The universe is screwing with me, I know it. “Go off your antidepressants? Ha — I’ll show you who’s boss!” I found out Monday that the growth Grace had removed was a cancerous mast cell tumor, high level stage 2 with cancerous cells in the margins. So it could very well recur, and if it does in that location, surgery won’t be an option. At this point she’s happy and appears healthy so we’ll keep a close eye on her, but I just have a sinking feeling that she won’t live to be an old lady.
On top of that, the girl won’t be home for Christmas. I understand why but good grief my heart still hurts. I’m pretty sure it’s the first Christmas she won’t be with us. Growing up is hard, friends! So the last few days I’ve been playing the fun game of “is this normal emoting or is this depression?” So far I’m leaning toward the former. Yesterday started a little rough, but a great afternoon with my work team helped reset my attitude and outlook. We spent a couple of hours sorting donations for a local non-profit that serves low-income families, and even though I felt like we barely made a dent, it felt great to do something good for someone else. After that, we gathered for happy hour and white elephant gift exchange. Here’s what I took:
I wrapped it in a wine gift bag and it got ignored until very late in the game but as soon as it was opened, it was immediately stolen twice (which was our limit). I think it’s okay to say that it was one of the better gifts, which included things like a used/not completely clean sandwich press, a russet potato, and a plastic spaghettio’s bank. I came home with a holiday apron/oven mitt set, a bag of trail mix, a box of sugar free/fat free vanilla pudding mix, and, best of all, a tall glass jar that is the perfect thing to store straight knitting needles!
It was really nice to wake up this morning and feel okay again. I’m continually reminded of how grateful I am for my work environment, for my teammates, for my knitting friends. I don’t know that I’d be this okay without them. I know this is a hard time of year for many people, so I hope you’re all doing well and finding some moments of joy!
Happy Wednesday, friends.
bonnyknits 
When my one and a half year old Cattle Dog developed a small .. . and I do mean tiny … lump on his flank we (mostly) ignored it. For starters, he’s a breed that doesn’t like to be probed, and second, we live in high tick area. Tick bites often leave a small bump that lingers, so we just figured that in spite of our fastidious anti-tick regime he’d probably been bit. When the bump didn’t go away I mentioned it to the vet at our next visit. A biopsy was done and it turned out to be a cancerous mass cell tumor. His wasn’t in a great location either. He had surgery and we crossed our fingers. I suspected the worst, mostly because he’d long since grown to be a very special boy. They did their best to get clean margins, but you can never be 100% sure. He’s seven now. No sign of cancer. Full of himself all the time. But I worry, because that’s what I do. And I never miss an opportunity to gaze deeply into his eyes and tell him how much I love him and how special he is to me. He may live another seven years or he may be gone tomorrow, but I’ll try to make every single day count. That’s all we can do. Hugs to you at this tumultuous time.
Oh thank you for sharing that! It’s lovely to have a little bit of hope, and I’m so glad you still have your furry friend with you!
I’m sorry to hear about Grace, but also pets can be surprisingly resilient and there’s no telling what the future holds. It sounds like you’re doing the best you can for her, and that’s all we can do.
Your white elephant gift exchange sounds like it had a wide variety of presents! I’m never sure what to bring to those (we just had our work gift exchange too) so I usually pick something I wouldn’t mind taking home with me, and then go from there. We haven’t had any truly awful gifts at our exchanges in a while. (And even though I do enjoy potatoes, I do not consider them appropriate for a gift exchange…) 😉
Some weird sounding gifts exchanged, I don’t know the rules of white elephant giving but potatoes seems pretty random. Hopefully Grace will be ok for the foreseeable.
Hugs, Bonny! Hoping that Grace is with you for a good long time! I bet your gift was the best one – the others sound nowhere near as good. Your little snowman is so cute!!
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