that much worse when it does surface? Or is all of this part of what's normal too?

Any thoughts, advice, suggestions, recommendations? Anything at all that anyone has to say would be appreciated.

Questions For Anyone Who's Been Through It

Hi,

Like most people, I think, I found this site while trying to find information/ help for a recently diagnosed problem in my pet. My 11 year old dog, Sadie, was just diagnosed with transitional cell carcinoma. Findng the tumor was a complete accident (she went in for something else and it showed up on the ultrasound) and at the moment she seems to be asymptomatic (i.e. no difficulty urinating, no blood in the urine, standard activity and appetite, etc). I know that this is an agressive cancer and that the average life span after diagnosis tends to be 6 mos. with only a few dogs making it to a year. My vet recommended putting her on piroxicam, and after she consulted with the other members of her practice and an oncologist she's also suggesting chemo. Most of the info. that I found on my own suggested that chemo often only helps with symptoms and doesn't really do much in terms of actual treatment; however the vets seem to think that given that the tumor was caught so early the piroxicam in conjunction with chemo could significantly improve her prognosis (we're not talking anything miraculous, but they suggested a year to 15 mos. was reasonable to expect).

I know that every case is unique and that a prognosis is at best a guess, not a guarantee, but I was wondering if anyone has experience with this and has tried chemo and what types of results you had. Sadie hates riding in the car and going to the vet, and chemo woud be every three weeks for six courses, which is a lot of stress for her if it's not going to help. Plus, I'm an adjunct college instructor and while I will do everything I can for her, after bloodwork, x-rays, an ultrasound, and surgery I'm financially tapped and while I will scrounge up the money for the chemo if it could possibly help, if it's not going to do anything I'd rather save Sadie the stress, and me the financial strain, and spend the time and money on things that I know will make her happy even if they aren't going to extend her life (quality over quantity). I want to believe that the chemo could do something, but I'm afraid that I'm holding on to an unrealistic hope. I told my vet that I'd let her know what I decide on Wed. (Sadie goes in then to have her sutures and staples removed).

Any stories and experiences people could share would be a great help-- even if only to let me know that there are others out there who've been through this.