My dog Lucky has been battling cancer since last June. For the past 10 months, we have had some successes (tumor shrinking, tumor not getting any bigger) and some non-successes (tumor getting larger). More recently, we have been in the "tumor is getting bigger" category and I think I have run out of options.
Over the last ten months, there have been moments where I have felt empowered and thought we were truly going to beat this. In other moments, I have felt defeated because there isn't really a clear cut answer to "how do you get rid of cancer" - you just keep trying one thing after another after another until you get the results you are looking for. I have spent countless hours researching holistic options, trying everything I can think of to heal her from this cancer. Each time I find a new option, I am filled with hope and encouragement, certain that this will be the thing that will make the tumors go away. Sometimes they work for a while, and then for some reason unbeknownst to me, they stop working and I'm off to find the "next thing" to try. It's like throwing spaghetti noodles against the wall, waiting for one of them to stick.
This week, the reality of the situation we are in has set in a bit. I have realized that I have tried just about everything I have been able to find in the way of cancer remedies and yet her tumors continue to grow. And so I am faced with the question of "When do you stop?" When do you stop trying to fight it and accept what is.
Giving up is not something that comes easily to me. I am a very determined person by nature and it has always seemed that the more life threw at me, the harder I worked, determined to not give up, determined to get to the other side of whatever it was I was faced with . . . but given that I have, at this moment, run out of options, I am wondering if I need to move into the place of acceptance. Should I start accepting that the tumor is going to keep growing, regardless of what I do? Should I start preparing myself for the reality that cancer is going to beat us, instead of the other way around?
It is a difficult position to be in . . . I don't like the idea of giving up, yet I also know that there are probably times where no matter what we do, we aren't going to "win." The truth is that Lucky is a few months away from being 14 years old. For a German Shepherd, that is an impressive age to be. Many shepherds who haven't been faced with the health challenges that Lucky has, haven't made it to their 14th birthday. So, I wonder . . . should I just be grateful that she has lived this long and count my blessings? I have to face the fact that even if we succeeded in making the tumors go away, the reality is she may not live much longer anyway.
Thinking about these things makes me sad and kind of confused as well. I still don't know the answer to the question "When do you stop?" I try to have faith, I try to trust that if there IS another option to try, I will find it without having to work so hard. This brings up another challenge of mine . . . patience . . . I want to believe that the answers we seek will come to us, but I have a hard time waiting for the answers to come. I get filled with determination and will spend hours and hours doing research, trying to find new options for us to try.
I think that part of the motivation for that drive comes from not wanting to let Lucky down. She has entrusted me with her care and I have always wanted to do the very best for her that I could. I think about how I would feel if she passed away and a week later I found out about another cancer treatment we could have tried . . . and that thought makes me want to keep pushing forward. I don't want to give up too soon, I don't want to leave any stone unturned because I want to be the rock star of a person that Lucky thinks I am.
Speaking of Lucky . . . she's laying here at my feet while I type this. She is a happy girl, in spite of the tumors. They are making it more difficult for her to go potty and sometimes interfere with her ability to know when she has to go potty, but from what I can tell, I'm pretty sure the tumors bother me more than they bother her. She still has a great appetite, she still plays with her toys and acts goofy, she still loves it when I lay on the floor with her and scratch her belly, or just snuggle with her . . she doesn't seem to be unhappy in any way. The treatments that we keep trying have not been hard on her . . . well, there were a couple that made her throw up, so we stopped them immediately, but for the most part, everything we have tried has been gentle on her system and hasn't inhibited her from enjoying life. That was part of the promise I made to her and myself . . . I wasn't going to do anything that made her sick or interfered with her quality of life, which I why we have been approaching this from an eastern perspective instead of a western one since day one.
She isn't telling me she is ready to go. When I ask her if we should keep trying to fight this, the only thing I get from her is that she trusts me. That in itself is a beautiful thing . . . regardless of how much I struggle over whether or not I am doing the right things for her, she has placed her trust in me, she believes in me, yet it doesn't stop me from getting twisted up over this question that has been lingering in my head all week . . .
I don't know when I will move to the place of acceptance . . . as I type this, I am already thinking about going back to the internet to google some more . . to see if there is anything else I might have missed in the way of treatment options . . . so I guess I have answered my own question, at least for today. I don't think I am ready to give up trying to find more options for treating her cancer. I doubt it will make the question stop rattling around in my head but at least for tonight, I know what I will spend the evening doing . . . sitting on the computer and trying to figure out if there is anything else we can try.
And I keeping thinking about what my sweet girl keeps telling me . . . that she trusts me . . . if only I could trust myself as much as she trusts me.
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