SHANI, MY ANGEL DOG

JUNE 6, 2025

R.I.P. August 2015 to June 2025

I’m writing about this here, because Shani, my yellow labrador guide dog holds great significance in my journey through kidney cancer, and caring for her is something that helps me keep my focus outward and not always on cancer and various treatments. It’s fitting that Shani be represented here.

In February 2021, I was supposed to train with Shani, guide dog from Guiding Eyes for the Blind. I had been on the waiting list for 19 months. I have special needs in training due to my arthritis, fused knee, balance issues and slow pace. So, I’d been waiting, the longest I’d been without a dog since 1975 when I got my first guide dog. This was during the pandemic, and the various guide dog schools had to pull way back on normal services. I had no clue when I’d get a dog.

Shani, under a different name at the time, had been issued to someone else, but her person had become ill and felt it was best to return her to Guiding Eyes. That person’s field manager, AKA guide dog mobility instructor (GDMI), Melissa, was also my GDMI. She picked Shani up in December of 2020. Shani was over five years old, an age where no guide dog school would normally issue a dog. But everyone had to think outside the box due to the pandemic. Melissa thought this dog would be a good match for me and called me to discuss. I said I would like to meet the dog, and we arranged something for the new year.

In January, Melissa brought Shani up to my house. At this point, after 19 months of no dog, I had begun to wonder if I really wanted another guide. No dog poop in the yard, no dog food purchases every month, no dog hair. But it only took one touch on Shani’s soft coat for all that to fly out of my head! We met outside. When Shani met me, she started wagging, wiggling and bouncing. I was head over heels in love, and so was she. It was instant wholehearted love, and a solid bond from that moment. I harnessed her up and we took a walk to see if our pace and other aspects of a guide dog team meshed. We did! And we arranged to start training in February.

But I had to get my medical report in. So, I went to the doctor to have them fill out the medical form. I mentioned that I’d had some pain when I peed, and the doc did a urine sample. The form went off to Guiding Eyes, and training was able to begin.

In the meantime, the results of the urine sample came back, and we did another one. There was a large amount of blood in my sample. My doctor had me get an ultrasound, and then a CT scan, and then referred me to a urologist. He told me I had a mass in my left kidney, and they would have to remove the kidney. Thus, the diagnosis of kidney cancer. What this all has to do with Shani is that if not for needing that medical form filled out, I might not have know I had cancer for a long time. Kidney cancer has few if any symptoms. Shani most likely saved my life.

This brings us to now. Starting a couple weeks ago, Shani started peeing in the house. It was unbelievable as she’d never had accidents in the house before. I have magnetic screens on my back door, and she could go in and out to the yard whenever she pleased. I took her to the vet last week, and they did lab work including getting a urine sample, among various other things. The vet sent me home with antibiotics for the possible urinary tract infection and we hoped all was well.

But the meds didn’t seem to be working. She was still having accidents. On Tuesday of this week, June 3, 2025, my brother-in-law noticed that Shani came in from the yard and was bleeding from her vagina. She also kept squatting like she was trying to pee, but it was just blood. I called the vet, and we rushed her in.

It was the worst news possible. Shani had Transitional Cell Carcinoma, a terrible and aggressive cancer that is pretty much untreatable. Even if someone were to opt for treatment the dog would only live six months to a year longer. I made the most agonizing decision possible and told the vet that Shani and her comfort and well being were the most important things. We had to let her go. The vet agreed. Rosie and I were crying, even the vet was teary. I asked her to do the procedure with me there, so I could be with my girl. I told Shani that she would go to sleep and wake up in heaven with all my previous dogs waiting to greet her. I said that Bianca might want to teach her how to be mischievous, but that sweet Shani should not listen. She went peacefully.

Let me tell you some things about Shani. She was always wagging. Even at the vet’s on that last day, while she’s constantly trying to pee and just bleeding, her tail was going. She was very vocal. Someone might call it whining, but it was just her way of communicating. The only toys she liked were bones of various styles, no plush toys at all. She wouldn’t play with any other kind of toy. She loved to lie on my patio in the sun, and I had to call her back in on warm days, because that girl just wanted to sun bathe. She won hearts everywhere she went. She loved people, but she was my girl all the way, totally bonded to me. If I was down, worried, depressed about the cancer, when I’d go to bed at night, Shani who always slept on my bed, would lie as close to me as she could possibly get, giving me her love and comfort. She made every day of my life better and brighter and always gave me something to smile or laugh at.

I miss her so much. I’ve been sad and depressed since she left. It helps to know I did what was best for her, but that doesn’t stop me hurting. My heart aches. Every move I make around my house, I’m still thinking, where is Shani, still imagining sometimes I hear her paws pattering around. I expect to find her when I wake in the night. I still think that I need to get up in the morning to feed her. We who have guide dogs, are with our dogs 24-7. It takes a long time to break the habits, the routines, a long time to stop expecting the dog to be there, ready to go, to play, or to snuggle. I tell people who ask how I can get another dog after one leaves, that I am capable of loving more than one person, and the same with my dogs over the years. I try to explain that each dog has left a part of itself, its soul in my heart. Shani will have a big part of my heart. My girl who never made a mistake or needed correcting or broke the rules. My girl who made my life so much better just by being here. My girl, my angel dog.

WHOA, TOO MANY MEDS!

