Angel (the deceased) was the heart of our family, but like any great dog, she'd want the pack to survive and prosper. We're doing that. More later!!!

November 13: She's gone. About 10 p.m. at the University of Minnesota Small Animal Veterinary Hospital. Dr. Klobuchar, who by coincidence had originally diagnosed Angel as having cancer (see August 18 entry), did the honors. She was wonderful, as was the vet tech who looped a towel under Angel's stomach to help her walk to the exam room and walked us through the paperwork. Angel enjoyed riding in the back seat of the car with her head burrowed into me. She loves the vet hospital, because she knows there are cookies in every room and the people there pay lots of attention to her. She got to ride on a guerney (her "limo" I called it), which she seemed to enjoy, and then the end happened in seconds. She just went to sleep and ... was gone. We were both with her.

I'll write more later. At the University hospital, they'll use her body to do a teaching autopsy and then mass-cremate it. We'll remember her as a dog, not as a box or urn of ashes. The house feels very empty without her, and I'm going on crying jags on and off, but this was absolutely the right thing to do tonight.

November 11: When we left for work this morning, we really thought we were going to euthanize Angel this evening. I called the clinics to find out how late they were open and which doctor was on duty where (our regular vet and his wife are vacationing on a Cape Horn cruise). I also called the humane society where Doug volunteers to find out how their euthanasia and cremation services work, but they don't allow owners to be with the animal during euthanasia, so that's not okay. We need to be with our baby at the end.

Yesterday afternoon, Angel upchucked food that was about 18 hours old and still completely undigested -- didn't even smell like barf. This indicated that her pancreas or liver weren't working. She'd also lost her appetite again, even for boneless barbequed spare ribs from the Chinese take-out. When offered any kind of food -- and we tried a goodly selection -- she acted like her mouth was in too much pain even to contemplate taking it. She'd also started drinking very large amounts of water.

Last night, she retched and/or coughed a lot. This morning, she was extremely weak -- couldn't get up without major assistance and couldn't manage a few stairs without being lifted. She had no appetite but drank a lot of water. The pus was back in her eyes, too, indicating that perhaps she wasn't absorbing her antibiotics and that, at any rate, she's carrying a dangerously high bacterial load.

However, when I got home this afternoon, she was able to get up and meet me at the door. She was wobbly but able to go out and piddle and come back in, and after being offered it a couple of times, she lapped up most of a bowl of Campbell's Chunky Soup(TM). Then I got her to go out and piddle again. She's still drinking way too much water. Plus, at one point she snorted or coughed or retched or something, and when I checked on her, about a teaspoon or two of fresh blood was on the floor in front of her. I checked her gums, and they look pale to me. I didn't find any signs of vomit, but of course, if she did upchuck undigested food while I was at work, then Bill probably ate it. Dogs!

Doug will be home soon, and we'll discuss her situation together. The hell of it is: she's still a happy dog. Happy to see me, happy to eat what she can, happy to be in her home with her family. It's as though her body could melt, and she's still be happy because she's a happy dog and that's what she is.

November 7: Two nights ago, I had a dream that Angel was drowning. Doug and I were on a beach, and she was sinking under the surface of the sea. We discussed what to do, and I jumped into the water, grabbed her, and supported her on my chest as I backstroked back to shore. She coughed up some water and was okay. Despite the dream's content, its tone was peaceful and serene.

Angel is drowning. Her pneumonia took a turn for the worse about ten days ago. Her breathing is audible all the time. You can tell how hard she's working to breathe by the labored rise and fall of her chest, and you can tell that the tumor is partially obstructing her nose by the whistling and gurgling sounds she makes. About a week ago, we added amoxicillin to the Baytril -- the two antibiotics support each other -- and about 36 hours after the first combined dose, her breathing did get better. We also began running the shower several times a day and simmering a pan of water on the stove to keep humidity levels up. She also learned to adjust her activity/excitement level to keep her respiratory rate low.

We did have to go back to hand feeding, but her appetite has remained good, not so much in the morning but certainly in the evening. I've added Science Diet(TM) beef jerky strips as well as organic fish/potato and peanut butter biscuits to her diet. She gets quite enthusiastic about the new treats. Still, I don't think she's getting quite as many calories as she should. Her meals have to be smaller because otherwise she sometimes vomits.

