"Just don't tell her."

That's what the vet. oncologist said to me after she gave a prognosis of 1-2 months this morning. After she showed me the x-ray of Cassidy's chest. The tumor taking up all of her left lung and pushing up her heart.

I sat at the vet hospital this morning rubbing her shoulders and fighting back tears while we waited to be seen. Well meaning receptionists kept petting her and commenting on how young she looks. One tried to convince me that it's not too late to microchip her. It is. It really is too late.

I had to bite my lip until it bled. I had to think of shark week on animal planet. Anything horrifying or pain/anger inducing to overpower the sad just to get me from waiting room to private exam room.

I'd like to not tell her. But she already knows. I think my sobbing and clinging to her neck while wiping snot on her long curly ear might have given it away today. We drove home in doggie/human silence. I attempted to make a few "it will be ok" promises but she had very doubtful eyes coupled with low hanging ears. She knows.

1-2 months is far short of my hopeful self-prognosis of 4-6 months. 1-2 months passes in a blink of an eye in our household.

I read somewhere online that it helps to tell your dog her life story, chapter by chapter, before the end.
Her life story is our first 13 years as a couple.
I am having trouble getting past the part where I tell her about the sunny summer evening and her bounding leaps across the yard to meet us. So I think I'll write the story. It's more for me anyway. I might post pieces here. We'll see.

Thank you for all of the kind and loving comments. Knowing there are many people who care or who have gone through the same thing helps. It really does. The first thing I did when I got home today (after feeding Cassidy large quantities of happy-inducing peanut butter and drugs) was log on to read comments.

~A