I don’t know how my every-other-daily blog posts turned into week-and-a-half-ly blog posts, but there you have it. Things have been slow on the home improvement front. And it’s difficult to photograph paint drying. But, I can report that I have completed the painting of the cabinet and shelves, the second coat is on the wall, and a coat of enamel paint is curing on the countertops. I finally tackled the stripe treatment that I threatened (promised) to do, even if I did simplify it a bit (for expediency as well as design – sometimes less is more). Everything is coming together nicely, and the weather improvements mean that I can open the windows while I use toxic enamel paint.

But, the title of this post has to do with my baby dog, Bec. Who is not a baby at all. She’s 12+ years old, and at her size, well, she’s elderly. But until the past couple of weeks she’s been in pretty good spirits (quite healthy, in fact). She had been exhibiting signs of labored breathing, coughing (which seemed like dry-heaving and gagging to us), and the kicker: loss of appetite. (Normally she’s a goat who would happily eat anything – we knew when she didn’t even finish her treat that she was really sick.) This past weekend, on my husband’s birthday, we decided that we should take her to the Emergency Room to see what was up. I had pretty much internet-researched myself into a frenzy and knew that something was really wrong – I just didn’t know what. After examining her, and doing some X-Rays the doctors found out that she has a large mass in her right lung, and something else that could be more tumors (or swollen lymph nodes) near her heart and esophagus. They’re pretty sure it’s cancer, but what sort is up in the air.

I know that with dogs they’re healthy until they’re not. And that the end times come rapidly. But I can tell you that I am not at all prepared to lose her, not at all happy to hear her coughing, struggling to play, and see her clearly in pain (she’s on pain killers now). This from a dog who used to run until her pads bled, who once ate an entire souvenir shark’s jaw (and had little teeth in her belly visible on an X-Ray), who as an adolescent would exercise until her back legs refused to move, who broke her toe two winters ago but still kept playing. To see her diminishing is heartbreaking. Now, there’s a chance that we’ll be able to find some sort of drug therapy to help alleviate her symptoms, to help her to keep playing, and barking, and licking us, and snoring, and just generally being insanely cute and loving, but I’m no fool. A tumor in the lungs is not good news.

*Lyrics from No Doubt’s Don’t Speak. I imagined the lyrics as if I were telling the vet to stop telling me the bad news.

Some photos of the project, since I had to keep busy to keep from freaking the dog out by continually crying all over her, and some of her from the weekend. With hopes that she’ll be with us a while longer. Enjoy. xoxo