Despite everything, she still follows me from room to room and clearly gets a lot of pleasure from being with her family and from getting treats.

Doug and I are on vacation this week. We're staying home, obviously, and trying to relax, go to some shows and concerts, go to lunch/dinner with some friends, and spend time with Angel.

World Fantasy Con: I spent all of five minutes at the con last weekend, just long enough to pick up my bag of goodies and exchange hugs with Aynjel. Aynjel looks awesome as a Glitter Goth -- and she sold a story to Strange Horizons!!! I would have enjoyed the Con very much, and I'm sorry I didn't get to visit with more friends, but my head and heart were at home. I'm also just plain exhausted and need to cocoon more than anything else. There will be other cons.

Elections: Blech. I guess we can look forward to war with Iraq (and who else?) and budget deficits. I wonder if Canada is accepting immigrants from the U.S. ;-)

October 27: Angel suffered from a cold this weekend -- just a little clear mucus drip from the nose, but it was enough to slow her down a bit. She seems to have perked up this evening, though. Her red cell count is staying constant.

Michelle Kwan wins Skate America with an outstanding short program she helped choreograph herself and a long program that was enough -- four triple jumps with one in combination with a double flip, a double axel, a doubled loop (planned triple), and a fall on a triple lutz that did not disrupt the presentation of the program. Two other women, one from Japan and one from Russia, landed triple axels!!! First time we've seen a woman land one in competition in a decade, and we get two in the same night. Unfortunately, neither woman did much else well -- the sport is figure skating, not figure jumping -- so they did not end up on the podium. U.S. skater Ann Patrice McDonough has had buzz for a couple of years, starting when she hit the international junior scene, and it's great to see her having a breakthrough year on the senior circuit. I also think that the Russian dance team, Navka and someone, who placed second are a team to watch. They absolutely oozed across the ice, even while executing difficult footwork, and the two really seemed to skate as one.

I dug up more bulbs from the backyard and replanted all I could find room for. I tried to give some away to the neighbors, but they didn't have room, either. I guess I'll just be putting more up front somewhere.

October 25:

U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone (1944 - 2002)

The senior Senator from Minnesota died in a plane crash today. He was campaigning hard for a third term. Before being elected to the Senate in 1990, he was a professor of political science at Carleton College, where Doug had him for an introductory class. Paul Wellstone couldn't read Doug's handwriting in his blue book final exam, so he let Doug read the exam to him. He took time with his students and showed flexibility, and judging from recent testimonials, he carried those qualities through everything he did. It's hard to believe that someone with so much energy and so many plans can just be dead. When I heard the news, I was in a bar in St. Paul, brewing craft beer with my coworkers, and I nearly burst into tears right there. Politically, he was slightly farther left than I am, but I was grateful to have his voice in a national body like the Senate.

October 23: Angel continues to be a sweetie honey dog. The antibacterial mouthwash does wonders for her breath. You’d never know she has pneumonia unless you saw her chest x-rays. Well, her bark’s been “whistly” and higher pitched for over a month. She’s having a little more trouble making doo-doos; she makes a doo-doo and then thinks she’s done, but once back in the house, she makes more. So we just make sure she’s really done before letting her in, and that works. About once a week, she gets excited about something and breaks into a fast trot on uneven ground, and then she does a face plant. But she only goes down for a second. Then she’s back up and trotting along as though nothing happened.

She follows me from room to room, just wanting to lie on the floor near me. Doug tried to take her for a little walk this morning, but she led him into the office where I was working on the computer instead. She didn’t want to leave her Hamburger Goddess.

We’ve visited the Animal Humane Society, where Doug volunteers, a couple of times the last few weeks. It's fun to pet the cats and take the dogs out to their runs to play. It’s also fun to look at all the animal photos on the web – you can search adoptable animals in your local area at Petfinder.com.

I've been frantically digging up my bulb garden to thin and replant it. A lot of the bulbs are way too crowded. Got to get it done before the ground freezes! Sometimes I've been out there after dark with snowflakes coming down around me.

