Molly Update

It’s been 5 days since we received Molly’s terrible diagnosis from the Vet. This is unchartered territory for us. We were told to keep her comfortable and that we would know when it was “time”, and that her days were numbered in weeks not months. It is a strange thing to live with the immediate expectation of death, but that’s the only way I know to describe it. Every morning I walk down the steps not knowing what I might find. Will she be swollen up, wracked with pain and in misery? When instead she greets me with a goofy smile, tail wagging away, I breathe a sigh of relief… such a strange way to exist.

Pam has devised a sort of “bucket list” for Molly. Leave it to my wife to turn to organization and planning to deal with this. She has come up with a list of Molly’s favorite things to do and is busily checking them off. Yesterday she went to Deep Run Park for a walk. This was the park that was Molly’s great hangout back when she was a rambunctious and out of control puppy. She would run and sniff and flirt with everyone she saw. There would be no running yesterday, but she had a grand time anyway.

So far Molly still has her appetite and her bathroom skills are still fully functioning. She still begs for food at the dinner table, still lays at Pam’s feet in the kitchen when she’s preparing meals hoping for a mistake, and still shadows our every move. In other words, Molly is still Molly. Half the time we wonder whether it’s all just a mistake, a misunderstanding, and Molly has cashed in a misdiagnosis by turning it into an opportunity for even greater attention than she normally gets. It wouldn’t surprise me at all. I can imagine her thinking, “Man-o-man, my folks sure are getting soft in their old age! First, Mom has bought me two chew toys in the last three days, and now I’m getting steak right from the grill?? Wow!”

We obsess over every limp, even the smallest swelling in her legs. But so far, so good.