But then one day things changed. Skeebie lost her fight. Over a week or so, I noticed she was not eating well. I may have noticed it sooner but didn't think much of it because she was a finicky eater anyway. I decided to take her in to the clinic to look her over. Blood work revealed she was anemic and had a high white cell count. A treatment plan was devised and carried out and a week later her blood work was no better; actually worse. I decided to x-ray her abdomen. An x-ray revealed a large mass in the abdominal cavity of unknown origin. An ultrasound led me to believe it was her spleen. I scheduled her for an abdominal exlploratory surgery the next day.
I do love surgery, primarily soft tissue surgery, but there is a reason in human medicine physicians are forbidden to work on their family members; it's emotional. I placed an intravenous catheter in Skeebo in preparation for her surgery. All the while her big brown eyes staring deep into my soul begging me to explain to her what was happening. I kissed her on the head, rubbed her silky, soft ears, told her I loved her and proceeded on with her sedation and intubation. I was a robot trying my best to disassociate it was buddy on the surgery table. After making a ventral midline incision into the abdominal cavity it did not take me long to find the problem; it literally burst out of my incision. Her stomach was no longer a stomach but rather one large tumor, roughly the size of a soccer ball. It was inoperable. I did my best to take a proper biopsy and sew her back up through my tears falling into her sterile abdominal cavity; I was no longer a robot. I knew it was not good.
A week later the biopsy returned, and as expected it was a leiomyosarcoma. A leiomyosarcoma is a tumor of smooth muscle cells. Radiation was not an option due to the side effects of radiating the stomach and leiomyosarcomas are not very susceptible to chemotherapy.
Skeebo lived six weeks past that surgery day. It was a wonderful six weeks for me and my Skeebie. She rode to work with me every day and followed my every move. She would lay at my feet in my surgery room or sit patiently waiting on me outside the closed exam room door. She had her good days and bad days...mostly good. Tough as nails that dog was and I could hardly tell she was sick until her last two days. She developed some diarrhea on a Tuesday night, progressively worsened Wednesday and Thursday and died Friday morning. It was a peaceful passing.
I am grateful the dentist brought Skeebo into my life. It is true I did not like her in the beginning; I pretty much loathed her, and, yes, I did try to give her away to my brother-in-law, but thankfully he kindly declined. Yes, those early days were rough, but somehow in a few months our family pecking order worked itself out. That shaggy dog crept into my heart and stole it and my life was enriched the four years I knew her. We miss our Skeebie everyday but like the poet Lord Tennyson wrote, "tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." And love Skeebo we did!