Michelle Kwan is a last-minute replacement for Olympic champion Sarah Hughes, who has a leg injury, at Skate America. I'm looking forward to seeing her long program again and her new short program.

I’ve added a link to a picture of Doug running the Twin Cities Marathon below -- see September 30. He looks very determined in this one!

October 15: We took Angel to the University of Minnesota Veterinary Teaching Hospital this morning to explore our treatment options. She's been doing so well, we thought that perhaps more aggressive treatment would make sense. I think we had in mind buying her an additional six months or so of quality life.

We saw Dr. Victoria Larson and a senior student on her oncology rotation. We talked about curative options and palliative options and decided that a palliative approach made more sense, considering the age of the dog and the aggressive nature of the cancer. To be effective, surgery would have to remove the dog's nose; that's not cool. Dogs withstand chemotherapy pretty well, but against a sarcoma, it probably would not slow the tumor in any significant way, so why put the dog and our checking account through it. The remaining option is palliative radiation; the course of three treatments would probably have few or no side effects but would make her mouth more comfortable. The total treatment cost would be about $600, not counting today's exam. That seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

To administer the radiation, they would have to sedate or lightly anesthetize her, so Dr. Larson wanted a full blood work-up and chest x-rays before proceeding, so she'd know what to watch out for when putting the dog under. I dropped Doug off at work and came back to the hospital. The chest x-rays were done, and Dr. Larson showed them to me. Angel has a metastatic mass in her right lung and pneumonia in that lung and probably in the other. The lungs will probably become a problem before her mouth does, so I decided against the radiation therapy. She's still munching down on hard dog biscuits okay, so there's no reason to treat mouth pain.

When I saw the x-rays, I nearly burst into tears. I'd so hoped the cancer was still contained to her mouth. She also has a large, hard lump palpable under her left armpit. I'm very angry at this disease.

Dr. Larson did give us an antibiotic mouthwash that will help clear out the infected necrotic tissue in the center of the mouth tumor (and make her breath smell better!). She also recommended another antibiotic to switch to when we run out of Baytril, though she says Baytril is a good choice, too. And she confirmed that Angel's loss of muscle from the top and sides of the head is due to the prednisone; they even have a name for it -- "pred head."

On a brighter note, Angel had a wonderful time at the hospital. She seemed to think we were on a kind of Easter egg hunt. They have bowls of dog biscuits up on the counters in some rooms, and whenever we got close to one, she would sniff around until she located it and then pull me over and insist I give her one. She also pestered the medical staff whenever they opened a cabinet -- she knows where vets keep treats! The written summary included these comments: "We enjoyed meeting Angel today--she was a wonderful patient to work with," and, "Thanks for entrusting the care of your sweet Rottie to us; Angel is truly an angel and we enjoyed meeting her today." Maybe they say that about all the dogs, but I still appreciate it when people compliment my baby.

October 13: Angel's still got some chronic bleeding in her mouth -- she had a trickle of fresh blood on her chin this morning -- and the right side of her muzzle is still swollen. She also still has a little discharge from her right eye. She's a little wobbly, but it's not bad -- probably a result of the bleeding. She gets another epogen shot for anemia this evening. She looks a little too fat, so I'm going to cut down on her food a bit. As I write this, she's lying behind me on her dog bed. I love her.

I finished my October column for Writing World. "When Life Goes to Hell, Does Our Writing Go Nowhere?" about how to handle life crises and still keep writing, or at least be able to get back to writing when it's possible. I hope I can follow my own advice. The column gave me another excuse to write about Angel.

A last-minute entry, Michelle Kwan won the first international eligible competition of the season with a free skate she choreographed herself to the guitar concerto "Aranjuez" by Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo. She seemed comfortable with her new coach, former U.S. skater Scott Williams, and despite a wonky landing on a triple flip, she determinedly went for a double toe to make it a jump combination (a required element). Her footwork section was to die for, and I understand that her opening hand movements are accurate flamenco dance movements. She's indicated she will go to Nationals. I'm happy!

