The Portable Dog Universe

On Monday, I got the X-Rays for my dog Indy. They were mailed from my vet’s office in Portland. About a week before pulling up stakes and heading to Silver City, I got the bad news that Indy had what appeared to be a tumor on his lower left lung. He had been hacking and coughing that old man cough for a few weeks, and I could no longer wish it away. When the vet told me, I told him my train was already pulling out of the station, so to speak. He said that surgery would be required to determine whether the growth was cancerous, etc. But he also said that Indy seemed good enough to travel. He would mail me the X-Rays after I got settled in. I made the decision right then to take Indy along. Other than the hacking cough and huffing and puffing, he’s in pretty good shape for an old mutt. He traveled just fine. He’s a good car dog. He’s adapted well to our new home. I’ve got some dog Robitussin for when the cough gets bad at night.

I slapped the X-Rays up against the windows of my apartment overlooking the main street. I wanted to take a second look to see if I could see anything different than the vet or animal radiologist could see. What I saw instead was life through the filter of my beloved dog. It always comes in layers like that, doesn’t it?

I don’t know what I am going to do yet. I love this dog. When Indy had another surgery a month before we left Portland, I told them not to biopsy a growth that was removed from his leg. I didn’t want to know if it was cancerous, because I made the decision earlier that I would not go the route of further surgeries and chemo with him because it would only take a longer time to reach an inevitable outcome. He’s an old man, a starved down old dog rescued from the streets of New Orleans a year after he and so many other animals were forcibly abandoned after Hurricane Katrina hit. For the last seven years with me, Indy’s lived a very good life. Except, perhaps, the time the post-man peppered sprayed him when he got loose and chased him down the street.

So we will just take it a day at a time. Indy’s along for the ride. There are good vets in this town too. I’m sure I’ll be making their acquaintance eventually.