Pass the Morphine, Cooper

I'm sitting here watching my dog list to the side, fighting the pull of the narcotics still floating through her system. She starts to lean, then catches herself, readjusts, then starts to list again. It's pretty funny. I can smile about it now because for the first time in two months I have some happy news about Coop, and not the doomsday prognosis I had feared. She had surgery this morning, a long awaited one to remove a cyst on her eyelid, but more importantly to determine what the questionable lump on her leg. She was limping a bit, and the first aspiration showed an elevated count of white blood cells in the area. The vet floated the idea of doing a biopsy, cutting into the leg to determine if it was benign or not.

Lump. White blood cells. Biopsy. That can't be good. We booked the surgery but a few days before the date, she developed a serious bout of anemia when her red blood cell count dipped down to 26. Then she lost 4 pounds in two weeks. All of it added up to only one thing in my mind. The BIG C. No one came right out and said it, but it was implied. I braced myself for the inevitability. For decisions I would have to make that I didn't want to even contemplate.

But as the shock of possibly losing the docile 45 pound canine who has been my constant companion for the past ten years ebbed a bit, and her red blood cell count bounced back to 45 and stayed there, my gut started acting up. It does that. Whenever I'm about to do something I'm not sure about. If I get real quiet and block out the voices in my head and the bleating of my heart, I can hear it. It kept telling me not to do the biopsy. The eyelid cyst still had to be removed however, so I booked her in for that. The vet suggested while she was under they do 8 - 10 deeper aspirations, see what they came up with. It would give them a better idea of what they were looking at, without cutting in to her.

She's given in now. Keeled over onto the floor by my feet. Her nose and paw are twitching as she dreams. I wonder what kind of dreams she has with all the crazy drugs they gave her.

I took her in at 7:30 this morning. The vet said she'd call between noon and 2:00. I could pick her up to go home around 4 pm. The phone rang at 11:30 am. I stared at it for a second. What if it was bad news? I picked it up. She's doing great. Came through flying colors. The lump? Just a bunch of fatty tissue. The limping, maybe a little of age-related arthritis, nothing more. No elevated white blood cells. Everything's fine. She's ready to come home. I made the return trip to the vet in just under 3 minutes. I wanted to get there before they changed their minds and gave me a different answer.

A car just pulled up next to my house. Coop jumps to her feet and lets out a warning bark. She's docile but she's protective. Stand down, Lumpy. You're off duty. You've earned some well-deserved R&R.