October 7: Greg, our vet, switched Angel from amoxicillin to Baytril, a broad-spectrum antibiotic with few side effects. It's good for treating infections in immuno-compromised or otherwise ill dogs. After a day-and-a-half, Angel's already much, much better! Because of the bleeding in her mouth, which started again when the infection flared up, we've kept her epogen dosage to twice a week but upped the amount from 1.5 ml to 2.5 ml.

October 3: Angel's infection has returned. Symptoms include swelling on the right side of the muzzle, bad breath, and pus leakage around the bottom of the right eye. I've switched her back to all soft food, so she gets canned Science Diet Senior instead of kibble with her morning hamburger. She's going to the vet on Saturday, and I'm thinking that Greg will change her antibiotic. Whatever germs she's got are clearly resistant to the amoxicillin. Dog Bill and cat Gideon need routine shots, so they'll go, too.

September 30: Doug runs in the Twin Cities Marathon!
Doug finished in just under four hours and felt great the whole way. Didn't hit a wall, have blisters or chafing, or anything. He enjoyed himself so much, he plans to run in the Mad City Marathon next May. We'll both go to Madison that weekend, he for the marathon and I for WisCon. Photo of Doug running the Twin Cities Marathon

I had my own marathon (adj.) adventure. I took Bill in the car to mile 7, which is near our house. I got out of the car, took the dog to the running trail, and yelled "Go Doug!!!" when Doug went running by. Then I realized I'd locked my keys in the car. Because I hadn't planned on being out of the car more than a few minutes, I didn't have anything with me except the dog: no money, no ID, no phone. I wasn't even wearing underwear or a bra.

It was Sunday, so the local hardware store was closed. We're no longer a member of an auto club. The nearest auto shop was farther away than the next point on the race path where I could hope to intercept Doug. Doug had the other set of keys. I hustled down to about mile 9, but he'd already passed.

However, I met a couple of young women who liked Bill and were going to cheer on their friend all along the course. I asked if they could give me a ride to their next cheering spot, thinking that in a car, I'd make up the 15 or so minutes on Doug. Sadly, they got lost, and the ride took about an hour. By Minnehaha Falls, I was an hour behind Doug.

So I hustled north to the nearest bridge across the Mississippi River. The runners have to run north several miles further and then run south the same distance, so I figured I might make up about an hour. I reached the east side of the river between mile 20 and 21 and watched and watched for Doug. If he'd had a porto-potty(TM) break or had to stop and walk awhile, I'd get him. No such luck. I probably missed him by a few minutes.

If I walked to the finish line, he'd probably have given up on me and caught a ride or cab back home by the time I got there. Plus, even if I found him at the finish line, getting the keys from him wouldn't help. Not many cab drivers would be willing to take the dog in their car. I talked to everyone -- race officials, firefighters, police officers, sheriff's deputies, paramedics. No one had any way of reaching the finish line by radio or phone.

I finally decided that Doug would figure out I wasn't coming to pick him up and would figure out a way to get home on his own. I just had to worry about getting the dog and me home. So I started walking. And walking. And walking. And walked all the way home, where a very worried Doug opened the door and greeted me.

I walked about 11 miles total, and my feet hurt worse than Doug's. (I was wearing good walking shoes, thank goodness!) The best part: Bill had a *fabulous* time! He met admiring people and other dogs and smelled all sorts of smells, and his feet clearly didn't hurt at all. He was boinging around like crazy.

September 28: Angel went to the vet for another checkup today, and her weight is up to 85 (from 75 two weeks ago) and her red cell count is up to 37 or 38 (from 27 two weeks ago). In other words, she's fat and not anemic. We're able to scale back the epogen to twice a week, and I'm going to cut down on her hamburger a bit, too. She's been pestering me tonight for a midnight snack, and I've told her no. I'm not going to cook this fat doggie a hamburger in the middle of the night.

She's always been a very kissy dog, and now she's back to licking the sweat off my legs after I exercise. It's nice that she bathes me, but I shower afterwards anyway. [grin]

She went for a walk yesterday and went all the way down the street to Butch's house. Butch is an *adorable* American Bulldog. He wasn't out front when she got there, but she insisted on smelling everything in his yard until his people let him out to play. Then they had a nice visit.

I'm working on my column for Writing World . . .

