new year

waking up

the time between thanksgiving and new years went by in a blur. e's family came to our home for both thanksgiving and christmas so we did not have to leave carver's side and he could be apart of the celebration. although my birth family is spread all over the country, my chosen one is close. carver has been such a big part of my sense of family for over 13 years now, so I was very happy to have us all together in our home. now we are enjoying the quiet after the holidays. I am home much more now, work having slowed down, and carver is happy for the company. every evening after our walk I spend some time lying on his bed with the length of him snuggled up close.

we live in boston, and the cold and the snow and the darkness have brought me back to that time after carver's surgery. it was such a scary time for all of us. i will never forget carver crying the whole night through when he first came home from the hospital. the terror of getting him down the stairs for the first time using a towel as a sling. his first shaky steps on three legs in the snow. now days carver can leap through the snow banks like a dolphin, although his arthritis keeps our walks very close to home, most days just walking around ours and our neighbors houses. neighborhood dogs stop by sometimes, which is always a treat. carver still loves to see a pal.

tomorrow is the one year anniversary of carver's surgery. I am blown away at how much time we have had with him, really quality time. his prognosis of surgery with no further treatment was 3-4 months, and I took that to heart. our greatest hope at the time was to have him see the spring. there have been so many times we thought we were close to the end. I remember talking to e about the fact we both felt that he would not see the end of summer. but here we are, a year later, and I can honestly say he is doing well-same old carver, digging for garbage, barking at people on the porch. begging for snacks, occasionally grabbing a branch form the ground and teasing me with it. sweetly liking my hand, sighing when he is lying close. groaning when someone rubs his ears, stretching his legs out when you scratch his feet.

I think the hardest past of this year, other than the fear and the grief of his early diagnosis, was the learning to live with the not knowing. I spent so many months seeing him as dying. it took a long time to really just be able to see him as carver. i still have moments of being overwhelmed by this, but truly none of us really know much of what will happen. If I could offer anything to anyone who is going through this now, or something similar, it would be to remind them that we really do not know, and neither does your vet or the statistics. every dog is different. in that, all we can do is love our dogs as much as possible, enjoy them and your time together.
that and get a second opinion. and listen to your heart and your dog. had we listened to the first vet, who told us we should put carver down within a week or two, we would have lost all of this time with him. I know we have been lucky, that so many other dogs have not. I have a neighbor whose dog died a few weeks after having chemo, who admitted to me that she has moments of asking herself why carver and not her dog. I do not have any answers but know I would feel the same way. we have no way of knowing. I live with the fact that the end is still coming, and that there will be a lot more to face in the coming days, months years? who knows, but it is somewhere out there in the future.

but the one thing that I DO know is that we have today. I took the day off to get caught up with the details of life, laundry, dishes, email, but a big part of the joy of four days off is knowing I have such a good stretch of time with carver. even sitting in the kitchen with carver asleep in the next room I can hear him sigh, and I know a part of his contentment is having me home. and a big part of my contentment is knowing he is in the other room, head on a pillow, body curled up and relaxed.


yawn