Follow Gizmo’s battle with cancer and other health issues

After getting the news of Gizmo’s diagnosis I did a lot of searching online, and what I found was a lot of cold hard facts about canine lymphoma that made me realize we were going to have to make decisions quickly, but little that actually helped me feel like I knew how to make those decisions for my dog specifically until I came across a journal for Kaya’s experience. I read the whole thing and it really humanized the experience we were about to go through. Equipped with both facts and a real life story I started to make a framework in my mind for how I would approach decision-making for Gizmo. Kaya’s journal also inspired me to start taking notes for myself on my phone each day to better process my thoughts and feelings. Eventually, I moved them into this blog in hopes that Gizmo’s story, like Kaya’s, might help at least one other person out there. I also later discovered this blog post about Apollo’s experience and Apollo’s final chapter. Warning: I cried reading all of these stories, but they were incredibly helpful in processing the thoughts, feelings, and fears I had going into the decisions ahead of us. They gave me hope on the bad days that good days might still be ahead, and reassurance that I know my dog best and made the right decisions.