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Nov. 18th, 2006 05:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oselleOne of my favorite novels is David Copperfield. Early in the story, a young David returns home from school for the winter holidays and finds that his awful stepfather and equally awful sister are away for the evening. David spends a warm evening in the familar old company of his mother, housekeeper and new baby brother. David's mother and brother are soon going to die, and David will be sent away, but of course he doesn't know this. The grown-up David who narrates the novel writes this about that evening:
"We were very happy, and that evening, as the last of its race, and destined evermore to close that volume of my life, will never pass out of my memory."
Last Sunday, Daisy and I spent a good day together. Nothing special, nothing different from all the lazy Sundays we spent together in the past six years. But she was feeling well, and content. I spent the afternoon in the kitchen whipping up some crazy organic cancer-fighting stew for her, and she sat at my feet. Then we took a nap on the couch while it rained, and she had a good dinner. When we went to bed she cuddled up and went to sleep, like always. It was a good day, but all day, that line from David Copperfield kept coming back to me, and although it was a good day it seemed to me to be the last of its race, an end to the volume of my life that I shared with Daisy.
On Monday Daisy's appetite began to wane again, along with her energy. By Wednesday (at 6:30 in the morning nonetheless) I had her back at the animal hospital. They gave her a third dose of the chemotherapy agent Elspar and sent her home, with possible plans to try a new chemo therapy called CCNU (this would be the third strategy so far -- both the Madison and MOPP protocols had failed). Elspar has always induced a good period for Daisy, usually within a couple of days of administration, so I took her home and waited for her mood and appetite to pick up.
This morning I took her back to the hospital because Daisy is neither drinking nor eating on her own. I am spoon feeding her a little babyfood just to keep her from getting too weak -- she's already so shaky that I have to carry her down to the sidewalk to pee, and she can hardly get up from a sitting position on her own.
I spoke very frankly with the doctor and we agreed that there is little point in trying CCNU and that she probably has only a week or so, if that. They gave her some sub-cutaneous fluids and sent me home with an IV bag of the same so that I can hydrate her if I have to. She was too weak to stand when I took her out of her carrier. I put her up on the couch with a heating pad and gave her a few spoonfuls of applesauce and a Tramadol (painkiller). Now she's sleeping.
I have to figure out how I'm going to do this, with Thanksgiving it'll be hard to get a vet to the house for the euthanasia, and I hope she even can last until Friday so that my sister can see her one last time when she comes down on Thursday. Also my company is moving offices this week and we're closing the issue so it'll be almost impossible for me to take any time off.
And I'm just -- just falling to pieces. I'm taking an anti-anxiety medication and that helps take the edge off but sometimes it just overwhelms me, my little girl and there's nothing I can do for her. I think about how when she was a very little puppy if I would get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, she would come and peep in the doorway just to make sure I wasn't going anywhere, how she loved to follow me around during the day and now she's going far away and all by herself, all by herself.
And I think how Daisy came into my life (just like that, I never got Daisy, she came into my life) during one of its lowest periods and everything seemed to get better after that. My little lucky star. And now she's going and all the good is going to go with her. No matter how miserable I was about everything else, Daisy was always the one good thing I had. I used to sing that song to her: "Got no diamonds/got no pearls/still I think I'm a lucky girl/I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night." That was Daisy, my sun and moon, and when I walked down the street with her, I felt lucky. Me.
And so long will I remember last Sunday, our last good day together, the last of its race, the closing of a volume that I never expected to end so soon. My dear little Daisy. My sun and moon.
"We were very happy, and that evening, as the last of its race, and destined evermore to close that volume of my life, will never pass out of my memory."
Last Sunday, Daisy and I spent a good day together. Nothing special, nothing different from all the lazy Sundays we spent together in the past six years. But she was feeling well, and content. I spent the afternoon in the kitchen whipping up some crazy organic cancer-fighting stew for her, and she sat at my feet. Then we took a nap on the couch while it rained, and she had a good dinner. When we went to bed she cuddled up and went to sleep, like always. It was a good day, but all day, that line from David Copperfield kept coming back to me, and although it was a good day it seemed to me to be the last of its race, an end to the volume of my life that I shared with Daisy.
On Monday Daisy's appetite began to wane again, along with her energy. By Wednesday (at 6:30 in the morning nonetheless) I had her back at the animal hospital. They gave her a third dose of the chemotherapy agent Elspar and sent her home, with possible plans to try a new chemo therapy called CCNU (this would be the third strategy so far -- both the Madison and MOPP protocols had failed). Elspar has always induced a good period for Daisy, usually within a couple of days of administration, so I took her home and waited for her mood and appetite to pick up.
This morning I took her back to the hospital because Daisy is neither drinking nor eating on her own. I am spoon feeding her a little babyfood just to keep her from getting too weak -- she's already so shaky that I have to carry her down to the sidewalk to pee, and she can hardly get up from a sitting position on her own.
I spoke very frankly with the doctor and we agreed that there is little point in trying CCNU and that she probably has only a week or so, if that. They gave her some sub-cutaneous fluids and sent me home with an IV bag of the same so that I can hydrate her if I have to. She was too weak to stand when I took her out of her carrier. I put her up on the couch with a heating pad and gave her a few spoonfuls of applesauce and a Tramadol (painkiller). Now she's sleeping.
I have to figure out how I'm going to do this, with Thanksgiving it'll be hard to get a vet to the house for the euthanasia, and I hope she even can last until Friday so that my sister can see her one last time when she comes down on Thursday. Also my company is moving offices this week and we're closing the issue so it'll be almost impossible for me to take any time off.
And I'm just -- just falling to pieces. I'm taking an anti-anxiety medication and that helps take the edge off but sometimes it just overwhelms me, my little girl and there's nothing I can do for her. I think about how when she was a very little puppy if I would get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, she would come and peep in the doorway just to make sure I wasn't going anywhere, how she loved to follow me around during the day and now she's going far away and all by herself, all by herself.
And I think how Daisy came into my life (just like that, I never got Daisy, she came into my life) during one of its lowest periods and everything seemed to get better after that. My little lucky star. And now she's going and all the good is going to go with her. No matter how miserable I was about everything else, Daisy was always the one good thing I had. I used to sing that song to her: "Got no diamonds/got no pearls/still I think I'm a lucky girl/I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night." That was Daisy, my sun and moon, and when I walked down the street with her, I felt lucky. Me.
And so long will I remember last Sunday, our last good day together, the last of its race, the closing of a volume that I never expected to end so soon. My dear little Daisy. My sun and moon.