As she grew into her sunset years, the shadow of the inevitable grew longer and longer, no matter how hard I tried to stay in blissful denial. We noticed, especially in the last couple of years, that she was starting to slow down. Her playful barks were less ferocious and we heard them less frequently. Our walks would lean more on the side of slow, peaceful meanderings through our neighborhood. But, always, she would still show some sparks of her younger self, from short bursts of energy on the sidewalks outside or with an old toy that had survived many previous bouts of catchaway.
Shortly after the new year, we found out BB had inoperable cancer. She had been having trouble keeping food and water down so we brought her in for a check up. The doctor found a mass in her belly. Although it was slow growing, it was highly vascular, attached to several other organs, and was obstructing her stomach, making it difficult to hold in more than small amounts of food and water at a time. She wasn't feeling or acting sick otherwise, just regurgitating regularly.
Through some obsessive observation and situational analysis, I realized that a routine of spaced out smaller meals and separated water times seemed to work better for her and helped keep her from getting sick. This was great, but after some time, the smaller food quantities was causing her to lose weight, so I began cooking her meals that had as much high protein, high calorie, quality fat, and nutritious foods as I could research online and find. A normal meal for her became beef or lamb, sweet potatoes, zucchini, broccoli, carrots, oatmeal or rice and quinoa, pumpkin puree, peanut butter, sardines, blueberries, maybe some organ meats (she loved those gizzies), and sometimes some cottage cheese. I even went to so far as to make her "charpoocherie" boards that she absolutely loved. Okay, maybe I loved them and she just gladly gobbled it up.
I'm sure to outside observers, all of these homecooked meals were the actions of a certifiable nut job, but I actually enjoyed our little mealtime routines. She really started doing quite well and it was nice to feel like I was caring for her in some tangible way. After a few weeks, it even started to seem like her body had somehow adjusted to the tumor, and she started being able to eat larger and larger meals again, as long as we always controlled the amount of water she drank, and was maintaining a healthy weight. It was a new routine, and we were doing great with it.
A few weeks ago, however, we noticed that she had developed this weird permanent tilt in her head. It was the end of the week, I remember. Nothing major, but it was noticeable. At first, it was almost charming, the permanent head tilt, and Schmoobs even gave her the nickname "Eileen" ("I lean," get it?) for a laugh. We figured we would just watch her over the weekend. By Monday, the head tilt had gotten worse and she was starting to act more confused and disoriented. We brought her in to her vet, afraid that she had had a stroke, but was told it was likely canine vestibular syndrome—an inner ear imbalance that affects a lot of older dogs—and probably not related to her cancer, especially since she had been doing so well for some time by that point. She was prescribed a regimen of prednisone and we had hopes that it would clear up in a few days, as is normal with the syndrome, with a follow up appointment scheduled in a couple of weeks.
A week into the prednisone, her condition hadn't improved. Actually, she seemed to be getting worse. Her head tilting was fairly extreme at this point, she seemed more and more disoriented and confused, she was wobbly on her legs, and we began having to carry her in and out of the house to go to the bathroom, and up and down from our bed to make sure she didn't stumble over and hurt herself. All this time, she was still sweet BB. Still had a very healthy appetite. Still sassy and loving in her old lady way.
