{"id":2172,"date":"2014-12-14T18:44:18","date_gmt":"2014-12-14T23:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=2172"},"modified":"2014-12-14T18:44:18","modified_gmt":"2014-12-14T23:44:18","slug":"on-the-verge-the-art-of-emotional-pragmatism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2014\/12\/14\/on-the-verge-the-art-of-emotional-pragmatism\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Verge…The Art of Emotional Pragmatism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Through<\/a><\/p>\n

In the infinity of life where I am, all is perfect, whole and complete\u2026.Louise Hay<\/p>\n

This is one of the many affirmations I say each day, but it became hard to believe this week.\u00a0 Somehow it all comes down to trust, even when the biopsy you so hoped would be negative turned out to be positive for cancer.\u00a0 That little clown of a girl has cancer, a really nasty kind that could leave her gone from us more quickly then we hoped.\u00a0 Is there any way to reconcile that in your head; is there any way to get through that?\u00a0 I believe that everything is either a blessing or a lesson.\u00a0 Which is this?<\/p>\n

The K\u00fcbler-Ross model<\/strong>, or the five stages of grief<\/strong>, is a series of emotional stages experienced when faced with impending death or death of someone. The five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ve hit them all and believe it or not I arrived at acceptance quickly with the help of some very dear people.<\/p>\n

In a conversation with our superhero vet, Dr. Lane, several things became clear.\u00a0 Chemo for this cancer is five rounds three weeks apart and is not only covered by insurance but isn\u2019t the violent reactive chemo seen so often in humans.\u00a0 A day at the vet (we\u2019ve decided to start calling it the spa) home that evening and a good sleep through the night and probably the next day.\u00a0 She won\u2019t be herself certainly but she won\u2019t be devastatingly ill either.\u00a0 That would give me time with her sister; time to begin re-socializing her to new places and new people, possibly even new dogs.<\/p>\n

\"Through<\/a><\/p>\n

The average extension of her life with chemo, I\u2019m going to repeat on average, <\/strong><\/strong>is seven months.\u00a0 I damn near fainted at that very tiny amount of time but defying average requires that cancer hasn\u2019t spread and\u00a0no cells were found in her liver (the first place it usually shows up).\u00a0 Her lungs are clear, her heart is strong and her systems are good i.e. she\u2019s got perfect poop\u2026even in recovery after surgery.\u00a0 So my little Lina has a very good chance of beating the odds in terms of time with us.\u00a0 Significant in this equation is the fact that she and Toto will be eight years old in February and the normal average (there\u2019s that word again) lifespan for these dogs is about nine or ten.<\/p>\n

So these are the facts, kinda, but what about quality of life?\u00a0 It\u2019s all about Q of L baby as Cookie used to say.\u00a0 The chances are that she will be the same as she is today until she\u2019s not and she will tell you, I know like I know like I know.\u00a0 So for instance, last Monday when she came home there was no way to get a pill in her.\u00a0 These are pain pills child you\u2019re going to be miserable without them.\u00a0 And antibiotics, I refuse to watch a dog die of sepsis\u2026do you hear me?\u00a0 She was having none of it, drooling, shaking her head doing that clucking sound trying to get the taste out of her mouth\u2026jeez.\u00a0 But I won, cause I\u2019m the mother that\u2019s why.\u00a0 One peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a multigrain sandwich round given at rapid fire every other bite going to Toto then the one with the pill to Lina\u00a0then back to Toto and continued\u00a0bites without a pill.\u00a0 Oh yes I won, make no mistake about it but the point is she had joy in eating the sandwich, comes running for it now.\u00a0\u00a0 When she eats the food goes all over, even into the water bowl, so she scours the place for the remnants and actually bobs for the nuggets in the water bowl.\u00a0 She\u2019s truly a clown to be kept around as long as we can and as long as she can.<\/p>\n

This all sounds very matter of fact but I can assure you it was an emotional train wreck.\u00a0 The not knowing and then finding out while I\u2019m on a dealer visit.\u00a0 The kindness and beautifully discreet way these colleagues left the room while I took the call was only one of the many ways I was truly blessed.\u00a0 This led to a very interesting Ordinary Legacy moment about dogs living in the moment and not being burdened with the knowledge that they will someday die.\u00a0 We should do the same, go drive that car you always wanted to, visit that country, learn to knit, stay in the moment and not worry about the terror management of dying someday.<\/p>\n

The texts and phone calls that simply said, here if you need me or just checking in or just wanted to hear your voice or how\u2019s you were timely and passionate.\u00a0 I was and am still surrounded by caring people who know exactly what to say and exactly when to say it.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong there are those people who inevitably will want to tell you their story about the time their dog\u2026..I stayed with them in the moment knowing that they weren\u2019t yet healed but in the back of my mind I\u2019m screaming shut the hell up.\u00a0 Therein lays one of the best lessons about recognizing who can be there with you and who can\u2019t and deciding what you want to do with those people.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve begun making our Christmas cookies as a way of infusing some normal around here, and is there anything better for the spirit than the smell of anise cookies filling the house?\u00a0 I can assure you there really isn\u2019t\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Through<\/a> \"Through<\/a><\/p>\n

And so we\u2019ve prepared to accept our fate and we have a plan.\u00a0 We will begin chemo sometime after Christmas and keep a watchful eye on the Q of L baby.\u00a0 We will live in those wonderful dog moments and begin to transition Toto (and me) into the inevitable life without Lina.\u00a0 We will make it about play and pictures and life not about death.\u00a0 Yes that is the lesson and the blessing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the infinity of life where I am, all is perfect, whole and complete\u2026.Louise Hay This is one of the many affirmations I say each day, but it became hard to believe this week.\u00a0 Somehow it all comes down to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[193,6],"tags":[542,544,543],"class_list":["post-2172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ordinary-pet-legacies","category-pause-points","tag-all-dogs-go-to-heaven","tag-stay-in-the-moment","tag-the-pope-says-so"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-z2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2172"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2177,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172\/revisions\/2177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}