Lucy Maroney
Comments Off on Lucy MaroneyGuardians: Jackie Maroney & Nat Wachman
Sisters: Kali, Digit, Link, Greta & Nonie
My sweet Lucy has cancer. It is so painful for me to write those words. Her diagnosis, like most, came as a shock. We noticed a mild limp and assumed she had banged her leg on the doggie door running out side to get her barks in. So we wrapped it and gave her an anti-inflammatory. It seemed to be better the following week so we went back to normal walks and normal life. Little did we know, normal was over. When the limp returned the following week along with some swelling, my husband took her to the vet after work, I stayed home to feed the other animals. He called me, sounding terrified and blurted out, “They think Lucy has bone cancer!!!!!” I thought I heard him wrong, so I asked him to repeat it. He asked me a couple of questions on speaker phone so the vet could hear and I got through one and then I couldn’t breathe and had to sit down and cry. All I could think was no, no, no, NO!!!
See, we had just lost Niko, Lucy’s companion her entire life. 
Niko was 14.5 and Lucy was not even 12 so it just wasn’t fair! We thought we would have so much time with her like we did with Niko. And Niko lived the last couple of years needing a lot of attention. She had arthritis so we had our back deck re-done with a ramp, we took her weekly to acupuncture and then laser therapy, and we had lots of meds and supplements for her.
About 2 months after we lost Niko, we also lost our 10 year old cat, Trixie. 
In addition to Lucy, we have 2 other rescue dogs as well:
Kali: 
and Digit: 
along with 3 rescued cats: 
I have always been in animal rescue and welfare. We fostered for years, donated any extra cent we had to sponsorship for shelter animals, to organizations who fight to improve the living conditions for animals, and have worked for legislation and laws to protect animals. Digit had parvo when we took her in as a foster and we spent our entire savings to keep her from dying.
When Lucy was diagnosed, Nat and I had a long conversation about quality of life for a dog, for Lucy. She has an amazing life. She has never spent a night in a kennel or a shelter. She was rescued off the street as a puppy, she had been on every vacation we have ever taken, she has never gone hungry or spent a night outside (except for camping excursions!). She has never had a surgery besides her spay, never had a medical condition or injury, or been on meds before this. I have been her guardian her entire life. That’s a pretty amazing life for a dog nowadays! She loves walks, treats, attention, all the things most dogs love. And she hates vets, pain, loud noises. So we have limited her time at the vet and with pain. We have given her the best food, holistic meds, we lift her to limit jumping, and we kiss and love on her every chance we get. Pain meds have worked great for her and we thought anything further was out of reach for us. We did not want to remove her leg because of extended recovery and arthritis in her back legs so we decided to only do palliative care. She has had her first zoledronate treatment and we have seen improvement. We want to continue, but the cost is exorbitant for us.
Neither my husband nor I had ever had a companion animal that had cancer. We have been so lucky. We have grieved with friends and family whose pets had it and thanked Dog it was not us. But now, it’s us. We just aren’t ready or willing to lose Lucy now. Because we are a family. All of us oddballs. All of us alone until we all found each other. We are not connected by blood, but we love all our girls and they love us back.
You’d never guess that my chocolate lab Niles is 8yo. He’s a puppy at heart and no day would be complete without coming home from work and hearing about his latest mischievous hijinks. He loves to jump the fence in order to come say hello in the driveway when I pull in from work and, on a hot summer’s day, has been known to lay down in his dry paddle pool and wait for you to turn the hose on him. He’s a water dog at heart and has been known to have to literally be pulled out of the Pamlico Sound. He is incredibly adaptable and has been through a very tough year. Last May my husband and I joyfully welcomed our twins at Georgetown in DC. When we brought them home from the hospital a few days later, Niles’ world changed. He went from being the very center of our attention to being on the back burner. He weathered the first several weeks like a champ, being patient with the twins and with us as we struggled to keep our heads above water. We were so busy with the twins and with packing up our rental home and preparing for the move back to Richmond. One evening we decided to take the kids and the dogs out for a walk in our neighborhood. After we turned our usual corner, Niles yelped out in pain. We didn’t know what was happening at the time, only that our powerful and resilient dog was suddenly unable to walk. My mom took him back to Richmond to our vet and he was diagnosed with a tumor and underwent his first surgery. Dr. Anthony removed what he could but told us it was more extensive than he first thought. 
He told us to keep a close eye on the area. You would never know Niles had surgery- he was groggy for just a few days but then went right back to leaping the fence and running in the yard after squirrels with his sister. In February we felt a new lump in the same area and so we returned to his vet and were referred to Dr. Waite at Dogwood Veterinary. Niles underwent a second surgery, his second 
I adopted Baloo 7 1/2 years ago from a local shelter. He had been dumped out the back seat of a car onto a sidewalk in front of a gift shop. He was not neutered and had entropian, so his eyes had been getting irritated his whole life. He had surgery as soon as I adopted him and he always had a great attitude. He loves everyone he meets and is the most sociable dog I know. He is well known in the neighborhood, and is always looking for new friends. The diagnosis last Wednesday was quite a shock, he does not seem that sick, but I was told that he would go downhill quickly without treatment. That happened about 3 pm on Wednesday and we were at Dr. Manley’s office at 11:30 on Thursday morning where he had his first treatment. I have adopted 2 dogs from Pixie’s Pen pals, Rodger Dodger on December 10th 2010, he was at Lunenburg, and Benji (aka Bazinga) on October 17th 2013 from Fluvanna.
). We just had another trip to the beach (his 3rd since October), a week ago, were on the beach in wind chills of 10 degrees, and it also snowed. I had Dodger with me too! Since October we have alternated between beach at Kill Devil Hills and Skyline Drive.