This candle goes out to Jo and her Caymon, who died of cancer but is still remembered and beloved.

September 24: Last weekend was great. Angel followed me from room to room and pestered me with her normal intensity for a piece of whatever I was eating. I even took her for a little walk, just around the block, but she kept persuading me to cross the street to look at this or that. She said hello to two of her doggie friends, a Miniature Schnauzer across the alley and Moses, an English Bulldog on the corner. She met a few friendly people, too.

Her butt looks to me as if it's filled out a bit. She can still get on the bed by using my aerobics Step(tm), although she can't get up from the floor anymore. She can get down from the bed fine. She has an appointment with the vet Saturday, so we'll get her weight and anemia checked and pick up any medication we're low on.

Right now, she's lying on the office floor behind me. Bill is there, too. She had a whole pound of hamburger for dinner and cleaned her plate! I'll give her some more later, along with her evening amoxicillin. She'll also get another shot of epogen this evening. The only problem for me at this point is that she wants me to cook her a hamburger in the middle of the night. I refuse to do this!!! But she still makes a pest of herself.

September 20: Yesterday and this morning, Angel's hind legs were behaving much better. She has no trouble now getting up, even on a smooth surface like a wood floor or vinyl tile. Breakfast this morning was about 6 oz. canned Science Diet Senior and 4 oz. cooked ground beef, drizzled with a day's worth of hamburger drippings and with an amoxicillin tablet tucked in. Gobble, gobble, gobble!!!

Doug is taking her to the vet today for another blood test, to see if the epogen has boosted her red cell count and to decide if she should take more. She had three doses this week. She doesn't even feel the needle going through her skin.

I had a wonderful dream about Angel last night. The houses across the street were undergoing major renovations, and the construction jobs had attracted workers from all over the world. A bilingual Gaelic/English-speaking family was working on the site. They had a cat and a small dog, and the teenage daughter was nuts about Angel. I knew Angel would have the happiest possible life with them, so when they left to go find other work, I gave her to them. She was concerned when their car pulled away, wondering why I wasn't going with her, but I knew she'd relax and enjoy "summer camp," just like she does at the kennel. The dream wasn't about my feeling inadequate as Angel's caregiver -- it could have been about that, but it didn't have that emotional vibe. It was about letting Angel go and about liberating her from the frustrations and pains of her current life. The end of the dream seemed drenched in sunlight, and I felt warm inside.

September 18: I put up this web page. Angel is the only thing I want to write about, but I haven't had the heart. However, writing out the details of her illness and her care, and going through our photos to pick which ones to scan, has been very healing.

Angel's a happy, demanding, hungry doggie.

September 15: We try giving her canned dog food basted in warm hamburger drippings. She eats some of it, makes sure to lick up all the beef juice, and then asks for hamburger. I think we have a spoiled doggie on our hands! She doesn’t even like to go for walks now because she’s so concerned that someone might be eating her hamburger while she’s gone. We figure this because she walks away from the house very slowly, but as soon as Doug turns around, she pulls along at a brisk pace.

I’m just so grateful there’s something I can do that makes her happy. I hate watching any animal suffer, and I hate feeling helpless, and I’ve felt a lot of both the last few weeks.

September 14: An appointment with Greg to check up on how she’s doing. After Greg gives her some beef jerky treats, she becomes very focused on him and even leaves the exam room to hunt him down when he leaves for a moment. She has a close encounter with a cat, who comes over to be petted and ignores the Rottweiler a couple of feet away. She also gets to play a little with a completely hyper lab puppy who comes in. It’s a good visit.

The shakiness in the hind legs may be due in part to loss of muscle, but it’s also probably caused by neurological damage. She’s not getting good feedback about exactly where her legs are, so they go in funny directions and are slow to respond.

She’s also much more anemic -- blood count of 27. We decide to try epogen, which we’ll inject under the skin at the nape of the neck. Epogen, used by people on dialysis, is a synthetic version of a hormone normally secreted by the kidneys that tells the bone marrow to make more red blood cells. Resolving the anemia will help her shakiness, which in turn keeps her safer from injury as she navigates stairs and slippery surfaces.

