Heart and Heartbreak

I have been asked to come and talk to the Vet about the results of the blood tests – which came back very quickly.  The immediate blood test  ruled out Diabetes but the blood that was sent to the lab was not so good. It would appear that Chienne has a tumor and it cannot be operated on. It will grow very slowly so we may well have her for at least 9 – 12 months but she will need constant blood tests to monitor her condition and the tumor progress. I have not told the boys yet. Andrew is in Roxby Downs again  and it’s not something I want to do over the phone. John was here last night so I sat down with him and told him. At the moment Chienne is fine and behaving fairly normally.  I took her out last night and she walks quite happily, so in that regard she is still well. If she were lagging behind I would be concerned but she is not and generally walks ahead of me or at my side, stopping only to investigate an interesting smell.

Chienne is, of course, the most important issue,  but as a secondary issue, I have been cleared by the Cardiologist. The Cardioversion was a great success and I am very pleased. The heart has gone back to a normal rhythm – the arterial fibrillation  having been corrected –  so the energy levels should start to go back to normal. However, no more running around the State like a crazy thing. I have a week away during the last week in May and then  nothing for another three months. I should have been in Adelaide for the rescheduled West Terrace Trust meeting, but no word on that and we are now into the third week in April so I don’t see it happening this month. Probably just as well. I’m not the best of company right at the moment and these last ten days have been pretty rotten. The heart problem aside, to lose one dog and then to be told that I may only have a limited time with the other one makes it  two weeks I would rather not have happened. I keep thinking that I had really neglected Chienne somehow. The Man was ill, blind and require a lot of attention and he got all that attention, even when it meant getting up at 2 and 3 am to attend to him. Chienne looked fine, she seemed fine and behaved as she always does, calm and placid. It was only afterwards that I began to notice that she was drinking a lot of water – and I mean a lot of water, that I suspected something might not be quite right.  I thought perhaps diabetes and, really, I was prepared for that – but a tumor, that  was never in my  thoughts at any time.

As if to add insult to injury the weather has not been the best  over the last couple of weeks. Summer is well and truly behind us and we head towards winter. It has been cold walking at night and I think it might be time to get Chienne’s coat out of storage. We have had only a limited amount of rain  unlike New South Wales, parts of which are flooded and being battered by storms.  I am never sure if backward South Australia is lucky or just plain boring. We are in the middle of Australia – sort of – and we are protected from the extremes of weather  from the  Indian Ocean by the bulk of Western Australia and from the Pacific by the bulk of New South Wales. We do get some weather coming in off the Great Australian Bight, but nothing remotely like the storms of NSW or Western Australia. Flooding here is a few very large puddles – nothing to be concerned about.I wouldn’t wish flood, fire or famine on anyone, but nothing ever really happens here, and I miss The Man.