My grandfather certainly passed his puppy persuasion on to me. So after he passed, it wasn't even a question that I would buy a puppy, in his memory, with a portion of the money he generously left me. And an added bonus for our one existing canine comrade who really needed a sibling.
Now, I'm not entirely proud of how we happened upon our furry fido, but I would never trade that day, or the decisions I made. It was August 20th, 2005, a Saturday. My family and I were out and about enjoying the Colorado summer and decided to swing by the local mall. We'd barely gotten into the building when "CAN WE SEE THE PUPPIES AND KITTIES PLEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAASSSSEEEEE?!?!" squawked our barely 4 year old spawn approximately 37 million times. The 'mall zoo' was on the opposite end. How the hell this kid remembered these things is beyond me... Why not? We made our way there, and in we went. Insert absurd amounts of oooohing and ahhhing here ------> for all the fluffy goodness saturating our brains.
The second we walked in, I knew someone was coming home with us. He stuck out the moment I saw him... not because he was 3x bigger than the other pups, though certainly at 5 months his feet were too big, his ears were too tall, and his legs were spindly and long making him a Goliath compared to his 8 week old counterparts who simply sported distended puppy bellies. Nor was it his double curly tail, or the strikingly stark contrast between his snow white belly and his midnight black torso. No, it was those amber brown dinner plate eyes that melted my heart and created an instantaneous connection. Cue the child... "CAN WE GET A PUPPY?!?!?!?!" was the new chant being rhythmically sung by our kiddo who also refused to stop circling us until we agreed.
Not wanting the amber eyed Goliath thinking he had the upper hand, I tried to play it cool. So we sat with a Great Pyrenees first. She was very sweet... like an off-white cotton-ball with eyes. I think she might've moved once though it was likely accidental. She was likely a fluffy dog shaped sloth come to think of it.
Recall there is a one year old weimaraner at home waiting for us. Bear with me a moment while I explain a bit about weimaraners: they have the energy of an adrenaline junkie, who is also a speed addict, while hopped up on cocaine laced espresso, jazzed up on happiness, with an invisible Mountain Dew mainline. Now put that assortment into an always running, tail wagging, and in our pups case- barking- grey ball of floppy eared dog, and that's a weimaraner. So this sweet, timid cotton-ball sloth would likely experience more anxiety from the grey streak than anything else, so she wasn't the pup for us. Eyeballs was next... In he came to our little 'meet and greet' cubby, and I was sold. He knew it too.
Our Irish boys, Murphy and Riley. (Funny considering one is a German and the other is a Northern breed with ties to Asia....) I was grinning from ear to ear. So, so happy to have this amazing, beautiful, vivacious creature who to me, is honoring the memory of my grandfather, now a part of my family. It wasn't until 10 years later that my grin finally faded. Born 3-22-2005, officially became an Armstrong on 8-20-2005, Riley was diagnosed 8-12-2015 with an inoperable form of spinal cancer. 9 years, 11 months, and 24 days after coming into our lives the grandfathers curse emerged. But I'll get to that...
I've never known a dog who likes to 'read' as much as him. Much to my child's chagrin, he read books that were age appropriate for him, which happened to be her books. He was quite the fan of The Dork Diaries and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. His spelling is atrocious though.
True to his breed, he LOVED the snow. Always fearing the pet police would show up, I had my 'He won't come in, I swear' speech very well rehearsed. We even hooked a sled up to him on occasion and let him take the kiddo for a spin. When he wasn't reading, or mushing, he would tunnel with his nose in the snow whilst hopping around in circles. Funniest damn thing I've ever seen. Happy hopping moron. And that's the only way that Riley ever dug. Always with his nose, always in the middle of the yard, and always about the length of my foot so I'd be sure to step in it and break an ankle. My favorite part of the snow is Riley being Riley while he's in it.
Riley has always been a sneaky fart too. Especially with the little kids who flocked to him. Oh the little ones are always drawn to Mr. Riley. It's his fluffy goodness that does it. He always made sure that they knew he was their Alpha... He'd start 'cleaning' them the way a dog does... nibbling with his teeth. So many of my friends with littler kids, and my daughters friends with younger siblings found this out after ignoring our warnings. It makes for a good lesson though, if someone says that only certain people in your group may pet your dog, there's probably a reason and you'd be wise to respect that.
Ever see that episode of Seinfeld with the 'close talker'? Riley. He'd sideways glance, give a little hop, then BOOP! (he doesn't bark, he boops) at 467 decibels approximately 1/32nd of a millimeter away from my face. Quite startling even after all these years. Very effective though! I knew right away he needed something. A new book perhaps?
