The Good, The Bad, and The Teddy...

A few weeks ago I took Teddy to the vet to see if his super powers of flying through the air, and leaping bushes in a single bound, were directly related to being on too high a dose of thyroid medicine. They were.

While we were there, the vet found a lump under his lip and said, "I don't like the looks of this." She then went on to talk about how dogs at this age,"Go like Dominoes, one right after the other." I almost punched her. She wanted to biopsy the lump, and started talking about x-rays, jaw surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation. This, to me, was out of the question. I wasn't going to put Ted through that.

A few days ago the lump became infected and began to bleed. I took him to the same place we have taken our other two dogs for cancer surgeries. While the vet told me Ted's options (all of them involving expensive, invasive surgeries) I burst into tears and said,"We had a splenectomy for Lummi here and she died twenty-nine days later!" I think I was having some sort of post traumatic stress at this place. It was the same room, the same doctor, (He also removed several cancerous lumps from Moses) and the same bad news. At the time of Lummi's surgery they had said to us, either you operate, or she dies. We had them do the surgery, and less than a month later we watched another vet inject her with the drug that would stop her heart.

It seems that I am going to need your advice about coping skills. I know this place is a sad place, there are gigantic boxes of Kleenex in every room for a reason, but still, I should be able to keep it together.

Ted's lump had to come off. They took a huge wedge of his lip off, and are sending it to be biopsied. I am hopeful, that by removing it, we have bought The Ted some time. I am also hopeful that he never, ever looks at me the way he looked at me yesterday. He was furious, and so sad.

A few days before this happened, I opened my laptop to find tickets to see this guy. Steven surprised me, and we had planned to go last night. Since the Ted was in full recovery mode, we didn't want to leave him alone. We offered the tickets, along with babysitting to our friends. We were going to be home anyway. No one wanted the tickets, someone wanted the babysitting...



Abe tried to cheer Ted up by showing him his favorite Lisa Loeb video. You know the dog is in a bad way if Abe Rooney can't cheer him up.


Abe Rooney is serotonin in a pair of Stride Rites.


Later, a stranger from Silverlake came by with his friend to take us up on the tickets. (Yay Craigslist). They thanked us for the free show, and gave us a bottle of wine.

Not even Abe Rooney could make me feel better about the possibility of losing another dog. I know that some of you out there really understand this. These dogs, maybe they mean more to us than they should.

They are both so good with kids too.

I want them to be good with our kids.