Living life where I am

Learning to live life where I am is a challenge. It seemed to not be that way before. In this post I am going to talk mostly about my thought process since mid October. Why I've struggled to stay on my healthy eating plan.

Since beginning to eat a McDougall style diet in 2006, I have always believed that we can control our health. In 2005 I was diagnosed with palmoplantar pustular psoriasis. An autoimmune disease that I was told had no known causes or cures. My only "hope" for treatment to control, not stop or reverse, but control symptoms was drugs. Drugs that alter the immune system. That was not an option.

By following the diet that Dr. McDougall teaches, I cured this awful disease. I use the word "cure" loosely. If I start eating lots of dairy, it returns.

I guess in some strange way I thought diet trumped everything. This goes for not only humans but animals. I had fed my dog, a chocolate Labrador retriever, what I thought a healthy diet her whole life. For the first 8 years of her life, I fed her premium dog kibble. Never store brand or even a so called premium brand available at Walmart type stores. Always from reputable feed stores.

Starting at age 5, I started having a lot of trouble controlling her weight. She weighed in, the beginning of 2011, what was her 8th year, 95 pounds. She was not a large lab. She should of only weighed around 65-70 pounds at most. The only way to get her to drop a couple pounds was to literally kill her with exercise. After lots of research, I changed her diet. I started feeding her a raw diet consisting of raw chicken, liver and heart. She also got small snacks of fruits and veggies.

By the summer of 2011 she weighed about 72 pounds and looked incredible. She was happy, active and healthy. She ate a diet I called "McDougall for her species". What, if she were in nature, what a canine would eat. (Just because something CAN eat something, doesn't mean it's good for their health)After all I have read from Dr. McDougall, I believe being healthy and trim starts with what we eat, not how much we exercise.

Pictures taken of her in the month of August and September, show Sierra to be trim and healthy appearing. In the last week of September, I noticed she was kind of quiet, not really acting normal. But not so sick that playing was out of the question. But she just kind of hung out. Then she started looking "mopey". Not lifting her head as high and not being her normal excited self. Then I noticed a lump on her chest, but in the front under her neck area. It was the size of a golf ball. But it wasn't attached, more like a fatty tumor.

These new symptoms lasted for about a week and a half. Then she started limping. That was Saturday Oct. 8th. On Monday I called her vet to make an appointment to have her looked at. Not only did she have these new symptoms, she also had a very large abdomen. Since she wasn't acute her appointment was for the next day, Tuesday Oct. 11th. They did an abdominal x ray and found a grapefruit sized mass. They couldn't tell if it was attached to her pancreas or liver, exploratory surgery would determine that. She also had changes in her lungs, what was explained as "normal for her age".

The limp that developed, I thought was due to very long toe nails. Right before all this started I noticed they needed to be trimmed, but they weren't dire at that point, they could wait. With the non activity they grew and fast. Her toes were sideways, what I thought caused the limp.

So when they brought her out, I noticed her nails were trimmed but her limp was worse. So I mention it to the vet. Remember, we are going home with the possibility of doing exploratory surgery to see what the mass is. She's on pain meds and that is it. The vet starts to examine her rear leg. Looks at me and says she is going to do another x ray, she does not like the way the bone feels.

When we go into the exam room, all x rays are digital now, I see her shoulders slump when she looks at the image. Inside I knew it was bad. She has a sunburst tumor on her femur. She is diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a very aggressive bone cancer. The tumor in her abdomen is probably a metastasis of the bone cancer. She is terminal. My dog is dying.

She tells me we have no more than 6 months. We sent her to the rainbow bridge 6 days later on October 17th. The so called lung changes due to age were in fact nodules of metastatic bone cancer. They were not visible on x ray. She had developed a cough the night after diagnosis. 3 minutes after she passed she started bleeding from her nose and rectum. We had also been treating her for what we thought a UTI as she had blood in her urine. The vet said that proves how truly sick she was, she was literally bleeding on the inside. She was full of cancer. He said he was glad we brought her that day for she would of probably died that night, literally drowning in the blood and fluid in her lungs.

I was utterly devastated. She was 3 weeks from turning 9 years old. I had babied her hips and elbows when she was a puppy. I fed her healthy. How did she get such a horrible deadly disease? My baby is gone. I did not eat for 4 days after she died. I am in such a dark depression, I want to die too. I can smell her, she is everywhere. To this day I have not cleaned the wall where she slept or the back sliding door. I can not wash "her" away. And I still sleep with her leash. My heart still aches for her. I could have a million labs and I will still weep for her, grieve for her. She was my first baby.

So how does that affect me and my healthy eating? Simple......it doesn't matter. Why would it? I fed her what I thought, what I had researched as a healthy diet. And when I realized her so called healthy diet wasn't so healthy, I changed her to one that was. It didnt matter, she still got sick and died. Why would it make a difference in me?

Okay, I cured my psoriasis. I've always known psoriatic arthritis (PSA) was a possibility. Having cured my psoriasis made me complacent to any other diseases. In 2 1/2 months since Sierra died, I believe I have the beginning of PSA. I have limited use of my right shoulder. This stiffness started after the birth of my last baby. I have never injured my shoulders. Because I have not stayed free of unhealthy foods, I have allowed this PSA to take root. The pain in my shoulder has increased to the point of me not wanting to use it in the past 2 months. My hips and knees are stiff too.

It does matter. I am extremely fearful of cancer. I need to live my life with the thought that right now cancer could be inside of my body. I do believe now that its all over, that Sierra had cancer starting to grow long before I changed her diet to raw. I do believe that changing her diet slowed the cancer growth and gave her some really good time. I have to believe that. I have to live my life with the thought that we all have cancer inside of our bodies, me, my husband and children.

I miss my dog fiercely. She is always with me. She is always in my heart. But I know she is at the Rainbow Bridge waiting for me. And until it is my time, I have to live where I am. As much as I want to be with her, she will always be there waiting and I have work to do here. I do not want to hasten my departure. For as much as I miss Sierra, my kids and husband would miss me more than that. So, I am learning to live where I am. And it is a hard place to live.

Rest in Peace My Beautiful Seirra Bear.
11/13/02-10/17/11

*This picture was taken the evening before she passed away.*