He's a fairly laissez faire food thief as well. He could care less who's it is. It's his. If it's in range of his face, it's his. If his face is on the other side of the planet, and he can smell it and beats me to it, it's his. Not too mention that my husband can't cook a meal without Riley sprawled out on the floor behind him waiting for scraps.
So basically I have dog who loves reading, playing outdoors, gardening, staying close to home, good hygiene, foodie who appreciates clear communication. Maybe I should open a Tinder account for him.
Riley dog, generally speaking, has had very few adventures in the veterinarian arts- he had dangling dew claws in his youth, but it wasn't until much, much later when he decided to start dabbling in the arts... To start his new hobby he thought he'd open with right knee surgery. His right ACL was completely torn, so he'd have this TPLO surgery done, get some metal plates in there, heal up, and BLAMMO! back to Riley dog form! His left knee was showing signs of heading in that same direction, but for now, he was fine to have only the one knee done. So February 6, 2014, at 8 years and 10 months old, Riley had his right rear TPLO surgery done. A long road to recovery awaited us, and we were up for the challenge.
Anyone who has ever had a dog that has required TPLO surgery knows that it is not cheap. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not Melinda Gates, so it was a struggle to come up with the first round of dough. Fortunately, Riley's ortho surgeon is one of the most empathetic, humble, kind people I've ever met. He has never once charged me for visits, and he always helps out where ever else he can. I already liked the guy, this was just above and beyond.
Riley's PT and recovery were cruising along when the plot in his story decided to have a small twist. Infection. He had one. On his new hardware. The plan was to hit it hard with antibiotics, and hope that it would clear it up and never return. Plot twist. It came back again. The second infection came back months later, so removing the hardware was our best bet if we wanted to avoid any future infections, however... that also isn't cheap, even with my very financially sensitive doctor. He felt it was very reasonable to hit it hard again with antibiotics, as that seemed to work at taking care of the infection, tho no guarantee it wouldn't come back. Riley was in very good health otherwise. So that's what we did. Second time is a charm?
Fast forward one year. February 2015. We'd seen the ortho doc a number of times, and I am scrambling to scrape, borrow, and or steal enough scratch to pay for Riley's left leg. In those 12 months Riley's left knee had become so bad that he desperately needed surgery, and we desperately needed to find a way to pay for it. It took us until July 2015. We knew in February 2014 it would need to be done. By February 2015 we were scrambling to make it happen, so by July, when the funds were available, we just so happened to be going out of state, but when we returned however, Riley would FINALLY be able to get some relief for that left leg! The surgeon reassured us that Riley has been living with this for 16 months now, a week won't make a difference. Little did we know...
As soon as we returned, we picked up our boys, and were all thrilled to be reunited, and back at home. Oh, and Riley decided to grow a kiwi sized mass on his right front leg while we were gone. You know... just because. Riley's knee surgery was scheduled for that week. There was no way the ortho was fixing his knee until he knew what that was so he had a biopsy done instead, and we rescheduled his knee for Monday. By Monday Riley was no longer walking, instead he was hopping like a kangaroo. Guess what? No knee surgery, we had to figure out the cause of this new neurological event. So the ortho doc sent us to a neurologist.
Where to begin... Well, we were quite lucky to get in with the neurologist. He is one of 6 in North America with his credentials. His schedule is booked solid for months and months, and I know why. Like the ortho, he's nothing short of amazing. From 9am to 11am he examined Riley. Just the physical exam. He checked reflexes, muscle mass, for seizures, watched him walk, poked and prodded some more, watched him walk again, more reflexes, extension, rotation, lungs, heart, eyes...... He checks for at least 84 different things. 84! Makes a regular vet look like they're missing an awful lot now that I've seen this guy. He's personable, funny, thorough, empathetic, and I'm so glad that Riley is in his care.
What did he find? The 2 hour exam showed him a number of things. Stuff I never even considered a dog would have issues with... When Riley walks, he fish tails. So his back end swings out left, or right. I'd never really noticed.
Since his hind end isn't working, the doc was thinking Riley had sciatic nerve pain. Who knew?! It would certainly explain why Riley's right leg was getting tangled up, and was weaker on the right side, though that's the stronger of the two sides. Sciatic nerve pinch made sense. Since Riley has been falling, he also has a pulled groin muscle. Poor guy...
