Falling off a cliff

Yesterday started out with a beautiful dawn snowshoe hike with my K. We saw the sun kiss the tops of the towering pine trees together.

 It was going to be a normal day, including a quick visit to the vet for a routine test.

At the visit, I mentioned that K had been limping on her 3-toed paw. The vet started running her hands over K's legs, feeling for any problems. I expected nothing to show up - I believed that was just a sore paw. After all, K had romped enthusiastically just that morning.

The vet's fingers focused on one spot and her brow furrowed. I still didn't feel panicked. K was fine, I told myself.

After some more probing and pointing out a lump on K's leg, the vet said that she wanted an x-ray of K's forelimb, due to a lump on her leg about 8" above where her toe was amputated a year ago. The vet and K trotted off into the back of the vet's offices.

The wait seemed to go on and on. But, I still assured myself that my precious K was fine. I kept reminding myself of how she'd run around that morning.

When the vet finally came out, she said that I needed to go into the back with her. Then, my stomach fell to the ground. "My" vet has taken care of our dogs for more than a decade. I know her well, and I knew what I saw in her eyes.

In fact, the vet had discovered a golf-ball sized tumor in a bone in K's front limb. She'd then x-rayed K's lungs to check whether any malicious cancer cells had spread into them. Fortunately, she didn't see anything bad on the chest x-ray.

When the vet told me about the tumor, her eyes brimmed with tears, I literally collapsed onto the floor. I know what this probably means. If it's osteosarcoma, we don't have much time. Unfortunately, it was Friday afternoon at 4 PM before Christmas weekend. The vet made a valiant attempt to pull together a group of experts at Colorado State to work on K last night but they'd already scattered into the wind, getting ready for the holiday weekend with their families.

The CSU vet oncology department reopens on Wednesday, and we'll be there in the morning. K will probably lose her leg that day, and we'll get a better idea of her overall prognosis. In the meantime, she cannot do anything more than very very short walks. Her bone is on the verge of breaking because the tumor is wider than the bone itself. We need avoid letting her break it because that could be catastrophic.

I've cried buckets of tears and felt physically ill since receiving this news. I don't yet know how much time we have left with K... but I feel pretty sure that, unbeknownst to me, K and I did several things together last week that we'll never be able to do again. Losing a front limb is so tough on a dog - they can't hike very far or romp with abandon.

I took this photo just as we finished our snowshoe hike yesterday, still blissfully unaware of what was growing in K's bone. I had no idea that we were just about to fall off a cliff.

In the midst of my grief, I keep coming back to one thing - I've had 8 precious years with a dog who has loved me unconditionally. Even if the end is soon, I've had the greatest gift imaginable - K as my dog and best friend.