Beast of uninvited change
Comet has cancer. In December we noticed he was drinking a lot and peeing a lot. He'd skim a little bit off every puddle we passed, taking us on longer walks than we'd ever been so he could pee all over town. We took him to the vet, but he had no other symptoms, so we'd just keep an eye on it.
He started getting sick around Christmas, then got really sick the next week while we were stuck inside during in an ice storm. We were driving him through the snow to the vet every few days for more testing. He stopped eating his kibble, so we soaked it in water. He stopped eating that, so I'd make a little soup out of his treats with boiling water. The floor of our house was covered in bowls and plates of cold, wet food. It all smelled awful. He was sleeping for 22 hours out of the day, waking up and drinking urgently, then regurgitating water on the floor. If he ate his food we'd cheer.
I was sleeping with him downstairs on the couch at night so he could get up to use the bathroom every few hours. He'd melt holes in the ice on the back porch with his pee, then try to find a way back inside avoiding all the spots he'd already melted. His joints were stiff and his legs hurt, and I'd stand there in the doorway in my underwear, getting blasted by freezing rain, and watch him slip and fall. As we fell back to sleep I'd tell him it was okay if he needed to die tonight; if it was too hard for him to keep living, I would understand.
We were trapped in the house by 2 inches of ice, first without heat, then without electricity, with a dog who was dying, and we were always looking for signs that things were getting better: if he ate more one day than the last, or if he picked up one of his toys. Instead we had just been stepping down into worse and worse outcomes. His thirstiness was probably from a UTI, then the urinalysis was negative, then the urine culture was negative, then the blood test showed elevated blood calcium, then the ultrasound didn't find a mass on his parathyroid, then the blood test for parathyroid hormone was normal, then they found a tumor on an x-ray, then the biopsy identified it as lymphoma, then the oncologist confirmed it was the "bad kind." We learned he was drinking a lot because his blood calcium was so high; his body was leeching calcium from his bones, which made him thirsty. He was essentially peeing his bones out.
After we knew he was dying, Alyssa and I were both plumbing the depths of our grief, turning over every rock we could, trying to see if it might hurt worse than it already did. Against our will we were looking through old pictures of him as he was lying sick next to us, remembering when his life felt boundless and unending. We would take turns being the one who was handling it better than the other, and sometimes neither of us was. I kept cycling through the thoughts "this isn't fair" and "there's no reason it has to be." There's some baloney thing I saw on Twitter that a teacher said to someone's pre-school aged kid, something like "Think of your emotions as a fish. Be the pond, not the fish." It really hit me, standing in the kitchen looking at my phone and crying, and I could clearly picture "Comet is dying of cancer" as a koi fish, then it would swim away and I'd see some other fish.
Eventually he was put on steroids, we got a referral to an oncologist, and he started chemotherapy. He started eating the gross wet food we'd make for him, then started eating his kibble, then started asking to go for walks. We were so happy the first time he let out a piercing bark because he was mad at something. Chemotherapy is working, and now that he's acting like himself I have to remind myself those two weeks in a cold dark house with a dying dog were real, and we probably only have months left with Comet. I think the knowledge that he's dying is too much too carry with me every day so I just ignore it. I hope that when he does die I'll be ready for it.
For now we're just living our lives as normal, which is all Comet ever really wants. He's a very routine-driven animal, to the point that he hates when one of us stays up too late or puts our feet somewhere we usually don't put our feet. He's become a gigantic pain in the ass since steroids made him hungrier and we stopped having the heart to tell him he can't do things. At least once a day he takes us on a walk to a pet store for free treats.
When we moved in together, Alyssa wanted to get a dog and I didn't, mostly because I was imagining this grief. At that point the freshest memories I had of pets were of all of my childhood pets dying. We got Comet anyway, and I have loved him more than I ever thought I would. Every day of my life with him has been so incredibly full. There was still a part of me that was always thinking of his mortality and I was always obsessed with making sure he was healthy. I'd notice if he was limping a little, or if he didn't seem like he had an appetite. If he ate a chicken bone off the sidewalk I'd be worried sick until he passed it. Now that he actually is dying I feel completely free from that worry. He's had a bloodshot eye for like 6 months since he smacked his head on my leg when a cat scared him. I used to look at him and only see that red eyeball, but now I just see him.
A coworker's cat passed a year or so ago and they shared something heartbreaking and said "make sure you love your pets today." It's such a hard sentiment to get to penetrate someone, at least until this kind of grief hits you, so I won't bother saying that even though I feel it. If there's one thing I want to be the actual lesson from this it's to get pet insurance. We hit our maximum deductible like a week into this whole thing and we've been cruising, just paying 10% of all medical expenses. This all would be so much harder if we were paying out of pocket.