Five Years

April 2 is my least favorite day of the year and yet April 1 seems to always get me. Maybe the impending doom is worse than the doom itself. Is that possible?

Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of Kevin's death. Five years, a half a decade, longer than we were together as a couple. A lifetime ago. It all seems like a lifetime ago, the person I was before and the person I was after. I cried more in the first few months than thought possible. To this day, if I close my eyes I can put myself right back there. I can feel what it felt like to fall to my kitchen floor, crying, unable to stand up any longer. I can remember vividly the ache in my chest, the constant dreams, the numbness that filled the gaps between tears. I lost 20 pounds in two months even though I swear I remember eating. Leaving the house took all of my strength, getting through work was exhausting. It was all a painful, messy blur.

Five years later...I think about Kevin often. I think about all the things he's missed. I think about the music he would have liked, the movies he would have told me to watch. I wonder what it would have been like to have him around when Lola was sick, when she died. Would he still be the person that I called late at night when something was bothering me? Would I still wonder if he was the love of my life?  Would we still get into fights about dumb things? Would heroin have taken away the things that made him so spectacular or would he have found a way to get and stay clean?

None of those things really matter because it's not how life worked out. Life keeps going for the people left behind and that's what happened. I'm grateful that time has dulled the pain, blurred the memories, kept moving forward.

I miss him all the time. I miss my champion, my love, my pain in the ass friend. I miss knowing that somewhere out there someone loved me the way he did. I miss so much about him. I miss not knowing the pain that was losing him.

April 2, I feel you coming and I hate you. 

So far behind

I did not do this the whole trip. There were things to see and do and eat, too many things. I could have updated it this past six days while I was alone in Bali but I didn't. There were things to see and do and eat. Really it was super rainy and I was a baby about it sometimes. The rain is nice but I like it best when I'm about to go to sleep, listening to the drops hit the roof, not when I'm hiking a volcano predawn with the promise of a spectacular sunrise. I got no sunrise. I got clouds, thick gray clouds. Sigh.

I'm sitting in the first class lounge in Kuala Lumpur, drinking a glass of wine and staring out at the planes parked at their gates. Maybe I'll upload something here eventually from my actual computer with the good photos from my camera. Maybe you'll just have to ask me about the trip in person.

When is it?

Here I sit in the Singapore airport.  I've been here for hours, maybe four of them but I have no idea what time it is so I'm not entirely sure. I'm typing this on my brand new tiny bluetooth keyboard for my brand new work gifted tablet. I've written in my travel journal a little but thought I would post something here for no one to read.

I missed my flight out of here. Some of this long day plus of travel has been super easy, some not so much. My ride to the airport was late and then I wasn't able to check in for any of my flights except for the one to Seattle, where I had to pick up my checked bag, recheck it and go through security again. I was in the TSA Pre line so it was super easy, kept my shoes on and my liquids in my bag. The one problem here was they couldn't check me in or give me boarding passes for my last two flights (yeah, I was supposed to take five flights to get to Nepal). This would prove important later.

My flight from Seattle to Tokyo was lovely. I was on a new 787 Dreamliner and boy was that thing nice. All the seats, even my coach one, were extra roomy and comfortable, the entertainment system worked and the screens were bigger than the normal screens. There was an odd gap in the center of the row that made it so I never had to leave my aisle seat to let the middle seat out. It was like heaven, only a little later than it was supposed to be so instead of being able to get my other boarding passes I had to walk briskly to my gate so I didn't miss my next flight, which was to Singapore. I tried at the gate but she couldn't help me.

That flight ended up leaving about an hour late, with us sitting on the plane that whole time. We arrived in Singapore about 45 minutes before my next flight. One of the flight attendants had moved my seat to one closer to the door so I could hopefully make it in time. I did not.

I ran as fast as I could to my gate but I didn't have a boarding pass and there were no gate agents at the Air China desk so....yeah. They said they cold maybe get me on the flight but they could make no promises that my luggage would get to Nepal. It would maybe go out the next day, a prospect that I did not look forward to. Everything in there is supposed to last me a month, plus all my warm clothes for the trek are in there. So, I missed it.

It was 2am. The United desk opens at 4, but thankfully they got there at 3:30. I chatted with a woman who teaches at an American School in Indonesia while I waited and was lucky to get on a direct flight leaving for Kathmandu at 11. So, here I am. Waiting for my flight, eating rosemary almonds and fancy chocolate, listening to Queens Of The Stone Age and starting Let The Great World Spin (I just finished Wild).

The adventure begins, just somewhat delayed.

Months later

Lola died on April 18 at about 12pm. It turned out that her cancer wasn't lymphoma but histiocytic sarcoma. She was doing pretty well until the 16th and then took a sudden and horrible turn for the worse. By the morning of the 18th it was obvious that the cancer had taken over. She had no control of her bladder and would just lay or walk and pee. She stopped eating, except for a chicken breast that Linley dragged to her from the kitchen. I was so shocked that she ate it. Dr. Andres, her oncologist, came over to do it. I was so glad that she did because I don't know how I would have gotten her to the hospital.

