I have been so busy lately, it is hard to believe Jayson has been gone 11 days already. It is a 400 day deployment, so only 389 to go. I started a new job managing the town pool, so that has kept me very busy, and has taken all of my spare time. In some ways, I guess that is good because it has kept my mind off my husband being gone. But at the same time I feel like I am not here for my kids as much as I would like to be. I am hoping as the summer goes on, I will be able to spend less time there, and more time with the kids.
This week has been especially hard. I just found out yesterday that our beloved 3 1/2 year old, usually hyper, happy, life-loving 130 pound black lab has lymphoma. I noticed him acting differently a few days ago. I take him and our English Mastiff on a 2 mile walk each morning, and again each evening. He usually puts on about 10 miles to my 2, and one morning, I noticed he just wasn't himself. He just seemed tired, and walked slower than usual. That evening when I went to walk them again, He was behind me and I could hear him breathing hard. I turned around, and started looking him over. He had lost weight, and was breathing heavy, so I immediately went back to the house to call our vet. It was about 6:30 pm, so of course there was no one at the office. I told them I thought maybe I had an emergency, and the doctor called me back. I was afraid he had been bitten by a rattle snake, as we have them here, and he runs free much of the time. The vet told me to keep an eye on him, and make him an appointment first thing in the morning. When I took him in the next morning, they thought maybe he had pneumonia. I was to leave him there while they did blood tests and x-rayed his lungs. About an hour later, the vet called and told me I needed to take him to the next town, with a bigger more equipped office because it appeared that something was terribly wrong with him. I dropped everything and headed straight in to pick him up. They were waiting for me in Scottsbluff, NE, when I arrived with Jack, still breathing heavily. They thought maybe he had a diaphragmatic hernia, as his x-rays seemed to point toward that, so they did an emergency surgery. After his surgery the vet told me they had drained about 2 liters of fluid from his chest, and that it wasn't a hernia after all. They were now leaning toward a tumor. They said they were going to keep him for a few days while they had the fluid tested to determine exactly what we were dealing with. I cried all the way home, and really, I have been crying ever since. Yesterday the doctor confirmed that it was in fact a tumor, a very rare tumor: Mediastinal Lymphoma. And he said there is nothing they can do for him. I thought I was going to pass out. Everything seemed to get farther away from me, and I felt like my head would explode. Then I just burst into tears, and now as I sit here, I am so angry I want to scream. It just doesn't seem fair. He is such a good, sweet dog, and I need him. :(
We brought Jack home, and hope to be able to spend a few more days with him. His chest cavity will eventually refill with the fluids, he will start to have difficulty breathing again, and eventually we will have to make the decision to let him go. I asked the vet how long it would take, and he said he wasn't sure, but he gave me his card with an emergency number on it is case we needed it this weekend, so I know he doesn't have much time. This is the hardest thing I have had to deal with in a long time, and I just wish Jayson was here. I am not ready to let Jack go. I feel like my world is slowly crumbling and I have no control over anything and I hate it. I just keep hoping I will wake up, and all of this will just have been a nightmare.
