Our Boy Peter and his Cancer Diagnosis
One of the most difficult things to deal with as a pet parent is knowing how short our animals lives are. Before John and I went on vacation, Peter had a little cough and a limp in his leg. This wasn’t necessarily unusual, since the boy LOVES to swim and often gets water up his nose and down his throat. He also doesn’t know when to call it quits in the pool – so the limping (we thought) could have been due to his over-exuberance and not knowing when to stop. By the time John and I got back from vacation, Peter was still coughing and limping so we decided he needed to be seen by our vet. That’s when we were told something that no pet parent ever wants to hear – “he may have cancer”. After photographing a few dogs who were battling cancer, and listening to their parents talk about how hard it is to go through, we never thought we’d ever have to live through it ourselves.
Peter came to us in 2010, after we had been searching for a companion for our other dog Jamie. Since Jamie is the “boss” we knew our options were limited and we’d have to find a special pup who would be content as being “second in command”. We worked with the American Lab Rescue, and we inquired about several of their adoptable Labs. All of them were no match; either for Jamie, or because our fence was too low (apparently one was a jumper!) So when we were ready to put our search on hold, Liz from ALR said she had a guy in mind, who was coming up to Connecticut on the transport truck the following week. She told us about Peter, and that he was a sweet, submissive guy, and she thought he’d be great with Jamie. So, we decided to bring Jamie up to Peter’s foster mom’s house to meet him in person. We instantly fell in love with him, but Jamie – well, she didn’t really seem all that interested – which was good because that meant she didn’t have an issue with him.
For seven and a half years, Peter was given so much love, great food, his very own swimming pool, and lots of comfy beds throughout the house, but none of that mattered to Cancer!
Peter’s cancer was extremely fast growing. He actually had two types of cancer – Osteosarcoma in his leg and Adenocarcinoma in his lung. This explained his limping and coughing. Apparently, we were told, having two types of cancer is rare. If he only had the Osteosarcoma, we could have had his leg amputated, but since he had multiple lesions on his lung from the Adenocarcinoma, putting him through a surgery like that would have put his already week body through hell – for nothing. When we asked about chemo, the doctor said it may buy him another 3 months but that was no guarantee. So, we agonized over it, and knew that putting him through chemo wouldn’t save him in the end. We scheduled a day in November to have our vet come to the house to help him on his final journey. We all cried and cried, and told ourselves we were doing the right thing. We had friends and family come to say their final goodbyes. Then, it hit us, HE doesn’t know he has cancer! He’s still acting fine, still eating fine, walking and playing fine! Why do we have to say goodbye so soon? We asked the vet if she thought it would be ok to postpone his journey, and she thought that it was a good idea too. So, we promised to give him the best palliative care, until HE was ready to say goodbye.
Peter was with us until the day after Christmas. We had our vet come over that afternoon to help him cross over. It was one of THE hardest things I ever had to deal with in my life! He gave us so much joy and love. I truly believe this dog was my soul-mutt, and I will be forever grateful for the comfort he gave me during one of the most difficult times in my life.
I will love you always, my sweet boy.
