Beagle's Cancer

Beagle was diagnosed with cancer back in January. It started in her thyroid and has already spread to her lungs. The thyroid tumor is vascular making it impossible to remove by surgery and the cancer in her lungs is not possible to fix. This cancer is what will eventually kill my beagle.

The doctors gave her two to three months to live. It is now four months later and she is still looking about as good as she did in January. Her impending death looms over me though, and brings melancholy and fear.

I have been able to and still can make myself cry just thinking about her dying. She has slept next to me every night for the last 8 years. She follows me everywhere I go in the house. She greets me with great love and excitement every time I come home. She sits on guard outside the bathroom when I take a shower. Even now, she is sitting in my lap as I write this.

The tennis ball size tumor on her throat has begun affecting her breathing. Most of the time, she sleeps with her neck stretched as much as she can. The cancer appears to have also spread to her leg causing her a slight limp. Her spirit is strong though. She can still wail with the best beagles out there and her love for food has not waned.

There has been very little death in my life to this point. One grandfather died when I was 3 or 4. Two other grandparents died within the last ten years, and that was sad, but my grandparents are only in my life every three months or so and not known that intimately. The family dog, however, is very close and part of every day life. The first dog I was aware of, Liza, died when I was very young and I don't really know that much about it.

The second dog, Kasey, was tougher to take. Kasey was a poorly trained flea-ridden mostly cocker spaniel mutt. She had something called cocker epilepsy that caused her to often attack ferociously a room corner or sometimes people. Toward the end, her epilepsy was getting much worse to where she began attacking family members and she had many disgusting moles. In short, she became difficult to live with. She went in to the vet for a tooth problem, where it was discovered she had some kind of mouth cancer. The Vet wanted over $1,000 bucks to fix and even then it was unknown how long she would survive. Euthanasia was the best option and the Vet agreed. The Vet discussed all of this with my father over the phone. He then called my sister and I to get our approval. We complied and Kasey was put down.

It was very sad that afternoon and generally sad the following week. After a short time though, I no longer missed her. Her death was made easier by her body and condition getting worse over her final 3 or so years. And then all was easily forgotten when we got our new dog, Kelsey.

Kelsey was an awesome dog as I discussed in a previous post. She just died a couple of weeks ago. It was easy for me to take the news, because I was really only a part of Kelsey's life the last two years of high school. We grew apart when I left the house. And in her case again, she started to get run down the last couple of years. Her body started to look unhealthy and her spirit was kind of broken by the introduction of another dog in my mom's house.

And that is all the experience I've had with death. My little beagle will be on a whole different level. I got her when she was six weeks old. I let her sleep next to me in bed so she could sleep better to the sound of my heart beating. Right now, she is still cute as ever. I have no idea how her cancer will progress, and I'm frightened of it. She has depended on me for so long, and now I can do nothing for her. What horrible condition of pain and suffering will she get to, before I decide to take her for euthanasia? And then I imagine sitting next to her while the doctor gives her a shot and watching her last breath. It tears me apart to think about it. It makes me wish I never had her in the first place. Was all the joy she has brought me over the years worth the pain I'm going to feel?