Hearts Still Care

On Monday, I took Xena to see Dr Dipti. She has always been steady and clear with me, never dramatic, never vague. She told me that the mast cell cancer may have reached her lymph nodes. She saw new tumours forming around Xena’s right eye. The large mast cell tumour on her chest — the one we have been monitoring so closely — has grown from three centimetres to four.

She said Xena’s pain would likely sit at four or five out of ten. Not sharp. Not acute. Chronic. A quiet inflammation spread through the body. Not the kind of pain we recognise with a cry — but the kind that lingers like background static.

I see it. The tumours are multiplying. Three on her chest. One large one on her hip, exactly where the nappy used to tie — I have stopped using it because the friction made it form and then bleed. Another one near the collar of her T-shirt. So now, before she slept, I removed the shirt. I bandage the lesions under her chest so she does not scratch at them in the night.

Every evening, my mother, Anand and I sit down together and dress her wounds. Paraffin gauze. Gauze. Fixomull tape. Earlier we were using silver nitrate and Placentrex; now we are more careful, more protective. I give her Maxmoist epithelial cyclosporine drops. Ocupol DX for her eyes. She is on Keppra, Gabapin, Avil, Famocid, Condrovet, Sucrafil, Prolivit, Quercetin, Ceterizine. The list feels endless. She is filled, almost overflowing, with medication.

And yet — at five o’clock l, every evening, and a half hour after midnight — she rises.

She lifts her head. She takes a toy in her mouth. She runs after Zuri. Given half a chance, she will steal the toy from Zuri’s mouth as well. There are tumours on her paws, on her hips, on her chest, near her eye. There is a lipoma near her anus that we clean gently every day. Her body is fighting a war. She still wants to play in the sunset. 

That is the cruelty of this stage. The body falters. The spirit does not.

Dr Dipti gently said that we need to start thinking about letting her go. I called Geeta immediately. She was in Jammu. She took a flight and came down last night. That is what love looks like in our family — we gather when it matters.

I am not ready. Not after losing Zach less than a month ago. I cannot bear the thought of losing another child so soon. It feels like Zuri all over again — that tearing open of the chest, that helplessness.

Xena is my baby girl. She came all the way from Bangalore in a tiny crate. She was smaller than a foot when I first held her. A fragile, wee little thing who trusted me without question. She grew into the most intelligent, observant companion. On walks, if she is ahead of me, she turns to check if I am following. If Anand is about to take them downstairs and I step into another room, she comes back to ask when I am coming along. She waits for me.

She has seen everything.

She has seen Rajmahal. She has seen me in love and in heartbreak. She has witnessed my journey through open relationships and the quiet complexities that come with them. She has seen my buas — Munni and Goodie Pua. She has known my aunts while they were alive. She was there when my mother came through cancer. She saw me emerge from a very dark space in my life. She lived through COVID with us. She was there when my father died. When my aunts died. She has watched the seasons of my becoming.

Like Zach.

Our dogs are not just companions. They are witnesses. They are milestones in our histories. 

I know this path was inevitable. I always knew. Loving animals means accepting that their time is shorter than ours. I have said goodbye before — Zach, Zoe, Rolfe, Diana, Bonzo. I survived each time. I still think of them. I still love them.

I know I will survive this too.

But survival does not cancel heartbreak.

Tonight, I removed her T-shirt and bandaged her gently. I had to put a cone around her neck because she paws at the lesion near her eye. She settled down, trusting me as she always has.

And I sit here wondering: when is the right time?

She still eats. She still drinks water. She still wants to go out. She still plays at five in the evening. She still loves me with everything she has.

How do you measure the end when love is still present?

How do you decide when a body that is failing still houses a spirit that shines?

I do not have the answer yet. I only know that whatever happens, she has been brave beyond measure. She has lived surrounded by devotion. 

And – if love could cure cancer, she would have been immortal.