My dogbaby, Jimi Hendrix, has a carcinoma. After a troubling bout of diarrhea that led to finding a tumor, I got confirmation tonight that he has a carcinoma at the junction of his upper and lower intestines. Tomorrow we will visit the doggie oncologist, and hopefully learn right away about his chances for being treated with success and returning to health. From there I get to make decisions.
The whole process has involved a lot of waiting. Waiting to see if an antibiotic worked, waiting for an ultrasound and biopsy, waiting for the lab results to arrive at the vet, and waiting for the vet to call me, and then waiting for the words. And heartbreak, as I reflect over the reality that the time when I lose the best cuddler, hiking companion,travel buddy, comedian, and friend I've ever known might be here. I was holding it together and staying pretty positive, since Jimi was in excellent spirits, but on Saturday, when he actually started to show signs of anemia and an awareness that all was not right with him, I slid right down into an abyss of sadness.
I know I am certainly not the first person to go through something like this, and that people certainly deal with loved ones even dearer with even more tragic problems; in fact, loss seems to be a hallmark of the human experience...but I can't imagine how. I don't know how we keep having children, or parents, or pets, or friends at all when sickness and tragedy exist. I think I've been blessed so far; though I've lost people and pets, I've never had to deal with the possibly imminent loss of someone so integrated into the fabric of my life. (Silent howl.) I was gladly ignorant to that wrinkle of humanity. For me, as much as I am sad and worried about Jimi, this also reminds me that I want to be close to my aging parents, who are separated from me by numerous states, that I need more financial power, and that I meant to have a life partner to lean on by the time things like this had to be faced. Making decisions like that will mean contemplating different kinds of losses. (Silent howl.)
This is a Miss Lady nutrition and body image blog, so I want to include some stuff about my nutrition. In the past, I've dealt with sadness by eating wildly--see Break-up Ice Cream Diet, or by eating in a nibbly and pitiful manner--see Break-up Starvation Diet. I can say that neither has good results; the former results in weight gain, pretty much immediately for me. The latter results in muscle loss, lowered metabolism, and eventual RAPID weight gain. Whatever the other side of this pain is, I know I want to reach it healthy-- with no mental or physical damage to my eatology. In the meantime, I know I want to be on fucking point for decision-making, appointment chauffering, and dogbaby advocacy. Having a broken leg taught me to absolutely be prepared for nutrition success, so I've stayed on top of stocking up on healthy items whenever I am near them and cooking ahead of time. I'm sure I'm still under-calorie and probably burning up my adrenals for a number of reasons, BUT I eat hearty portions as often as I can and load myself up with whatever veggies I can stomach. Every time I do that, I feel happy and affirmed--or I would if I didn't have a big anvil dark cloud ball of awful thingy sitting on my heart. If you didn't get slapped by that newsflash, lemme break it down for you: a white middle class southern woman, who is currently overweight, and who is me, a woman formerly lost in the forest of nutrition, has truly positive thoughts about feeding herself.
An even more important piece of the nutrition story here, is Baby Jimi's nutrition. As with my leg, I've figured out that doctors, particularly those not billing themselves as holistic, only deal with parts and illnesses. And that's fine with me...I suppose. I've not got time to radically rethink how I approach healthcare at this moment. When I broke my leg, my surgeon did the surgery stuff, and did it well, as he should. He also evaluates my x-rays, prescribes the appropriate pain pills, and helps me authorizes shit like parking placards and PT like a champion. The whole person stuff though, that was up to me. I thought about the health I needed to heal my leg, and I fed myself accordingly. My leg didn't heal all lined up because of this-- that was Dr. Smoot's doing, but ultimately I healed "ahead of the curve" and that was all me (and a good dozen or so helpful friends). What I do holistically, complements what he does allopathically. (Am I using that right?) The same has been true for Jim Jim. When they prescribe antibiotics, I replenish his GI tract with a multi-strain probiotic. When they put him on a low-fat food to help him baby tummy, I ask "what about the calories he needs to stay strong everywhere?" and work with the vet to find a diet that meets all the furry fur fur needs. I'm struck at this moment by what a journey this has been: just a few years ago, I ate entirely from boxes and had a disasterously meager set of cook skills. Now, I'm thankfully able to choose, procure, and make some pretty healthy stuff for myself and my loved pup without a second thought.
I did something for Jimi the other day that I never thought I would do, something that suddenly made me understand my own mother just a little more: I made my own chicken stock. I've previously scoffed at people who do this-- you're an American; just waste the damn bones, you overachiever! But after I roasted Jimi my first and the best whole chicken ever (turns out the extra ingredient IS love) and boiled him some rice in an almost correct fashion, and pulled the chicken from the bones, I placed them in some water, to make my own chicken stock in case he decided to forgo the toilet bowl (his fav) again and become dehydrated. Why did I do this? I mean, I had a box of organic chicken stock in the fridge. I did it for the same reason that I cooked the chicken and the rice and brought it to him in bed. I did it because I can. I can't make the cancer not be there, just like my mom can't make it so that nothing bad ever happens to me. I cook because I can.
Postscript: I'm not ready to really write about what it means to me, but an update should be here. I did all I could for him, but it didn't work out. On January 20, 2013, Baby Jimi crossed into dog heaven, the only heaven I'm really sure of.
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