It was odd trying to say goodbye to her in front of someone else. She was laying in the living room and I put her head on my lap. I pet her head and belly as the drugs were injected. It was quick and peaceful, like she was sleeping. I couldn't even tell that she was gone. Carrying her out of apartment was ridiculous. Dr. Andres put her on a sheet and we carried her down the stairs but she kept folding in half almost, her head falling toward me because I was going down first. Dr. Andres felt badly about it but I told her it was fine. I wonder what my neighbors thought as we tried to get her in the backseat of the car. 

Who'd a thunk it

Three weeks ago I went hiking with my seemingly healthy six year old dog. Today, I have to give her five medications per day, feed her by hand, hold her upright for ten minutes after eating so her food will be pushed down her esophagus by gravity and put diapers on her two-three times per day. She's acting completely normal, which is so deceptive. You would never know that they've given her six months to live.

Tomorrow we go in for the second chemo treatment. It's a different drug than last week and will cost us possibly less than half of last week's treatment. She did well with the treatment but I still get nervous. I have nightmares every night, waking up several times to make sure she's ok or because my dream was so bad. My weight loss total is at about 8 pounds. I went to the doctor and got a prescription for anti-anxiety medication.

So, I'm a mess but Lola is happy and that's what matters right now. I want to make her as comfortable and loved. I mean, if this is the last half year of her life I'm going to make it an awesome one. She's my favorite thing ever and I don't know what I'll do if this treatment doesn't work, or actually only gives her six good months.

I can't imagine my life without her. We're coming up on the sixth anniversary of when Kevin and I drove to Indiana to get her and she changed our lives. She's been such a gift. 

ups and downs

I'm sitting here looking at my dog, who's kind of doped up from the needle biopsy she has today. She's wearing a diaper, her third of the evening...she peed in two so far. We just went on a walk and she acted pretty spry but she's definitely tired.

This morning I woke up at 5am to the sound of her panting. I couldn't get her to calm down. I had her get off the bed, which she had peed in her sleep, and she stopped panting but was breathing in short, shallow breaths. I immediately freaked out and brought her to the vet. We were supposed to be there at 6am anyway so it wasn't that much earlier. The tech or nurse, not so sure, took her back and measured her oxygen levels and they were great, 98%, which put me at ease. I took my bedding to work to wash the urine out of it.

The vet called around 9, said that Lola looked great and that they were waiting for the small needle aspirate results, which should show up around noon. I got called at about 2:20. The results were not definitive. When I spoke with Dr.Bowen she told me that she trusts the pathologist greatly so she believes that he couldn't get a clear picture of what we're looking at. He said it could look like mast cell tissue but he couldn't say. At this point I started to feel much better, as mast cell tumors have a much better outlook than lymphoma. Lymphoma seems to be a death sentence, be it four weeks or four years, everything I read says it will kill your dog.  Dr. Bowen wanted to do a needle biopsy so we can get a clearer picture, which involves Lola being sedated. This is a little nerve racking because her lungs aren't working to capacity with the pneumonia, but she did fine.

I left work feeling hopeful that maybe they are mast cell tumors. Those two hours were pretty nice...imaging a future with my baby again. My hopes were dashed when I got the vet (as was my wallet. yikes!). When I asked if it was maybe mast cell tumors she said that she highly doubts it, that it looks very much like lymphoma and that the mediastinal tumor definitely looks like lymphoma but they didn't take a sample since it's so close to the heart, and is why she has megaesphagus and has trouble swallowing.

So, yeah, lymphoma is not a great diagnosis, especially if it's as far along as Dr. Bowen thinks it is.

They sent me home with two pages of instructions and six medications. Since I'll be at work for the next two days, Lola will go back to the hospital so they can administer the medication at it's proper time.

Although she ate well she's been freaking me out all evening. She's very groggy from the sedative and was acting like she was in slow motion. This diaper thing is tough too....I thought I'd put it on as a precaution but she used it twice which makes me wonder if she's losing control of her bladder.

This is not supposed to be happening to my six year old baby girl. 

deep breath

Hours later, a little more calm. You kind of take it for granted, the fact that the being that you see every day, that you sleep with every night, that you plan your life around, will just be around forever. More than once this evening I got off the couch and expect to see her on her bed or sitting next to the couch. But no, empty bed, empty floor. I kept looking at the clock planning her next walk. Instead, I sit in my bed surrounded by cats who are more than happy to have a dog-free house.

It might not be cancer. It looks very much like cancer but they haven't actually tested the mass, they do that tomorrow at the oncologist when they do the in depth ultrasound. Until then, it just looks like cancer, and pneumonia and an inflamed esophagus, and an unknown mass near her heart with elevated white blood cells and depleted platelets. Until then, it looks bad but looks can be deceiving. Since there were no masses in her lungs if it is cancer we can hopefully do treatment.

She's only six. I should have many more years with her. I better have many more years with her.