In the Shadows

I stood in the little herb shop today, wanting to buy some eyebright to make a soothing eye wash for Raven. She had chemo on Wednesday and now has irritated eyes, aches and pains, and seems very sad.

I'm sad too - between harrowing images of human and, yes, animal suffering on CNN and flooding into my email box, and watching Raven descend into her chemotherapeutic depression, knowing that however good my intentions, I'm responsible for subjecting her to it - I'm so sad and lost right now I hardly know how to describe it.

So when they told me they had no eyebright, I just wandered around the shop, looking at what they did have on their well-stocked shelves. Turmeric, I thought - I should buy that, I heard it's good for cancer.  I idly picked up jars of unfamiliar Ayurvedic herbs and familiar Western herbs, looking for something, anything, that would make my dog well.

And then I started to cry. Because there really is nothing in that store, or any other store, that I can buy to beat this.

I got home and she was still where she'd been five hours before. I couldn't lure her off the sofa, but she ate food from my hand. At dinnertime I made her get up, but she only staggered a few steps before sinking onto a dog bed, exhausted.

I know that chemo reactions can be violent and horrible, but after four  treatments so far, this is the first one she's had, and by any standard it's mild. Except mine, because the sadness in her eyes is killing me.

The first time she had chemo was the day she had her stitches out from the amputation. She slept through it, her head in my lap. But every subsequent time she's been less accepting, more distressed. I thought we might be faced with vomiting and diarrhea and some kind of major upheaval of her body that I could point to and say, enough. But instead it's just this sadness, this shadow in her eyes, this weakness and loss of joy.

Today I spent hours adding Hurricane Katrina pet-related stories to the news feed on one of the sites run by the company I work for, Pet Press.net. Some of the stories made me cry like a baby, dogs and cats being crudely euthanized by people trying to spare them drowning and slow starvation. A little dog scratching at the door of the bus taking his owner away. A report from a veterinarian on the scene not able to give more than the most basic care to the animals in need of so much more.

It's not that I don't like people. It's not even that I like dogs more than people. It's that I view the world through a certain kind of filter, the one that cares what happens to the world because it's the world my dogs live in. And I feel so helpless, helpless against all the things that threaten human and animal life. All the things that rip beloved animals from the arms and care of people who cherish them. All the things that implacably smash that powerful force we clinically call the "human-animal bond."

Things like hurricanes. And cancer.

Tonight Raven seems a little better. She ate her dinner, she drank some water, she batted playfully at my head when I knelt down to hug her. I thought I saw some sparkle in her eyes. I gave money again to the Red Cross and to a fund for veterinarians volunteering in the disaster zone. I flushed her eyes with sterile saline and made eggs poached in beef broth for her dinner. I knelt next to her with a water bowl, and she had a drink.

And I cried.

Comments

[Travis]

{{{{{Christie}}}}}

You have my phone number if you need to call, my dear.

Travis

[KathyF]

I'm so sorry.

[Debbie]

This made me cry. Raven is such a beautiful dog. My dog had osteosarcoma too and I know the desperation to find something, anything that would help her. You and Raven will be in my prayers.

[Nanya Black]

I reached your site seeking info about possibly aquiring a deerhound in future, and I read your comments about "Raven'. I feel so much for you in your pain. In fact I felt your tears as well. The frustration of being unable to help is extremely stressful.Thanks for sharing your overload with some of us who have been there.
Nan Black