Love, Lumps, and Pessimism

Its been quite a weekend at our house.  We spent Saturday afternoon driving a 12 passenger van from New Haven to Plymouth, MA for the wedding of our good friends.  It was bittersweet for us.  We were all so happy to see Jack and Melissa (finally!) tie the knot.  She looked beautiful.  He looked happy.  Both so in love.  But at the same time, it was also sort of a sad night.  It was the last night that all of our friends will be in town before everyone moves away as they start jobs and life after graduate school.  We’ve made so many wonderful friends while we’ve been here, and last night was the perfect ending to three perfect years and the beginning of long-lasting friendships.

The crew at the wedding in Plymouth, MA

We drove back home last night after the wedding and finally walked in the door at 3:00 AM.  We were exhausted…but our night was not yet over.  When Chris went to feed the dogs, he noticed a large lump on Lucy’s neck.  We had been watching two smaller nodules on her lower back for about a week, but we had seen these kinds of lumps before and had been told by our vet that they were fat pockets so we hadn’t really taken much action for them.  Then, Saturday morning before we left for the wedding, we noticed she had a larger one on the back of her neck.  It was large and hard and we immediately called the vet.  The vet made an appointment to see her on Thursday.

When we came home at 3:00 AM Sunday morning though, the lump on the back of her neck had almost doubled in size and there was a new, much larger lump on her neck.  It looked like she had golf balls under her skin.  She was obviously hurting and so we called the emergency vet clinic.  They asked us to bring her in immediately to make sure that the lumps weren’t affecting any organs or her ability to breathe.  The vet drew blood from the lumps, and said that it wasn’t a bacterial infection and that without further tests, she couldn’t really tell us what was wrong.  For now, we were instructed to give her Benedryl to see if it was some kind of allergy and to take her to our vet first thing on Monday.  Throughout the day today, two more large lumps have appeared and the one on her chest has almost doubled in size.  It is really horrible and scary, but I’m trying to just focus on the positive – namely that cancerous tumors don’t typically multiply or grow that fast.

But then there’s Chris.  For some reason, this thing with Lucy has him completely devastated.  He has just been walking around the house worrying about her all day.  He must have asked me 500 times if I thought we should take her back to the emergency clinic.  Now, everyone knows how I feel about Lucy.  She’s honestly like my first born child.  I can’t imagine loving anything else more.  But emergency clinics are EXPENSIVE!  It’s $150 just to walk in the door, and that doesn’t include the x-rays, blood samples, etc.  Its not the kind of place you want to just drop into.  Besides, we’ve already been and they’ve done all they can until we see our regular vet.  But for Chris, this just isn’t enough.  I’m fully convinced if he could hire a dog whisperer today he would have.

I am wondering though if this sudden pessimism is ALL about the dog, or if some of it is just his lack of sleep from last night and the anxiety of starting his new job tomorrow morning.  That’s right, its his first day at work tomorrow!  I’m so excited because I know he is going to be great.  But Chris is a little more hesitant.  Every time I ask him if he’s excited about it, he just says, “I don’t know what tomorrow is going to be like.”  I’m sure it is just first-day jitters and I’m trying to be supportive, but its been like living with Dr. Doom today.

I better get back out to the living room before Chris decides to pack up Lucy and take her to a clinic in Mexico…