Stella

She's an older girl. She had surgery today and it was not easy for her.

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JB and I picked Stella up at six tonight and we were shocked when the vet nurse brought her out. She couldn't stand, she fell on her hind legs, to the ground, when she tried to walk.

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Her right leg was in a bandage-cast. Her head was shaved and two four inch stitches, two inches apart. We stupidly agreed to have a benign removed since she was have surgery for her cancerous tumor anyway. Mistake. There are three cuts in her skin instead of one, and they hurt.

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She is in pain, unsteady. She must have been very afraid without us.

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Stella came to us from a rescue shelter four years ago. Her life had not been easy, and over time (like a year or more) she learned to trust us.

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Her judgement is right about that. She can trust us to the moon and back.

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So tonight, JB and I are taking turns staying with her, on the floor next to her bed if needed, and tomorrow and the next day, we will (with difficulty) juggle our work so that one of us is home. She needs us. She can't walk, she'll have to pee, she needs her pain meds. She has a family and at its best that's what a family does.

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We can't be sure that this tumor will not return again. It hopefully won't but it might. If it does, I doubt we'd put her through this again.

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We can't be sure. But we are fucking damn sure that this dog is loved to the endth degree and she knows it. She is on her bed now, grateful to be home. As are we.

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Love love

kj