September 13: I suspect that Angel may decide to live forever, if there’s more hamburger to be had. She’s going through 1.5 pounds a day. Had to get more today. She gets hamburger for breakfast, dinner, and snacks. She’s already added back some weight and seems like a happy dog.

September 11: She is losing weight at a frightening rate, partly from the prednisone’s metabolism boost and partly from not eating much. I can feel bones I couldn’t feel before. Our neighbors notice how skinny she is. She wasn’t at all fat to begin with.

It seems too incredibly stupid: we may have to kill her because we can’t figure out how to put food into her? We’re humans; we’re supposed to be able to figure out these things. If she was human, she could lie in a bed with a feeding tube in her and arguably have a quality of life listening to books on tape or watching rented movies. But she’s a dog. She no longer has any interest in the smoothies. Maybe they’re as gross to her as they are to me?

Then I have a brainstorm -- hamburger!!! Maybe she’ll eat hamburger. It’s soft. It’s tasty. It’s high in calories. I read somewhere that people on prednisone are supposed to eat a high-protein diet.

I run to the closest grocery store and bring back a three-pound pack of cheap, high-fat hamburger. Fry one up. Break it into bite-sized chunks. Let it cool. Offer it to her. Eureka!!!!!! She gobbles it up and looks for around for more. Best of all, she instantly gets her personality back. She can have as many hamburgers as she wants!!! I feel a lot better, too.

September 9: She no longer eats canned food. We’ve been feeding it to her by hand in bite-sized chunks, but even that no longer works. She’s hungry, but when she takes the food in her mouth, she drops it as though it’s on fire. The prednisone gives her constant thirst and she has no trouble drinking, so I come up with the idea of making dog food smoothies. I put canned dog food, canned broth or gravy, and a tablespoon or two of peanut butter into a blender and serve the mixture in a bowl. She eats this a little at a time.

Because she drinks so much and needs frequent feedings, we hate to leave her alone for more than four or five hours. Doug’s work schedule is completely inflexible, so I start bringing work home, or running home in the middle of the day and running back to work into the evening. She gets up a lot at night, too, which keeps us up, as does the snarling and growling of our other dog, who has god knows what issues.

I am emotionally and physically exhausted.

September 8: Doug drives her to a nearby public rose garden. They lie under a tree, and Angel watches other dogs go by, which she enjoys. We’ve taken her off the anti-diarrhea medicine, and her bowel movements are still normal.

September 6: She’s definitely doing better. I pick up refills on her prescriptions from the clinic.

September 5: She’s perkier and pretty happy. Seems to have stomach pain from time to time -- she stands with her head down and to the right and her right legs forward, as though relieving pain in her middle. She’s also developed shakiness and occasional awkwardness in her hind legs. Her gait looks puppy-like at times. I speculate that a metastasized tumor is pressing on her spine.

September 4: Angel’s infection is better, but her respiration is rapid and a little noisy. She hasn’t had any more vomiting or diarrhea. Still seems tired and unhappy.

September 3: We take Angel to the clinic, where we see “Doc T” (Dr. Taurog). She inspires confidence. She did a routine exam on one of our cats before, so I’m somewhat familiar with her work. Doc T examines Angel thoroughly. Our treatment choices come down to a blood test. If she’s anemic, we should call it quits. If her blood count is okay, we can try to treat her symptoms and see if we can make her comfortable.

Her blood count comes up 35 or 36, barely anemic. We decide to go ahead with treatment, so Doc T orders a couple of liters of fluid hung, giving Angel a water buffalo appearance with a big, mushy hump over her shoulders. She prescribes amoxicillin, an antibiotic unlikely to upset her stomach, and prednisone, a steroid similar to the naturally secreted cortisone. Prednisone fights inflammation and boosts appetite. Doc T also prescribes an anti-diarrhea medication, Amforol, which has in it a broad-spectrum antibiotic, the digestive enzyme pectin, and a couple of absorptive substances.

We take her home. She can still get in and out of the car without assistance. The first batch of pills, she throws up -- I see some of the anti-diarrhea pills in the vomit, but not the others. We do persuade her to sleep inside the house that night.

