When the Tough Times Just Keep on Coming

So, after a well needed and much deserved hiatus it is time to dive back into the story of our Canadian adventure. Some of you may remember that the last blog post ended on a cliff hanger with Lola recovering from surgery while we lost our minds with worry awaiting the pathology results of Lola’s biopsy.

Those results finally came through, we were in the middle of painting the hallway and had loaded brushes in hand when Martin’s phone burst into life, one look at the screen told us it was the vets. Our hearts sank, as much as we wanted to find out the results, we were still dreading what they would be. We abandoned our brushes while we began steeling ourselves for this conversation. Our anxiety about finally receiving this news was palpable, Alyssa our vet sensing this jumped straight in with the biopsy results.

The lump Alyssa had removed from Lola was indeed cancerous, not only that it was an aggressive form of cancer which can spread quickly to the rest of the mammary glands as well as the lungs. It was and epic struggle to keep the tears at bay, this was the worst possible news, and we were utterly devastated. Alyssa was confident that she had excised good margins around the site of the tumor, but they would not be able to determine the best course of treatment until a specialist had examined the results, which would require another week of waiting.

In the meantime, Lola would need X-rays on her lungs and her blood work to be assessed to determine whether we had caught the tumor in time or whether it had spread to other parts of her body. Alyssa ran through some of the possible treatment options for Lola such as complete removal of all her mammary glands, chemo, and medications which we would discuss in full depending on what the specialist advised. With the appropriate appointments for Lola booked we said our goodbyes and thanked Alyssa for what must have been a difficult phone call for her.

Once we hung up the phone we fell apart, the tears just would not stop. I know there will be some people out there who would be dumbfounded by such a reaction, but Lola is not just a dog to us. We had raised her from an eight week old puppy and had been through it all, the chewing of our Harry Potter DVD’s one through to eight, the dragging of Bob cat around by his tail, the howling at the phone every time it rings, the breaking free of her leash and chasing horses down the beach, the guff’s that could clear a room in 5 seconds… there were so many good memories.

Lola is our mischief maker, our cuddle bunny and our everything and we were inconsolable and petrified at the thought of losing her especially when she was still so young. We were also incredibly angry, we wanted to rail against the universe! Why was this happening to us all? Had we not all been through enough? How many more knockbacks will we have to take. This wasn’t supposed to be part of the plan, especially when we thought everything was finally back on track.

Of course, there are no answers to those questions, life is full of adversity and challenges, it is what makes it so vibrant, varied and rewarding and allows us to grow emotionally and spiritually. We needed to put it back into perspective, once the bloods, X-rays and specialists report were through we would know where we stand, until then we had to stop thinking the worst. There were still options for Lola so it was time to pull up our big girl knickers and trust that the universe had it all in hand, it had gotten us to this point, and it would get us through this.

All you need at the end of the day, is Hope and Strength. Hope that it will get better, and Strength to hold on until it does.

It is laughable to say that we needed to be strong for Lola because despite everything she was going through she carried on being her usual goofball self and is stronger than Martin and I put together. Lola was living in the present, without worry and with an unbound enthusiasm and joy for life, and if she could do it then so could we. We were going to suck it up like the cupcakes we are.  

It came as a blessing (we would later come to regret referring to it as a ‘blessing’) and a welcome distraction that the roofing contractors arrived to start work painting the roof of the house and the barn. We were also pleasantly surprised by a phone call from the shipping company to say that our container had arrived at the Port of Halifax and would be ready to be delivered to our new home once we had completed the appropriate documentation at Canadian Customs.

The painters were scheduled to spend two days, cleaning, preparing and then painting the roof of both properties, after which they were to notify us on completion so that we could evaluate the work and check for snags, or anything missed. Martin was out for day one of the roof painting and I was busy with painting of my own in the house so it was difficult to keep an eye on what the contractors were doing, also they were up on top of the barn so I would not be able to check their work unless I had binoculars. But I was assured by the company owner that the contractors would check in with me before they left for the day.

Time flies by when you have endless walls to paint and good tunes pumping out of the stereo, so it was not until later in the day when I admitted defeat and began cleaning my brushes that I noticed that the contractors who were now on to painting the roof of the house were also packing up for the day. I was a bit suspicious at the speed with which they had water blasted the roof of the barn and the house, prepared them, and painted, after all this was supposed to be a two-day job, what were they going to do tomorrow?

Having left the brushes to dry I made it out into the garden just in time to see the contractors head down the driveway in their truck and into the road with me giving chase in my slippers and waving furiously for them to stop. What the fudge! I thought they were supposed to check in with me before they left. There was something wrong with this picture.

I went back up to the house to check their workmanship (I mean that in the loosest sense of the term) as difficult as it was from ground level and with the light now fading. Honestly, I wish I had not bothered because the more I saw the more my blood pressure increased until the steam was billowing out of my ears. I approached the wooden stairs and decking at the front door and could clearly see the railing of the stairs had been broken and as my gaze drifted upwards, my eyes were drawn to the guttering which was hanging off.

I could only surmise that deciding to forego the ladder the contractors had climbed onto the wooden railings to spray the roof. The railing, obviously not designed to support the weight of a person had given way and broken, and in their panic one of the contractors had grabbed the first thing that came to hand …the guttering. They had used it to break their fall, thus breaking the guttering as well. No wonder they had beat a hasty retreat.

It was too dark by the time Martin got home to even see both roofs fully, we called the company owner to notify him of the damage and unable to get through left a message. Tomorrow we would discuss the damage with the contractors and assess the work already carried out to ensure there were no other nasty surprises awaiting us.

But as it turned out we didn’t even know the half of it, if the contractors had been wearing, Stetsons, chaps, stirrups, were armed with six shooters and were spitting out chewing tobacco at least we would have been able to identify them for the cowboys that they clearly were. As if the week had not already been stressful enough tomorrow was to be quite the revelation, jump into our nightmare why don’t you, the water is still warm!