Alanis's illness

I have not wanted to write about this, but it's the elephant in the room. If you don't confront it, you're stuck. During Labor Day weekend, I noticed that Alanis was panting and drinking more water than usual. Since she's an old dog, I worried that she had developed Cushing's disease. The news on May 28 was far worse; she has lymphosarcoma, also known as lymphoma. It is fatal in all dogs. Chemotherapy extends the dog's life an average of 9 to 12 months. The general lifespan for an Airedale is twelve and Alanis is now twelve-and-a-half  I opted for the palliative therapy of Prednisone. 

 What does a person say to herself? Alanis has been a healthy dog up until now; she has reached the average lifespan for an Airedale. But however old the dog, when she's ill and dying, you live every moment in tension. I hear the panting day and night. It's not labored breathing yet, just panting, a usual symptom of the disease. Supposedly she's not in pain (a friend told me to watch for a hunched back or other tension in the body) but she's clearly not comfortable. She has lost weight and grows more frail. She's still eating. In fact, she's happy to eat because she's getting cooked meals instead of kibble, but she can't metabolize the food the way she used to.

I searched for, and found, a lot of information but not the information I wanted. It's worth reading about, though, because lymphoma is the most common cancer in all dogs. I'll sum it up in a future post.