I’ve a feeling DM has a shot not dissimilar to this for one of the days this week.

This is poor Rosie, fully awake and energised now, looking at me as if to say “but what have I done? Why have I got this flowerpot on my head? Why can’t I get through doors or upstairs any more? Why can’t I hear properly? Why won’t you let me lick your face anymore? Why can’t I chew my bone any more? Heeeelllllllppppppp”

Do you know what? I can’t find the words to explain, even if she could understand.

She’s much better than we expected at this stage since her trip to the vet on Wednesday but much worse too. She’s perkier because she was only put under for a very short time, while the vet took a biopsy of the biggest of the three lumps, the one on her leg. So, she’s not got any stitches and is not suffering from the after-effects of a long stint under a general anaesthetic.

She’s worse than we’d hoped though because we had been expecting all three lumps to be gone by now. We’d asked the vet to remove them but not send them for analysis because frankly if she’s got the dreaded C word (which is what we suspect and the vet feels the same) then we don’t really want to know. We can’t afford (and to be honest would never feel was right anyway) chemotherapy or radiotherapy, even if those options are available for dogs, which I’m not sure they are.

So why are the lumps there and why have we been forced to get the one on her leg analysed? Because the one on her leg is in too dangerous a spot to remove easily. It’s right on a vein and to get it off they’ll have to cause her a lot of pain and distress, not to mention weeks of nasty aftercare where she’ll have to have lots of post operative care in the form of weekly visits to the vet for redressing of the wound. The vet took the decision that if he took a biopsy then he could decide on whether he could get away with leaving it there or whether she’ll need to go to a specialist animal hospital to get the big op done there. Meanwhile, the lump is infected because she’s been trying to chew it off, hence the collar and a week of steroid treatment.

So my baby girl, my little sweetie is bewildered and confused about why her little life has become so difficult and I am miserable for being the instigator of her misfortunes.