June 2, 2025

It’s been a while since my last update, and things have turned around somewhat here. It was crazy for a while. I can’t remember where things were with my last update, except that I was in a very low space at the time. As I titled this “too many meds” I’ll start there.

It seems I had developed another UTI, and my primary care doctor, Dr. R, prescribed some major antibiotics, because this was a particularly nasty form of bacteria. Well, the pills were huge, horse pills, the biggest pills I ever put in my hand. I knew I wouldn’t be able to swallow them. I asked if Dr. R could prescribe them in a liquid form or try a different antibiotic. He said he’d do the liquid but warned that it would cost more. How unfair is that? And yes, it did cost a hell of a lot more! But I have difficulty swallowing big things, not just pills. I have to cut meat into small pieces for instance, and I’ve been known to have a piece of a piece of bread lodge in my throat.

Along with that, I was taking the Prednisone Dr. Z had prescribed for the terrible arthritis the immunotherapy inflicted on me. And two weeks ago yesterday, I started the 20 MG dose of the Cabometyx for the cancer.

There were truly days I felt overwhelmed by meds. Each of them had to be taken at different times and had different rules about when, with or without food, and all the rest. Thank God I still have a good memory, and Rosie and I remembered things together. Cabo first thing in the morning, antibiotic liquid twice a day, different first of the day from the cancer meds. The Prednisone said to take at the same time every day with food, and since I started it around 4PM the first day, I had to start eating dinner early. Then I had to eat breakfast or a evening snack with the antibiotic, and of course with the Cabometyx, take that as soon as I get up with just enough water to swallow. Then wait at least an hour to eat or drink anything else!

My head was fair spinning from all the meds! Gun times indeed.

Now, the antibiotics and Prednisone are done, and I’m just on the cancer meds. Nice to have one tiny little pill to take once a day as soon as I get out of bed!

I had an appointment with Dr. Z last week. He wanted to know how the arthritis is doing. And at first, the arthritis was doing so amazingly well after starting the prednisone, that I could hardly believe it. I went from being barely able to use my hands, to back to pre-immunotherapy levels in a matter of two days. But now the Prednisone is gone, and my arthritis is not quite like it was from the immunotherapy, but it’s not my old baseline anymore. I’m still in an active flare up, and my hands/fingers, elbows, and shoulders are the worst hit of all. It’s very frustrating, but I’m working around it and refusing, as ever, to let the arthritis win. I’m stronger and far more stubborn than it is. Lol.

About the Cabometyx. I’m doing okay on this dose. I’ve got fatigue—when since treatment started last year have I not had fatigue—and sometimes a loss of appetite, but so far, so good. Rosie and I have been diligent about taking care of my feet, lotions and balms twice a day. I got some mouth sores after foolishly eating a hamburger with catsup on it, but those are better already. And mmm, was that burger good! I don’t have diarrhea, stomach pain or any of the other side effects I had with this med before. Of course, it’s only been two weeks, and I’d have to look at this blog to see how quickly I got foot sores last time. It’s the one side effect that scares me. Oh, and I’m not losing hair anymore! Yippee!

The current plan is that I will continue with this dose for the next months. I’ll get a refill on this and take the next full 30-day round, and then start the next one. Then I will see Dr. Z again, and we’ll plan a scan to see if this is doing any good. If it is, we’ll up the dosage maybe, or maybe we’ll up it only if it isn’t working. But whenever we up it, I’m praying and hoping that my body will acclimatize, and I’ll be able to handle the higher doses.

It’s important to know that all this treatment is unlikely to “cure” or to put the cancer in “remission”. This type of cancer doesn’t just go away. It’s rare even for it to go into remission. This may be something I have to treat the rest of my life. I hit the jackpot, as I was one of the 20 percent of kidney cancer patients whose cancer comes back after a full kidney nephrectomy. It’s also important to remember that though this is in my lungs, it is still kidney cancer, not lung cancer. It’s just that the cancer that started over four years ago in my left kidney, has now spread to my lungs. I don’t know what is going to happen to me farther down this road. I’m confident that God is in control, and He isn’t letting me walk this road alone.

To finish up this post, I’m pasting in a poem I wrote about the nodules in my lungs. I plan to publish this journal/blog, someday, hoping it can help or prepare someone else going through this, and I will publish the poetry I write during this time as part of this journal. This poem came as a result of the big nodule in my left lung sometimes pressing against my ribs. It’s got some creepy imagery, so be prepared.

THE CREATURE

I call it a creature,

The doctors call it a nodule,

But I know it is a creature,

It lives in my left lung,

Attached there, it grows, it feeds,

It’s a creature.

Parts of it move around in my body,

It began life in my kidney,

They thought they fixed it by taking the kidney,

But cunning, it hid, waiting for its chance,

And now it’s in my lungs,

Yes, it’s a creature.

Sometimes I feel it press against my ribs or my back,

It’s alive and it wants to grow farther into my body,

It’s a creature.

They try to pretty it up,

Make it sound not so bad,

using words like nodule,

But it lives, and it’s a creature.

It fights to stay,

It fights to move to new horizons inside me,

It wants to win against me,

It’s a creature.

It has smaller children in my lungs,

But the main creature is big,

It continues to grow, to feed, to move,

They still call it a nodule,

But I know, it’s really a creature.

Written May 23, 2025.