Its been several months since Abby’s diagnosis of liver and pancreatic cancer. And several months since we made the tough decision to not treat the disease with chemotherapy as it would not cure it, only prolong her life a few months at best. Since the end of March, Abby’s been on a daily medical cocktail of prednisone, mirtazapine and metroconizole (sp?) to stimulate her appetite, combat nausea and vomiting. Unfortunately, the nature of cancer is to steal food from the body, to feed the tumor. This means our girl has gone from a healthy and sleek 28 pounds down to a skeletal 18 pounds. I won’t share photos because its just too sad. Abby should be remembered as the glorious and beautiful girl that she has been for last 14 years.
Thus far, the drugs have been working, along with a liquid vitamin that she can’t seem to get enough of. In the last few weeks, Tim and I have seen a return of the beagle of old — when certain foods are around she just goes into wild over drive – nothing will stand in her way of getting . that . food . Foods such as Panera Bread’s upside down pineapple muffin, blueberry muffins, strawberry shortcake with whipped cream, banana pudding, Chipoltle chicken, Vietnamese grilled chicken, beef tenderloin have all spurred the Beaglette to go wide eyed in anticipation and dive head first into whatever container holds the nirvana she smells. You could say that, she’s a dessert queen after my own heart.
So while she’s skinny, and she’s still with us. These days she sleeps a lot more than before, but that could be due to being 14, and she’s still has a happy little wag for everyone she meets. In the last few weeks, she’s lost some of her listfulness that plagued her early on and with that the return of some of her diva like behavior. That tells me, she’s still with us and still wants to be here. Its all we can ask for.