Yes, he has arthritis, but that wasn't contributing to the lameness either. He pretty much concluded that Riley has one long problem, or two separate problems. I clearly remember when he said 'I don't think it's cancer my dear.' Imagine how crazy relieved I was!!! MRI's would confirm his hunches. He had to do blood work, and possibly an EMG and a spinal tap in case the MRI came back clean, but we'd cross that bridge if we came to it. Then he drew quite the memorable diagram to explain what, where, why, and how.
He drew blood. Called with results, everything is great, his liver levels are back to normal compared to results he saw from a prior visit with another vet, his blood count was on the lowest end of low, but that's to be expected in a 10 year old dog that has arthritis and is rockin' a malignant tumor on his front leg. So, no surprises, all wonderful, he'll start the MRI's.
MRI's barely started, doctor calls. Riley's blood pressure dropped. He stabilized him, got it to normal, he's doing great, MRI time. Thoracic MRI done first. With and without contrast. Doctor calls. Riley has 3 bulging discs at the thoracic level where his fishtailing starts, they aren't compromising his spinal cord, not impacting anything, it looks like he's got some arthritis in those vertebrae, nothing to write home about, it's old and causes no pain or discomfort, nothing remarkable. On to lumbar for scans of Riley with and without contrast.
At this point it's 4pm. Riley has been under sedation for 4 and some hours. Doc calls. Absolutely nothing showed up on the lumbar scan. No pinched sciatic nerve. Nothing. Clean an clear. His spinal cord looks a bit short though. Weird. We were expecting to see bulging discs with pinched nerve.... it's just not there. Shit. If it's not that, then what the hell is it? A completely normal, clean scan. Most people would rejoice. We were baffled.
He doesn't want to keep Riley sedated much longer, but wants to rescan an area just to make sure he didn't miss something because this is weird. Baffling. Riley isn't fitting the mold. What is going on with Riley? The grandfather's curse.
5 pm. Doc calls. Riley is still under. Let's draw blood because he might have the dog form of ALS. Not painful at all, but will eventually leave him completely immobile. Riley showed pain on his physical exam in the morning, so it's more of a long shot, but certainly possible. Yes, let's draw blood to be safe.
515 pm, doc calls. Riley is still out, he has the radiologist take a look at Riley's scan... And out of 2000+ images, 4 showed something lighting up in Riley's spine. 4 slides. This teeny, tiny, itty bitty white spot that 1,996 pictures do not have. The neurologist initially missed it, and he feels absolutely horrible...
Since something lit up that means- Cancer, Myelitis (inflammation), or infection. The likelihood of the last two are less than 5%. Myelitis is mostly a young female problem, and infection is a very young pup problem. But, all three are treated with steroids. Do I want to do a spinal tap to see if he can get some of the cells that might have shed off of whatever it is in there? 30% chance he'd get something. This might give us something definitive. Well, if there's a 70% chance of getting nothing, and it only might give us something, I said no. No more. Wake Riley up, it's time for him to come home.
7 pm Doc calls, Riley is still groggy, but doing well. When doc woke Riley up, Riley licked his face. Can I be there at 8pm to go over the findings, all at once, so that we would know exactly what he knows, and to discuss our game plan. He stayed with us until 9:30 pm. Drew more illustrations, answered millions of questions, and explained what he feels is the absolutely best for Riley's treatment when we take him home.
Riley had already been taking an anti-inflammatory for some time. Before starting him on prednisone he needed to be completely off the old stuff for 5 days. 5 days with nothing to keep the whatever it is in his spine suppressed? That will make for an interesting time around here... Not too worry, the second medicine is for nerve pain, will help, will make him sleepy so start on the conservative side...I'm hoping the new nerve meds, and current pain meds will hold him over until then. Doc said the prednisone will make him feel like a million bucks for about a month. After that we will just have to see...
The devoted doctor stayed at Riley's side from 9am until we took him home at 9:30 pm. This guy went above and beyond, and even though none of us got the outcome we were hoping for, I felt so grateful that Riley was in such capable hands. And I feel so fortunate to have such a stellar surgeon who wasn't out for a buck, knew Riley should not have surgery, and sent us to his friend, who he knew would take great care of Riley.
Prognosis from this August 12 visit- only Riley knows. What I do know is this- he will continue to smile, wag his tail, boop, and steal Murphy's treats until the end of time, and we will do everything in our power to make sure he's happy, and comfortable.
Fast forward to October 2015. The neurologist predicted prednisone would make him feel like a million bucks for about a month. He wasn't kidding. It would also tell us if there was a mass in his spine, or just inflammation. Riley also started PT as he is no longer be able to have surgery to fix the trashed left leg until we knew what was in his spine, and we need to keep his muscle mass up as it is already starting to waste away.
