a walk and a scare

carver and I went to the pond today-I was not planning on it, but he really wanted to go, and I thought we should, with the cool breeze and it not being too hot outside-god only knows how many days like this we have ahead. carver ran to the pond. we walked around "the house" which we used to do back when there actually was a house there. now it is just two plane trees in a giant fenced in area. it was the pinebrook mansion, a hotly debated piece of crumbling property that the city finally decided to tear down. we miss it. it has excellent graffiti if flying bats on the side.

anyway, carver did well. I took a bunch of pictures, but cannot find my usb cable anywhere for this tiny camera. we rested behind the house. sniffed some small dogs-only small dogs at the pond today-strange. he howled along with a fine engine.

but it was on the way back, when carver was resting and another engine flew by, when he was howling, that I heard it. a rattle, a raspy sound when he breathed deeply in to howl. it sent chills up my spine. Lung metastases are the most common with bone cancer, and without an x-ray are asymptomatic until they get bad. Carver does pant a lot, but I have been chocking it up to the heat. now I am not so sure. and I am totally unsure of how to proceed. do we get the lung x-rays, just to know? we are not going to put him through surgery again. what would knowing do? I feel scared, and sad. It is possible that it could be do to allergies-his eyes and nose have been congested, and these are not symptoms, so perhaps his lungs are clogged as well. I am going to call dr. w to see if we could try benadryl first to see if it is at all helpful.

ever since my dream the other night, I have had a sense of dread underneath all my feelings, a sense of time passing too quickly, of the days running out. I do not want to lose him and I do not want to see him suffer and I do not want to have to make any decisions. plain and simple. I want it all to go away. If carver has to die I want it to be pain free and in his sleep, along with everyone else I love and everyone else. I am just not sure how to face this.

but I want you to know, carver had a wonderful walk. he rested in the tall grass, howled and sniffed and ran and chewed sticks. he loves the pond best of all, his old stomping ground, the puppy play groups, dogs toppling over one another while their owners huddled, drinking coffee and gossiping. running away from the rangers, swimming and chasing squirrels, five minutes away from home, the place where every dog in jp ended up at one point in the day. I am so glad we went to the pond today. I am so happy to be here on the couch with him right now.