this beloved dog.

Saturday, January 12, 2013


hello world. i am here today with an update on our beloved g. guinness. mister. old pal. my love. we received a call from our veterinarian on thursday night that early results of his gland removal surgery were positive for lymphoma. she was calling to tell us that guinness has cancer.

we should have been much more prepared than what we were. we were not expecting results from his surgery for 8 to 10 days after the surgery (this was 2 days after) and we were so sure that his allergies were the underlying problem because he has suffered from them for so long. we both remained in a state of shock for most of the evening i would say. even now, these circumstances seem surreal to us. i remember having the phone on speaker with the vet.... as brian and i both sat on the bedroom floor trying to keep it together and ask the questions we could think of.... hearing guinness huff and puff at the bedroom door because he wanted in with us. that is probably most of what i remember from thursday night. we called the vet back on friday morning literally to go over everything again to make sure that we understood what she told us correctly.

he has lymphoma. guinness has cancer. we are still waiting on further test results that will tell us what strand of lymphoma he has: either B cell or T cell, T being the most aggressive. we should have these results by monday afternoon so that we can consult with our vet and determine what comes next for our little guy, the light of our lives. we have been asking a lot of questions to our vet and researching a lot in the past 24 hours... and it's hard not to get ahead of ourselves because we want to take action so badly. we hope that there is something that we can do for him in the means of treatment. anything so that we can have a little time with him yet. anything so that he is not in pain. unfortunately, a lot of what we have learned is not good and we don't know how much time we will have.

since thursday night we have not left our house. we don't plan to for the rest of the weekend either. we are just here. all three of us. being together. there has been a lot of crying. and a lot of talking. but mostly crying. i think it's what we need in order to think clearly about this at all; even a little bit. he is so innocent and so helpless and doesn't understand why we are so sad. 

what do you do when your dog is comforting you because you are crying and you are crying because your dog has cancer?

or even now as i am typing this and he is sitting right here next to me, his head laying on my lap.... we have been going through so many 'cycles' of emotions. we can just be sitting here and talking about something entirely unrelated and then one of us thinks of something and starts crying, in turn the other starts to cry, and you can see where this is going. over and over and over. it's just too hard to wrap our heads around the thought of him not being in our lives. he is all that we have. he is everything to us. i can't imagine living in our house without him. i can't imagine coming home without him to greet me. i can't imagine not kissing his face at least three times every morning before work. i can't imagine what our lives would be without him.

a lot of my feelings were angry at first. why us? guinness is only five years old. why should he be taken away from us already? God will not grant us with a child and now he is taking our dog from us?!??!! the only thing that we have?! we can't even keep our own dog?!?!! 

i do still feel this way... deep down i really do. but i am able to focus more on what i am grateful for. i am grateful for the time that we have had with him and that we have at least 'caught' this cancer, which will hopefully give us a little more. grateful that i have a chance to be with him before his life is ends. grateful that he is snoring next to me right now. grateful to be going through this with brian. there are no words. i couldn't do a single moment of this life without him next to me.

i still do not understand God's plan for us. and i don't have to like it. but i do have to trust in it, and today it is very hard to do that. but i am trying. i am trying so hard that it hurts. it hurts.

i will leave it at this for now... a ramble of emotions and feelings, i realize. but g and brian are next to me right now, and i am relishing the rest of this life that we are sharing together.



i will update here when we know more.

thank you all for your kind words, thoughts, prayers and love that you have sent our way. my sincere apologies if we have not gotten back to any of you. we have been receiving so many wonderful messages, texts, calls, tweets, etc. but have just been taking some time to ourselves for a couple of days. thank you for understanding and thank you for caring so much.

i assure you that g deserves every ounce of it. we appreciate it so.

lovechelsea

Comments

Joi said...

I don't have any words that are worthy but please know I'm praying for you guys and thinking of your sweet G. I hate this for all of you and am just so sad.

Chris | Team Sea-Squared said...

I'm so sorry you have to go through this. Just heart breaking. I'm thinking of you guys!

Anonymous said...

This is just heart breaking. I read this and cried just thinking of what it would be like to get this news about our bully. Stay strong.