Fast Forward end of October, beginning of November 2015- Riley felt like a million bucks for about two and a half months. I got sick, couldn't do PT with him and he's not muscularly recovered from that to this day (yes, I blame myself.) His hind end has almost entirely wasted away now. He cannot stand up, or walk unassisted any longer.
Unfortunately, I think his spinal mass has started growing again. We paid a visit to the ortho. He is visibly upset about Riley's decline. Riley also has a weird tumor on his right hind paw on one of the pads that keeps cracking and bleeding. Which makes me completely reluctant walk him because I assume it hurts. His knees are now bone on bone. He is also bow legged because he couldn't have the surgery for that left knee. He wouldn't recover anyway. It's sad. Very, very sad. because his back legs are getting tangled up again, he's knuckling (walking on the top of his feet instead of the pad) and he has zero reflex response on his right hind leg. This means it's a tumor and not myelitis.
He's become more and more lethargic, he is slightly interested in food, very interested in treats and scraps though which is good, and generally just stays sprawled out on the floor. He enjoys gnawing on a rawhide and letting the kitties, and Murphy know that even tho he can't get up, that's his damn bone.
I can no longer leave him alone for more than a couple hours or he will pee all over himself as he cant stand up on his own and walk to the door. It's basically hospice for Riley- paying attention when he starts shuffling about and helping him get to where he needs- food, water, or outside.
This is horrific, heart breaking, and insanely stressful. I'm quite focused on him seeing the snow one.more.time. A text to the neurologist explaining what's going on, and share about the ortho visit, and we bumped up his steroids - now he isn't knuckling as much.
There is some good in all of this. We all believe Riley will make it to see the snow one more time. Even with all this physical, neurological crap going on, he is still VERY aware, VERY much Mr. Personality. However, everyone can see that the time he has left is very short. He's 10. Diagnosed on 8/12/2015. So he's survived spinal cancer for almost 3 months, has had a completely torn knee for well over a year, has had recurrent infections in the hardware in his right leg, and some weirdo mass on his right rear foot that keeps bleeding. He has a lot going on. He can do this. In the meantime, I'm neurotically scanning the weather reports for any sign of snow... Looks like Nov. 11th is our best chance. You can do this Riley!
November 6-8, 2015- There are only liquids shooting out. Ummmm...
November 9, 2015- Decided midday that food wasn't really necessary any longer. It's time. Sent our wonderful ortho surgeon, who has been with Riley through this entire ordeal, a text to see if he would consider helping ease Riley's pain one final time. He'd be honored. It's supposed to snow on Wednesday the 11th, let's not wait much longer than that. The 11th it is. God I hope it snows.
November 10, 2015- As I sit here with my cuddly buddy on his last night with us, I smile, and tear up recalling his life and antics. I was thrilled when he actually ate some of the steak my husband made especially for him. 24 hours and not a bite... I guess he was waiting for the good stuff.
I can't help but feel a sense of guilt knowing what is in his very near future. It's the right thing to do. I keep telling myself that. My friends and family keep telling me that. The doctor told me that... I could go through the stages of grief 57 times in one (very long) paragraph. I posit this, why can't pets Benjamin Button instead?
What if this, what if that, had I tried X would that made a difference? I know the answers.
Then I dabble with the I should haves... I should have taken him on more walks, played with him more, been more patient... so when I'm not what iffing myself I'm shoulding all over myself. I did those things with him though. He was as active as I was. Which sometimes wasn't very much, and other times it was.
I keep going back to the thought that I am now forever losing my grandfather too. I have a living, breathing, Riley... a walking reminder. At least for the next 18 or so hours. Perhaps I'm grieving the loss of two...
Tomorrow will, no doubt, be very stressful. We will all be there with Riley, as we all were in the beginning. I know that having the doctor he knows and loves with him will also give him peace. I hope to walk away with some relief in knowing that he is no longer suffering, and closure on his struggle with spinal cancer.
Riley dog... our ‘close talker’, our happy hopping moron, stubborn, sled pulling, sous chef, always smiling, fluffy boy. I thank you for giving me the honor of being a part of your pack, I thank you for teaching me so many lessons, I thank you for loving us. Forgive me for my mistakes. You have touched our lives and will live forever in our hearts.
3/22/2005-11/11/2015
10 years, 7 months, 20 days.
(though as I write this, he is still with us, resting comfortably at my feet on his cushy dog bed, and we are waiting for the snow that was predicted to start falling.)
***update of sorts***
It snowed :)
