Life Transitions: a Move and a Dog

This is Chewlie, our 8 year old registered Lab.  We got Chewlie for Christmas for our family, the year we moved back to Searcy from Fayetteville, Ar.  She was a pup, just barely 8 weeks old.  She has romped and played with more than 20 foster kids, nieces, nephews, neighbor kids.  She was "married" to Harley Buie, a registered Chocolate Lab when she was a couple years old.  They had, like 13 pups in one litter together one summer!  We should have kept one of the pups.  Presley particularly loved a little fat chocolate one she called Tubby! 
Chewlie has heard our kids secrets. "Our" kids as well as foster kids.  I've seen foster kids cry while hanging on to Chewlie's neck; cry for parental visits that didn't happen or didn't go as planned.  Sob into her thick fir and tell Chewlie they were angry that "Mom showed up high!"  Or in anger, ask her, "why me?!"  And some little ones just pet her and squeal with delight! And she reminds almost every kid of a dog they "used to have."
This past weekend we finally moved to our new house.  She moved with us on Friday.  Saturday morning, early, while she was in the garage, we noticed a tremendous amount of bleeding coming from her rectal area.  I knew I had to take her to the vet immediately.  We put her in our vehicle and hurried down Beebe Capps to Dr Hoffman's Westside Vet Clinic.  He wasn't really open for another 30 minutes, but he pulled up the same time we did.  And when I explained Chewlie's problem, he urged us to quickly bring her in. 
After an examination, he put her on fluids and he came to 2 likely conclusions: either a severe infection or rectal cancer!  The only way to know for sure is to take a sample from the polyps he felt inside during an exam, and send them for biopsy.  Besides the cost, there is also the cost of treatment and then of course, the chance that the treatment might not even work.  After much prayer (yes for a dog!), on Monday we opted to bring her home and finish her medication and see where we end up.  We purchased her a dog bed and the yummiest looking dog snacks and set her up under our back, covered porch.  We still don't know for sure if it's cancer or not and we may never know.  Dr Hoffman said he feel lots of polyps, and she is going to probably continue to bleed, but not bleed to death.  So now, we have an old dog we're trying to love and keep as comfortable as possible.  It seems, just like human cancer patients, she has good days and bad days.  On her bad days, she can hardly get up and we place her food and water right next to her bed.  Dr Hoffman says as long as she is eating and drinking ok and is not in too much pain, she'll be ok.  She did have a really good day yesterday though!  John went out to feed her in the morning and she was actually rolling around and acting like she was feeling pretty good.  I walked her down the block and she seemed to enjoy that too.  Today was kind of in between.  She's not exactly laying around, but she's no hyper Lab either.  This ole dog has been so good and faithful.  She's never barked or growled at us or the kids, save for the night David came up to our house from the back and surprised her. She liked to tear him up till he called her name and she recognized his voice!  We laughed about it then! 

Chewlie's registered name is Rich Chocolaty Chewey.  We were going to call her Chewey, but for some reasons Presley kept adding an "L."  She was there, looking on with interest when Addy came to us as a sick little baby.  She was excited when John came as a 10 year old boy-every Lab's dream! 
We can't know how much longer she has with us.  We are planning a family picture tomorrow and she will be in it!!  We love her and hope and pray God can work a little doggie miracle for this ole yellow Lab that has been so good to us! Perhaps she can be around awhile longer. And if not, well, maybe it's true, All Dogs Go To Heaven!