Tierney Cu is a Gaelic name. Tierney means “lord of the household” and Cu is “hound” or “dog.” Tierney Cu most certainly was the lord of our household and also master of all he surveyed. He came to us at a time that we needed this small ball of super charged energy to fill our lives with love and life.
We fell in love with him the instant that we met him and that love grew stronger and stronger every day.
He assigned the title of pack leader to himself and just took over. There were 2 other dogs but they never questioned his status. As we got into animal rescue, Tierney was always super special. He never begrudged the attention paid to another, and was always first in line to help them get acclimated and to play with them when they arrived. His pack loved him and he loved them.
When he was 5 yr/old — it was about 10/2013 he was diagnosed with immune mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA). It is a blood disorder where his body thinks that his red blood cells are bad guys and the white blood cells destroy them. It is a delicate balance of medicine — both holistic and traditional — that keeps the illness in check. The treatment involves weakening the immune system so that the drugs can do their jobs properly. So, there were a lot of side effects which were unpleasant for Tierney but he never let any of it get him down. He was always happy and smiling.
Tierney had demodectic pododermatitus mange on his feet twice. It was itchy, painful and required even more drugs and the dreaded cone for quite a while. They say if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. For Tierney, when life gives you a cone … make a snow cone.
At a point, he had responded so well to the treatment that he was being weaned off of the drugs. After about 3 years — 9/26/16 –he was very close to being off of the drugs but something happened He came into the house limping and not using his right rear leg. A trip to the vet shows that his hip was dislocated. Off to the specialist hospital where they were able to put his hip back into place. Tierney wore a special bandage for several weeks and did very well. He was walking on 3 legs the same day without a skip in his beat.
After the bandage came off, he was healing and beginning to use the leg/hip but even as careful as we were with him the hip dislocated again. This time he required surgery. On 11/21/16 he had femoral head ostectomy (FHO), where they remove the head of the femur. Scar tissue forms and this now becomes the “new” hip joint, so to speak. He was a star through everything. While he was healing with this surgery, he had to slow down and smell the roses. He adapted very well and took it all in stride. He enjoyed being snuggled up while an ice pack helped the swelling, and would fall asleep like a little baby.
Ice pack in place.
Tierney healed very well. His immune system being trashed meant that healing was a bit slow but he did an amazing job anyway. We had been so blessed that during both hip incidents his IMHA stayed in control so we continued with the current level of meds through it all.
He was thriving — a happy and lovable little rogue –back to his little mischief that made us laugh and scoop him up for a kiss and a snuggle. He gave joy.
On 3/27/17 Tierney was sick. We thought that the IMHA was rearing its ugly head again so we took him to the vet to have his blood checked. His blood was fine. The doctor checked him over and located a tender spot in his abdomen. X-rays didn’t show anything, so an ultrasound was done which showed a mass. We were horrified. We took him to the specialist hospital that took care of his hip because they were well-equipped for this. He had another ultrasound and the determination was that the mass needed to come out. Tierney had surgery the same day to remove a tumor the size of a tangerine. He had to stay at the hospital for several days. It was terrible for us and for him. We visited him both during the day and also in the middle of the night, taking him all of his favorite foods to entice him to eat so that he could come home as soon as possible. He would perk up at seeing us and be so happy. There is no greater way to make your heart melt than to see that little face light up when we went into the room. We would hold him until he would fall asleep like a baby in our arms.
It was a super happy day when he came home.
When the biopsies came back our worst fears were true –cancer. We met with the oncologist who explained a lot to us. It was a lot to take in — cancer, chemotherapy, stains, lymphoma, sarcoma. The new words seemed to never end and they were all ugly… hurtful … hateful … scary. And they were all relating to our little boy. This just can’t be real. In the meantime, right beside us in the room, Tierney was wiggling, pacing around and pawing at us asking to be petted and have attention paid to him, blissfully unaware. And we were grateful for that because the prognosis is giving him about 6-8 months with us.
On 4/6/17 Tierney had his first dose of chemo — a broad spectrum protocol was started to help protect him while we waited for the stains to determine exactly what type of cancer was attacking him.
When the stains came back the worst of the worst was confirmed. Tierney has intestinal T-cell lymphoma. A death sentence. No possibility of remission … only hope that the chemo will hold the cancer at bay so that we could maybe get 4-6 months with him.
