I Am Not Alone

I am not the only cancer patient in this household.  Maya, my canine companion of over 14 years, was diagnosed with nose cancer this spring.  Her cancer is incurable, but she won’t be defeated by it quite yet. That’s good for me, because I want her by my side as I recuperate from surgery, even though I can’t expect her to hold on through whatever the rest of my treatment is.

Although she’s a mix – part lab and part cattle dog – she’s a rare breed.  Not only is nasal cancer uncommon in dogs – it makes up only 1% of the cancers found in dogs – it is predominantly found in large breeds and males.  Maya is 35 pounds and, as her name would suggest, a female.  So how did she manage to develop a cancer found mostly in large, male dogs?

Well, we used to joke that taking her for a walk was really a matter of going on a sniff.  It was a slow, and sometimes painful process as she tried to stop and smell everything along the route. All along the way she marked everything as well, lifting her leg to leave a trace of herself for other dogs to sniff.  She never was very ladylike! Dogs can inhale things that may then get lodged in their nasal passages and ultimately irritate them enough that some of the nose cells start to go haywire and become malignant.  As a very sniffy dog, she would seem likely to have inhaled more than her fair share of irritating foreign matter.  Whether that's the actual cause of her cancer is unknown.

She’s had her ups and downs through this disease.  When she was diagnosed we didn’t expect to have her this long, but she has had some relatively asymptomatic times, including a whole month just prior to my own cancer diagnosis in August.  Now things are not so easy for her, and therefore for us. She gets very restless at night and has trouble breathing through her nose.  She can make some alarming wheezing, gurgling, snoring, drowning sounds.  On the other hand, she still is vastly more interested in food than anything else.  She still chases the Frisbee a bit, greets guests with gusto and can be the bossiest little cattle dog mix on Earth when she wants something from us.  She certainly makes her wishes known. 

I will miss her more than I can say, and although I hope she’ll stick around a little bit longer, I fear her time is drawing near.  She has been the best of companions with the greatest personality of any dog I’ve ever known.  Despite the sadness I feel seeing her fade, I am so grateful to have found her and to have had her in my life.  I’m especially glad that she has been with me this past week, providing me with comfort and company as I recover.  My eternal gratitude, Miss Maya.