Belated Catching Up

I see that we have gone neglected here for more than a year.  Much has happened.  My wonderful Crow was lost to me in December 2012.  I see, as I read my last post, that on some level, I knew we were nearing the end.  As was her wont, she left suddenly, without lingering, on to the next adventure.  Hudson, who had presented with an emergency on December 3, was diagnosed with a splenic hemangiosarcoma.  He had a splenectomy on December 5th, and came home on December 7th.  As we all came back into the house, Crow lost control of her hind end.  Initially, we thought she had tweaked her spine over the course of the few days of traveling back and forth to the animal hospital.  She recovered quite a bit over the next two days, though she seemed a little more frail and wobbly to me than she previously had.  It had been a hard few days for all of us, with little sleep and less rest, so I didn't think too much of it.

Sometime around 4:00 a.m. on December 10th, Crow woke up in a panic, agitated and whining, and unable to settle down.  My dear friend, Suzanne, had come down to stay with me to assist with Hudson post-surgically.  Since I have only one bedroom, she was in my bed.  Crow and I were sleeping on the couch.  Crow had pushed her leg down beneath the cushions, down into the crease between the deck and the back of the couch.  I thought that was the problem, but once Suzanne and I had freed her, she commenced pacing and whining and would not stop.  So, exactly a week after Hudson's trip to the emergency room, we were off again.

Hawk's Hunt Crow Creek  April 2, 1998-Dec. 12, 2012

To make a very long, very sad story shorter, after some diagnostics, it became clear that the undetermined mass that had been found in Crow's abdomen had already metastasized, and that there was involvement in her brain.  Over the next day and a half, which she spent hospitalized as we tried to determine what was going on, and tried to stabilize her, there were increasingly dire neurological symptoms.  On Wednesday, December 12th, I made the decision to release her from her failing body.  She had largely left it on her own, anyway.  For one brief second, she met my eye, was fully there, and told me she wanted to go.  She died in my arms.  She is still with me, in the memory of the weight of her there, the warmth of her up against me, the slowing breaths we shared.  She will be with me always, one of the golden, shining treasures of my entire life.

And Hudson?, you ask.  Hudson has beaten all the odds of his prognosis.  Nine and a half months out from his surgery, he remains.  He remains with me, remains the guardian of his domain, the keeper of the beloved Cuz, and the benevolent big brother to his new housemate and nominal sister, Rhapsody (who came to join us early in February, to sop up the echoes and fill the gap that neither Hudson nor I could tolerate.)  It is clear we are in the end game, but he is comfortable and comforting, and we take every day as the gift it is.

More later.  That's the update for now.