Morning time is a frenzy around my house with four dogs who knock each other over as they race impatiently to be the first out the door. All except for one, my lab Sadie! My beautiful Sadie always takes up the rear. She’s getting older, and time is starting to catch up with her, but I also think she prefers to wait her turn so she can get in the extra petting as the others run around the yard with reckless abandon. I think that she would “hold it” all day if she could, just so she wouldn’t have to leave my side. That’s how my morning starts every day of the week, without exception.
So this morning I knew something wasn’t quite right when Sadie didn’t come trotting after the others. She didn’t spring up as quickly to go outside, and she walked down the hallway as if every bone in her body had crippled overnight. I will say that she is a bit stiff every morning, but today was different. As I looked her over closely, I noticed something that wasn’t there last night when I went to bed. It was a large fist size, squishy lump that she didn’t want me to touch, and the slightest pressure caused her to yelp. Sadie has lots of fatty tumors that though unsightly, are no cause for alarm, but this sent worry through my body, and I’ll admit I started to cry as I made a phone call to the vet.
Without going into the trip to the vet, and the visit with the vet, I’ll cut straight to the diagnosis and the words that became part of a fragmented blur. “It’s a mast cell tumor…Cancer…It needs to be removed immediately…Hopefully we caught it in time, but we won’t know until the tests come back…We’re going to take good care of your girl… Don’t worry.” And I’m thinking, “Please God, not again.”
Sadie’s in surgery. Now I’m sitting here waiting and wondering, and saying prayers for Sadie…I’m so sick of cancer!
