I dyed my hair purple - Coping with my dog's cancer diagnosis

For several months, our dog has been sick. It started in November right after we got back from a friend's wedding.

We came home, and the dog wouldn't eat. Three days later, her stomach was hot, like an oven, to the touch. We rushed her to the vet on Saturday, were given antibiotics, but after ten days, the cough wouldn't go away.

The vet thought it might be a drug-resistant strain of pneumonia. Another ten-day course of antibiotics.

She seemed well enough when we boarded her for Christmas break, but on New Year's Day, we got a call from our boarding/daycare place. The dog was coughing again. We were going to be home in a few days, so we said we'd take her to the vet.

We did X-Rays. There was a mass in her chest, which in November, the vet had thought was pneumonia. We paid to send the X-Rays to a specialist. The conclusion: either fungal infection or cancer.

I remembered my college roommate is now a practicing vet. I called her and asked for her professional opinion. She agreed with everything our vet was doing, but told me that if it was cancer, it would be fast since our dog was so young.

As bad as a fungal infection could be, we hoped it was fungal, but as every test for fungus came back negative, the reality of it being cancer started to set in.

We were faced with a choice: a chest biopsy or a shot of Elspar. Elspar works by starving cancer cells of an enzyme they need to reproduce. The vet said if the Elspar worked, it would work right away, but the effect would be short-term.

We decided to try the Elspar. There was a risk of allergic reaction and death, so the night before the procedure, we decided to let her have some tuna. Google says dogs can have tuna. Google failed to mention tuna can make the dog very sick.

The next day, at the vet's, the dog had a slight fever and then suddenly puked. This meant she was ineligible to start the Elspar that day. I had started to drive toward work, but then I turned around to go pick her up. The vet's office gave her a shot of anti-nausea medicine.

I had decided to take her to daycare, and I was seriously a mile away from the business, when she proceeded to vomit and have diarrhea all over the back of my car. Thank goodness for the two layers of blankets and dog covers I have in the back. May you never know was tuna vomit/diarrhea in an enclosed space smells like.

Also, remember Google can lie.

I called work and took a comp day and took the dog back to the vet, where her temperature was down and she was just fine and dandy, although she had diarrhea every couple of hours for the rest of the day. She was doing the diarrhea-I-might-shit-in-this-corner dance as I walked in with the holy mess from the back of my car. Narrowly avoided that misery.

So, the next day, we did the Elspar shot and by that afternoon ... our dog was back to herself. It was bittersweet to see her so happy and playful; it meant it was cancer.

The vet in the office handling our case was out of town the week following the Elspar shot, so this Tuesday, she called me.

The dog's life expectancy, with chemo, is six to 18 months. Without it, 30 to 60 days. We're doing the most effective chemo, the CHOP protocol. Chemo is well tolerated in dogs, and according to the literature, chemo improves their quality of life.

The specialist radiologist said the tumor by her heart had shrunk, and her liver and spleen were smaller. This mean her liver and spleen had/have tumors. This makes her cancer Stage IV (V is the worst), type b (symptomatic).

I texted my partner and lied. He's out dealing with live ammunition and I need him to be focused on his job. I texted him if the dog makes it to 18 months, we'd need to go see an oncologist. I left out that if she made it to 18 months, we'd need to see the canine oncologist because she would have beaten the odds.

Our dog is two. TWO.

We planned on at least a decade with her.

My partner loves her. We were together seven, eight years when we got the dog  and not once had I heard him sing - not even in the shower. Then we got this dog and he started making up lullabies for her, singing to her, cradling her like a baby.

I thought, how, how can I tell this man his dog has six to 18 months to live?

I've spent a lot of the past few days crying. Even writing this post, I can't stop feeling sad.

It isn't fair. I can't fix this. I can't make her stop hurting. There is no magic science to fix this and I feel so helpless.

We started chemo on Saturday. What we thought was a sprained paw turned out to be a rare complication. The fluid from the tumor by her chest is causing her bones to expand and making her limp. We can manage the pain and hopefully as the tumors shrink (if the respond to the protocol), her leg will get better.

Day one of chemo.

I hadn't realized I had schedule a hair appointment for the same time as the puppy's chemo treatment, so I rescheduled my hair appointment.

I wanted to feel something other than sad. As I drove over to the salon, I thought about what I should do. I decided, impulsively, to dye my hair purple.

It's a temp dye that will wash out over the month, but it's something to say "fuck cancer" and "this sucks."

I dyed my hair purple to cope with the dog's diagnosis.

You can tell I went with purple if you look at my hair in the sunlight. Inside, it looks like a dyed it black. Natural light shows the purple tones.

The puppy has been more herself this weekend. Even with her hurt paw, she wanted to go on some walks. We did a longer one and two shorter ones. She's bringing me toys to play with and wants to play games. It's good to see her feeling well.

On the flip side, I have been trying to cope and deal with the grief from knowing this wonderful, loving creature won't be in my life for very much longer. I had worried more about a rattlesnake or car killing her. Cancer? Cancer was for old dogs. Not my little princess.

It's wonderfully freeing though. I mean, I got fast food the other day and I gave her a few french fries. I confessed this to my partner and he said, "Well, she has cancer. I might have given her some sausage when I made spaghetti the other night."

All the toys I keep up in reserve because she plays rough? Cut all the tags off them and gave them to her. The toys I put up and do supervised play with? Here they are, go and de-stuff them and shred them to pieces! I feel like giving her a treat, I do. She's probably not making it to ten with lymphoma, so why give a fuck about verboten people treats? (We make sure they are dog-safe, don't freak out people.)

The hard part is thinking about ... what if we get something for her and she never gets to use it?

I ordered some baking clay to do a pawprint keepsake. I want to do it while she is feeling well. I don't want the memory of the pawprint to be "we did this the day she died." I want it to be while she is feeling good and racing around the house and being a happy dog.

I'm still grieving over the diagnosis and uncertainty, but I am celebrating life with my purple hair and my happy puppy.