Sam went back to the vet on Friday, and the news was very good. The steroid injection Sam was given last week seems to be working well, and his lymphoma has shrunk to half the size it was. The very was quite relieved as well; he’d been steeling himself to euthanise and it made his Friday better to learn that it wouldn’t be necessary.
The vet we go to has signs up saying what animals are having surgery and a little candle they light when someone is saying goodbye to a pet. It’s a beautiful gesture.
So, Sam has some time left in him. The steroid shots last a month, so we’ll take him back in the new year and see what happens then. It’s certainly just delaying the inevitable, but if it gives us a few months more with him and it keeps him happy, I’m fine with that. No sense saying goodbye before it becomes necessary.
It’s been a strange couple of weeks. I’ve been feeling like I’m in a snowglobe. Like the world has been turned upside down and shaken up, and I can’t get my feet. I want to be writing, and there’s nothing there. It feels silly and wrong. I’m grasping for some sort of schedule, some stability. Christmas is coming, and I’ve got so much shopping left to do. The summer heat cuts down the hours in which I can run; sometimes I don’t know when in the evening it will have cooled down enough for me to be able to head out. These things make me anxious. My anxiety brain worries that I won’t be able to fit in my three runs a week. In reality, what does it matter? I’m not in training for a race or anything. If I lose fitness because I’m not running enough, I can build that back up later. The snow will settle.
Yet it gnaws at me. Things need to be done, my brain says. I’ve written to-do lists, shopping lists, planned out my week. Everything seems in order. My brain still says things need to be done.
I think today is the first day it really feels like December. I’ve wrapped some presents, the sun is hot (blast it), and 5pm is starting to feel like Gin O’Clock. (If only we had some gin!) This next week, I need to start planning for 2017. That’s usually exciting and fun, but this year I feel anxious about it. I know why, too; if it’s time to plan for 2017, that means my Xmas shopping should be done, and it is not. Cue my brain screaming that I’m running out of time. (Torschlusspanik! The gates are closing!) But I know what I’m getting and where I’m getting it. It can all be done in a couple of hours.
Brain, cease your caterwauling. All will be well.