I feel heavy. Not my body. That always feels heavy. This is a weight in my mind and heart. There are times when I am not alone in my thoughts, when I am working, when I am busy, that I do not feel this weight, but it comes back, almost immediately, when I am done with whatever distraction I keep on hand. It is a feeling of powerlessness and guilt. Powerless, because I’m afraid that there is nothing I can do to prevent the love-generating Abbey from dying, and guilty because I don’t always, or even really ever, feel this way about people, and as I find out more and more about canine cancer, I discover that there are things I could have done in the past to prevent it.
I never got Abbey spayed. I didn’t think it was that big a deal as long as I kept her away from other dogs. It wasn’t that I was breeding her or anything, the one litter of puppies she ever had was a complete surprise that came just after she spent her one night in doggy jail. I just never thought it was important. It seemed like a waste of money to get her a surgery that she didn’t need to live, since I have (since her one outing) kept her quite close and safe from impregnation.
I was horribly wrong.
Getting your dog spayed helps prevent Canine Cancer. The younger they are when it happens, the more effective it is. Now, as I am facing down the possible loss of my pooch, I wish, so very much, that I had just gotten the damn surgery done years ago.
I don’t know what the next couple of weeks are going to bring. I can’t make any decisions at the moment. I’m numb and heavy. I’m tired of all the misery that I seem to accumulate as I meander through life, and I just don’t know if I can keep going at this pace.
Something is going to crumble. Some part of all this has to snap and change.
It just has to.