Living life with chemo

I am constantly humbled by Grover’s resiliency (and the resiliency of dogs in general). Grover’s white blood cell count came up just a few days late to hit the 3 week mark for chemo and is now successfully into round 2. To be honest — we hardly notice a difference, except that he wont eat kraft singles or peanut butter (which we usually hide his pills in) for about 5 days after. From our first chemo administration we learned that we have about 7-9 days before his neutrophils will drop and we need to be careful about where he goes and what germs he may encounter … so we lived up those 7 days.

I took Grover back out to our favorite hiking spot — Kamiak butte. I knew that we wouldn’t be able to climb to the top, but there is a grassy park just off the parking lot and I thought that the fresh air would do us both good. I never really knew if Grover actually liked hiking or if I liked hiking and he, as my constant companion, just went along. Well … I learned, that in fact he likes the hiking. I had to use his harness handle to physically drag all 45 kg of him off the trail that heads UP the butte. Twice. He finally took to the flat trails and at his insistence (i.e. refusing to go back) he hopped a total of 0.7 miles. Like a small child he will LITERALLY throw himself onto the ground, rolling in the grass, and refuse to get up if you try and turn him back before he thinks he is ready. Which, in this chapter of life we find hilarious and relish in his enthusiasm.

We have a met check coming in two weeks and initially I found myself “wishing it would hurry up and get here” so that I would know. So that I would know if we will qualify for the clinical trial we are hoping to get in. So that I would know if chemo was working. So that I would “know” if I could predict more time. And then, Grover reminded me to “be more dog”. Why waste these blissful 3 weeks — 21 days — 504 hours — 30,240 minutes — “hurrying up” to find out some information. Enjoy these moments. The sunsets and sunrises. The wind in his ears. His grass rolling temper tantrums. Car rides to get ice cream. Simply being together. That moment — the met check — will come regardless and  we have no control over the results. But, we can control taking advantage of the our time together now.

The wheat fields are harvested … but it’s still a beautiful view.

I have no words for this goofy boy sometimes 🙂

Author: jkopper

The lucky owner of Grover, a Great Dane, living with osteosarcoma. View all posts by jkopper