Lacey's Surgery is Successful!

Friday, Sept 21: Lacey has a big circle of love around her, and we are very grateful for that. Her spleen was removed, and they took 1.5 liters of bloody fluid out of her abdominal cavity. She lost 11 lbs in the surgery! That's 20% of her body weight -- like me losing 26 lbs! The biopsy results will be done by next week. The surgeon is pretty sure the cancer has spread because there were some other suspicious areas. We're not sure at all! Her liver is fine, her heart is strong. We'll take it one healing day at a time.

Thursday, Sept 20: Lacey was bloated and lethargic, wouldn't eat, and when Chuck got home he and Art took her straight away to the emergency vet hospital in Williston. We are so lucky to have one so near! They waited for me to get there, and operated soon after I arrived.

They wanted us to have some time with Lacey, because Chuck had told them (as we have agreed) not to wake her up if she is in bad shape, and not to do CPR if she went out during surgery. They knew it was a tumor, probably spleen, liver could be involved because she was anemic, and jaundiced. Anyway, the understanding we have is not to wake the dog up if it's bad, and dnr if she leaves. We talked it over with Lacey, and told her she could go if she wanted to, we'd understand and her grandmother Rita would be there for her.

It probably sounds weird (not to Wendy, bless her), but Lacey understood, I could tell by how she acted and the look she gave us. We were walking outside on the lawn, and Lacey could barely walk. After we talked, as we came back in the hospital, she got more strength and led the way -- marched right back toward the surgery area, and stood calmly by the doctor (who was eating her dinner!). There was a momentary deep panic in her eyes as we turned to walk away, then she was calm again.

Two hours later the doctor came out and said, "Lacey did fine in the surgery, and she's waking up now." We will never forget the joy inside us when we heard those words! You know how you ask someone to repeat, and repeat good news, how you hear it but you have to hear it again, and again?

She stayed the night. I picked her up at 7am. Took her to our regular vet, Dr. Wolf (really, that's her real name! and she is wonderful). Lacey spent the day in their recovery room. They monitor heart (cardiac is the major complication when the spleen is removed), fluid intake and hematocrit. Her well-dog baseline hematocrit is 46; it had dropped to 25 last night; it was down to 18 this morning. It stabilized at 18, so they let her come home with us tonight. She is bright eyed and her tail wags. She's tired, but she's 100% here with us. (Well, technically she is minus one spleen and a lot of her red blood cells.) We are so grateful!

We thought it would kill us to lose one of our dogs, but we found out that when the dog is very sick or in pain, we want her to be able to go. We faced that last night, didn't want her to see us cry and feel confused, we asked her to try really hard to have a good surgery, but if she wanted to go it was ok, we would honor her choice, and not to worry about us, we'd be ok. We talked to Wendy several times, and to Lacey's first family, the Gavins, and we all agreed on the decision, told Lacey we loved her, and waited. "Lacey's waking up now..." the words sped to Richmond VT and to Steamboat Springs CO -- LACEY WOKE UP!

LACEY is perfectly healthy in the mind of God. My friend Marilyn shows me how to handle sadness about Lacey's material health. She says if I look deep into Lacey's eyes and see her spiritual reality, perfect and forever in the mind of God, I will see her joy and share it. So now when I look at Lacey, I look deep into her eyes, and there is her reality: perfect and joyful, running through a golden grassy field of wildflowers with her ears flying out like that nun, forever! Namaste.

Lacey dreams of running across the field, down to the lake for a swim.
She would do that! On hot days, she would suddenly take off running, returning a few minutes later soaking wet.

Lacey, the beautiful one.
We'd tell the groomer, "Give her the fancy cut, she's the beautiful one."
She was vain, she posed prettily, she was dainty, and she didn't like to get her feet dirty!

Wendy called Lacey to say goodbye, and to tell her how much she loves her.