Daily Archives: August 28, 2012

Something Good

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This post is late. I had a long, long, hard, busy day yesterday, and by the time I got home at almost 8 pm, I just didn’t have it in me to do it. So, here it is–better late than never?

1. Creative Superheroes Interview: Laurie Wagner on Superhero Journal.

2. Neil Gaiman announced that he’s writing another Sandman. You might not already know this about me, but I love Neil Gaiman’s writing and his voice, and the Sandman series was how I first encountered his work, so I’m very excited that there will be another.

3. This quote: I couldn’t live without dog. ~Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher). Me either.

4. Land Art. I was reminded of this when I found a post on This is Colossal about the work of Andres Amador. There’s also this post and this one and this, and of course there’s Andy Goldsworthy, whose work is the first Land Art I’d ever seen.

5. Maybe. Maybe Not. on Nourishing the Soul. “If we are caught up in defining the events of our lives as positive or negative, we lose our ability to see and to hear the quiet ways in which other opportunities are presenting themselves.”

6. Convalesce on SouleMama. “I don’t know that we currently live in a world in which we can all lay low, painting in the sunshine and spending weeks recovering from illnesses. But I do know for certain that in small but important ways, we can all be a little bit gentler on ourselves – and each other. And that a cure for so many things lives in moving slowly and being still. ”

7. How to Become Open to Life on Zen Habits.

8. Manifesto love: three manifestos for creatives on Zebra Sounds. I love a good manifesto, and I love Judy Clement Wall.

9. How to Be an Explorer of the World on Brain Pickings. 

10. This quote from Raam Dev:

There are times in life when we need to go with what feels right. Ignore all the critics, the naysayers, and those who will judge us by their own definition of truth. Create your own path, forge your own destiny, and make all the mistakes and dead-end turns necessary to arrive alive. Sometimes what we need cannot be put into the context of right or wrong but must be defined and acted upon by the compass of our soul.

11. This quote: What most of us think of as fear is primarily a mental process of imagining situations that do not exist in the moment. ~Cheri Huber

P.S. Tuesday’s Three Truths and One Wish will be a day late this week too, will be written and posted tomorrow. I’m sensing a theme, seeing a pattern to this week…

August Break: Day 28

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I woke up this morning sad and scared. Today was the first time I walked both dogs on my own since Dexter’s “bloody scare.” I’m worried he’ll reverse sneeze himself into another bloody nose, and that this time it might be worse, that it will lead directly to him getting sicker and this will all happen too fast. Eric offered to go with me on our walk, knew I was nervous, but we both understood that I needed to do it by myself. Everything was fine, and Eric’s note waiting for me on the kitchen counter when we got back home was a reminder that I am loved, I am brave, and I am not alone.

A talk with the vet yesterday only confirmed that while we don’t have a definitive diagnosis, all of the evidence supports the presence of nasal cancer, so we’ll accept it as such, treat what we can, do what is reasonable and right for Dexter, and be happily surprised if we end up being wrong.

We could do more testing and cause Dexter more suffering to know for sure, if we planned on treating him with radiation, but we don’t, not at the proposed cost–both financially and for Dexter it’s just not worth it, as the treatment costs the animal a serious decrease in quality of life and the people thousands of dollars, while not buying them much more time. The most telling thing was the vet said “if it was my dog, I wouldn’t do the radiation.”

This cancer typically runs its course in about three months, although in a limited number of cases it’s anywhere from 6-12 months. For now, all we can do is be aware, pay attention, help him when we can, love him as much as we can, and when it gets worse, gets bad enough, let him go.

So I’ll be brave and open-hearted, showing up with love even when I’m terrified, even as my heart is breaking. It’s all there ever is, all I’ve got.