Update 48

A week after we got engaged, we were planning to go to the Bahamas with his mom, his sister and his niece. The day before we were supposed to leave we decided to take his 14 year old lab to the vet because she was drooling a lot and breathing heavy. The vet said that it was an abscess tooth and that he would need to pull it so we left her there to have it pulled. The vet called him an hour later and told him that when they put her under to pull the tooth they noticed a growth in her mouth which was cancer. He almost fell to the floor. He burst into tears and I just hugged him. His dogs mean the entire world to him. The whole reason he is in Florida in the winters is so that his dogs can swim and not slip on ice. He was a mess. He went to go sit outside for a bit by himslef, then I joined him and just let him cry. It broke my heart to see him like that. We decided that his mom and sister and niece should still go to the Bahamas and that we would stay home with the dogs. I am glad that we did that. I think having everyone at the house would have been a disaster while he was in that state. We picked her up the next morning and he just hugged her and cried more. Watching him with her made me cry too. I told him to just stay with her and not to worry about anything else. I cleaned up the kitchen, the garage, the porch and the bedroom. I didn't know what else to do with my self. Every time she yelped in pain he would feel so terrible for her that I told him to go hang out outside while I sat with her and gave her pain pills or tried to get her to eat etc. He just couldn't bare to hear her in pain and I couldn't bare to see him in pain. He said that he didn't care how much it would cost, he was going to make sure she got better. He researched on line and called dog oncologist etc. I let him be crazy for a few days as I don't know how I would react if anything happened to my dog. Then after she was feeling a bit better and he had stopped crying I felt that I needed to talk to him about the reality of curing a 14 and a half year old dog of cancer. I was very gentle and he admitted he knew that it wasn't very realistic. He went to the oncologist and it turns out that they can treat her and they said that she would be cancer free for at least a year, which would take her way past her life expectancy. He was so thrilled with this news and so was I. The only difficult thing for me is that he was supposed to come home but now has to stay in Florida an extra month for her treatment. That means that I have started to plan the wedding alone. I really wish that he could be here to help but I am happy that his dog will be okay. I pray that she lives as long as she can with out suffering or being in any pain. I do worry about what might happen if she passes away near our wedding and if he will be able to celebrate. But like I have learned so many times before, you plan and G-d laughs, so what ever is meant to be will be.

I am having fun wedding dress shopping and a bit stressed out trying to find a venue. I can't wait until he comes home in a few weeks so that we can finally live in the same city and start our life together.