September 2 (Labor Day): Angel has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. She began throwing up last night and having blood-streaked diarrhea. This morning she lets loose a gout, perhaps a pint, of bloody water from her rectum. She seems shaken and staggery. I’m afraid that from all the fluid loss -- vomiting and diarrhea all night, and now this -- she might go into shock and die right here.

She then lies down on the lawn between our house and our neighbors’. She doesn’t want to move and looks miserable. I cry a lot and say goodbye. I let our other dog say goodbye, to the extent Bill comprehends anything. (He’s not the brightest puppy.) The clinic isn’t open because of the holiday.

Night falls, and Angel still refuses to come inside. We bring out a bean bag chair and a blanket, Doug puts on mosquito repellant, and he “sleeps” outside with the dog.

August 29 - September 1: Angel enjoys eating canned food. The infection has cleared up. We take her for a walk in the woods near here on Sunday. She’s slow, but she enjoys herself. By the end of the walk, I notice that her breath stinks again, signaling that her infection has returned.

August 28: The biopsy results come back. It’s not a squamous cell carcinoma. It’s an anaplastic sarcoma. A sarcoma is cancer of the “middle tissues” (e.g., bone, muscle, tendons and ligaments, blood vessels). It’s very rare, comprising perhaps 2% of cancers in humans, cats, and dogs. Anaplastic means that the cells are highly undifferentiated, or in other words very different from regular cells. This means the cells are multiplying at a rapid rate and highly likely to metastasize to local or distant regions. The pathologist couldn’t even assign a type to the cancer, because it is so active.

If it was in her leg, we could amputate and hope it hadn’t metastasized beyond the limb – dogs get along fine on three legs – but since it’s in the head . . . Angel has untreatable cancer.

Greg puts in a standing antibiotic prescription for us at the clinic, because as the cancer advances, the opportunistic infection will return. He is going on vacation with his wife to Michigan next week. I talk cheerily with Greg on the phone. When I hang up, I see Angel lying on the bed on my pillow, looking at the window at the street. I burst into tears and bury my head in her tummy. I sob for about an hour.

August 21 – August 27: The infection responds to the antiobiotic and clears up. Twenty-four hours after starting the anti-inflammatory, Angel seems much perkier and stays perky. We continue to see some blood on her tongue, though.

August 20: Doug runs Angel down to the clinic in the morning. I pick her up that afternoon. Greg says that it is cancer that’s the source of the infection. He’s taken a biopsy but thinks it’s probably a squamous cell carcinoma, not unusual for cats and dogs to get. It’s eaten away some of her upper jaw bone, so he removed a tooth that was hanging by a thread.

He has sent biopsy samples to the U for analysis. He couldn’t remove the entire growth without “cutting off her nose.” The blood work has come back. The only cause for immediate concern is that she’s mildly anemic, probably from bleeding in the mouth over a period of time. He prescribes an anti-inflammatory that often has a direct effect on squamous cell carcinoma, shrinking and slowing it and sometimes producing remission.

August 19: I leave work early and take Angel in for an exam. Our vet is Greg Miller. He’s been our vet since we moved to Minnesota, about 13 years ago, and gave Angel her first puppy shots. We try everything we know – waving one of the clinic cats in her face, tossing popcorn at her – and still can’t get a good look in her mouth.

Greg does prescribe cephalexin, an antibiotic to treat her infection, and takes blood for a bunch of tests. Angel’s a good girl for the blood-taking. Then we schedule surgery for the next day.

August 18: Angel has pus in her left eye. We think she has an eye infection and speculate that our cat Gideon might have nailed her or maybe that dog Bill flicked her with his tail. Because it’s Sunday and our regular clinic is closed, we take her to the University of Minnesota hospital.

The tech and doctor determine that the source of the infection is in her mouth, but it’s hard to get a good look because Angel’s so sensitive about having her snout touched -- it hurts. We notice blood on her tongue for the first time. The doctor gets one glimpse and says that the cause of the infection is probably cancer. I am numb to the word cancer.

She says that the antibiotics she’d prescribe for a mouth infection are expensive and that it’s probably not worth it if the dog will have to be put down. We’re told to see our regular vet, who will anesthetize her and conduct a thorough exam and biopsy.