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It’s hard to pick an official starting point for any tale of adventure. How much of the planning phase should you include? Should you talk about all the things that lead up to your decision to undertake the journey or should you start at the moment the trip “officially” begins? There are pros and cons to both, but for me the birth of this adventure was January 25, 2020. I don’t remember a lot about the day itself other than the veterinarian saying the words “malignant nasal carcinoma”. In an instant, my world was turned upside down; I had to grapple with the fact that my dogs were not immortal, that Captain Fantastic was going to die. The average lifespan for a dog with her particular diagnosis was 88 days; we didn’t have long….
Captain Fantastic (aka Captain or Pig, amongst other countless names) was 11 years old at the time and in otherwise incredible health. As a McNab, a sheepherding breed mostly unknown outside of northern California, Captain is an incredibly loving and loyal girl with a penchant for outdoor adventures. She and her brother, a then 12 year old Chihuahua mix, had gone everywhere with me on countless escapades across North America. For reference, the previous year’s highlights included hiking 33 miles in under 24 hours through the rolling hills and mountains of Arizona, climbing an unknown mountain along the side of the road near Tombstone National Park in the Yukon, and dipping their paws in their third ocean, the Arctic, in the Northwest Territories of Canada. In short, though older, these dogs were in tip top shape and were invincible in my eyes. That’s why Captain’s death sentence hit so hard.
Unwilling to give up without a fight, I made a series of frantic phone calls to try and get Captain to an oncologist to give her the best chance possible. The closest facilities couldn’t get her in to be seen for several months so I expanded my search radius and was finally able to schedule an appointment for the following week in Las Vegas for an MRI, just in time for my 40th birthday. Driving several hundred miles wasn’t exactly how I’d planned to spend a milestone birthday, but my dogs always come first.
Sadly, the MRI confirmed that Captain had a large tumor in her left nostril and her best chance at survival would be to get stereotactic radiation. Unfortunately no animal hospitals within 500 miles could see her for several months. To make matters worse, we were about to move halfway across the country for a few months for my job which would make her treatments nearly impossible. I was a wreck.
I shared all of this with the doctor in Las Vegas and incredibly, he said that he had a friend who did stereotactic radiation that he would call and see if they would be willing to do her procedure on extremely short notice. To my amazement, the stars aligned and 4 days later, we were loading up the car for a 16 hour drive to Carlsbad, California to get Captain treated and incredibly, her treatment would end the day that we would need to begin our long drive for my job. Captain was going to have the best treatment available, even if it meant completely draining my bank account, maxing out my credit card, getting help from my parents, and spending 30+ hours in the car.
Because she was given just 88 days to live, I decided to try and make every day as much fun as possible for her and began spoiling her with cheeseburgers, rotisserie chickens, steak, etc. and taking her to try new and exciting things like seeing Lassie’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, trying out her first agility course, getting to the top of a 14,000 foot mountain, and moving to our 3rd state (Arizona, Colorado, and Washington) since the beginning of her cancer journey to name a few. But with each little adventure, another day passed, bringing us closer to the dreaded day 88.
My anxiety was very high when day 88 came, but Captain was still doing exceptionally well, though her hair had started to fall out of her nose from where the radiation treatment took place. Then came day 100, then 150, then 6 months had passed, effectively doubling her expected survival time. My indestructible Pig was doing great and not only fighting, but beating cancer! Then came day 211….
Day 211 started like any other day except there was a large puddle of foaming drool near where Captain had slept, but she seemed fine otherwise. A few hours later, she was wanting to go outside and when I opened the door for her, her body went rigid, she collapsed, and began having seizures. She had never had them before so it was very scary to see. A few hours later, she had a second seizure so we went to the emergency vet. There, we were given a terrible prognosis that the cancer had most likely spread to her brain and that she had days to weeks left to live at best and that he would support me if I wanted to put her down right then. Not ready to give up on her, I chose to bring her home and see if she could pull through again. Though expecting the worst, I took her to the beach for one last walk.
Shortly after getting back from the beach, she had another seizure and we rushed back to the vet. While waiting in the car to be seen, she had her 4th witnessed seizure in under 24 hours. The vet changed his outlook for her survival from “days to weeks” to “hours to days” and he again suggested putting her down, but if we went that route, she would die alone as Covid restrictions would not have allowed me to be in the room with her. My bond with Captain was too strong though and I wasn’t ready to let her die alone in strange surroundings, so I said that I’d bring her home where she could pass in comfortable surroundings.
212 came and went, then 213, then 220. She was making a comeback! Her seizures were still happening every few days, but not as bad as the first cluster.
Since it looked like we were past the “hours to days” life expectancy, Captain went in for an MRI on day 250 to determine what was causing the seizures. To our surprise, there was no evidence of any brain cancer! We had no idea what was causing the seizures, but it wasn’t cancer. Unfortunately, there’s always a “but”… and this time, the “but” was that the MRI picked up cancer in one of her adrenal glands. This meant she was going in for surgery. On day 264, she went in to have her adrenal gland removed. During the operation, they discovered that the cancer had also spread to one of her kidneys so they had to remove that as well. Captain was supposed to come home the next day, but she had not recovered enough yet. On day 266, the vet called and broke the news to me that Captain was in a coma and that it was time to put her down. They wanted me to authorize it over the phone but I told them there was no way I was going to lose her without saying goodbye in person.
Because of Covid-19 restrictions, the vet would not allow anyone into the building, but because Captain was in the dog ICU and hooked up to a number of machines, there was no way to bring her outside. I stood my ground and told them I would not let them put her down without seeing her. They finally made an exception and allowed me in to see her one more time. The scene was heart wrenching, she was on oxygen and had other various IVs and electrodes hooked up to her, her eyes were closed, she was barely breathing, and she was totally unresponsive. I asked to have some time alone with Captain and they obliged. During that time, I tried everything I could think of. I petted her, hugged her, talked to her, sang to her, and cried. It felt like the fight had left her and that she was gone. I turned to tell the vet that it was time to put her down but they were nowhere to be seen, so I turned back to Captain to have a few more moments with her before letting her go. As I sobbed, one last idea came to me, her teeth. Captain absolutely hated having her teeth touched and it’s the only time she had ever grumbled at me while being handled, so I figured why not give it shot.
I stuck my finger in her mouth and began wiggling her front teeth, but to no effect. I then moved towards the back of her mouth and began scraping my fingernail on her back molar where she had a plaque buildup. When I did this, her head pulled back ever so slightly. I gasped with excitement, was this actually going to work? I scraped more aggressively, her head pulled back harder, and then her eye opened. It didn’t focus on me, or anything for that matter, but it was a clear sign that she was still alive and no longer in her coma as she was responding to external stimuli! I yelled for the vet and when they came in I immediately showed them Captain’s response to the tooth touching; this time she also moved her tongue a bit, trying to get my finger out of her mouth. The doctor was shocked and I broke down, my sweet Pig hadn’t given up just yet! A few days later, and after 5 days in the ICU, Captain got to go home!
Once more, the days began to pass and Captain slowly improved, but the surgery and coma had taken a heavy toll. Captain never fully recovered. Some days her mind would wander a little bit and she was slower to react than she had been. She also was having a harder time walking. Our daily 1 hour, 4 mile walks turned into nearly 2.5 hour crawls. She was still enjoying them, she just had to take her time.
It was during one of these long, slow walks that I had an epiphany and that epiphany was bright yellow….