Enter the bucket list. We decided that whatever time we have with Tierney will be special and we will not take even one minute for granted. Anything that he would eat is what we got for him — rotisserie chicken, deli roast beef, smoked ham, deli smoked turkey. We grilled him chicken and steak. We bought him ice cream and Reddi-Whip, found out he loved smoked Gruyere cheese as much Velveeta. And of all things, he loved Payday candy bars. If we were eating something and he asked for some then he got it. If he ate it, great. If not, well, he tried. As he continued to get chemo and his appetite became more picky we just tried harder. We even tried baby food.
We have a dog stroller and we started to keep it in our van so that if we could take Tierney anywhere then we did. He got to go to a lot of places shopping, and he absolutely loved it. He was soooo good. He would just ride along and enjoy the attention and the time with his people. Here he is on a couple of his shopping trips — Boscov’s, Michael’s, Kountry Krafts, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Kohl’s, Toys r Us — all kinds of places.
He also helped us shop for a new van. We wanted his approval since he would be riding in it a lot. He got tired out from all the choices … but, he perked up when it was time to go in the new van — especially when it was a trip to the beach.
We ended up finding a restaurant with outdoor seating and we all had a nice dinner together on the ride home from the shore. We added adventure to the bucket list as his energy allowed.
Through everything Tierney was Tierney. He might have gotten tired a bit sooner than he used to, and he wasn’t eating with the same gusto, but his personality was the same and he enjoyed doing all the same things that he always did — like rabbit watching in the comfort of his own living room.
And, gardening … checking to see what birds might have been by the feeder.
And playing. He loved to play with toys.
As hard as he played, he napped. He loved a little nap.
We tried to enjoy every moment and we watched him. We watched him play. We watched him sleep. We watched him potty. We watched him eat. I guess we wanted to burn his image into our souls. We just didn’t know when the last time would be that we could watch him.
On 6/6/17 Tierney had a follow up ultra sound after the second round of chemo was finished to check and see how “things” were doing. They discovered that the cancer was back with a vengeance. There was a very large intestinal tumor and his abdomen had a lot of cancer in it. The chemo wasn’t holding the cancer back. There was one other drug that he could try. It wasn’t in the original arsenal because it only had a 50-50 chance at doing anything to stave the cancer off, but at this point we have nothing to lose.
We decided that we wanted to do something special for his birthday, so, we had pins made to give them to family, friends, and his medical people — along with an explanation…
We had so hoped that we would be celebrating his 9th birthday and everyone would be wearing his pin in honor and support of his fight. But, if that wasn’t meant to happen then we wanted people to wear them in his memory. Here is Crystal Angell wearing her pin.
We also got T-shirts to show support. I had been wearing a shirt with an Eskie on it to each of his appointments but this one was special.
He handled the drug pretty well — a little worse with the picky eating for a couple days but then he was back to asking for what he wanted. We were so relieved that this drug seemed to be doing something. Our boy had a chance to make his birthday! He had an oncology appointment for blood work on 6/15/17 to make sure things were going well. His blood work was OK but his white blood cells were a bit high so he needed an antibiotic for a few days. This happened before so it wasn’t a cause for alarm and he tolerated the antibiotic pretty well before. We were happy with the appointment and there were plans for the next 4 weeks as long as he stayed as good as he was today.
The next morning started out a lot like mornings since chemo — nausea. So, meds straight away and time for the anti-nausea drug to kick in. He didn’t improve as the day went on. He was tired, lethargic, not wanting to eat. When he would get up and move around it seemed an effort for him, and when he went to lay back down he would slide to the floor. We stayed with him all day — snuggling, scratching, rubbing his tummy — loving him — and taking any and all kisses he offered. By evening we were both thinking the same thoughts but afraid to voice them to each other. Eventually we had to face if this was cancer roaring and tomorrow wasn’t going to be a better day. We prayed over and with Tierney. We told him that if it was his time that it was OK to go — that we would be with him — that he deserved heaven so very much — that we selfishly wanted him to stay with us but we didn’t want him to suffer or lose any dignity so we would rather he went in his sleep rather than having to be helped. As was his style, he chose to go to heaven when he wanted to. He was sleeping between us and we were checking on him about every 1/2 hr to 45 minutes. Around 1:30AM he was standing up and leaning against Stuart’s back so Candy helped him lay down and “spoon” with her. She talked to him and rubbed his belly and scratched his ears and he settled down. All was well until shortly before 2:30 when Candy was jolted wide-eyed. Tierney seemed the same– soft, warm, snugly. But didn’t seem to be breathing, so she woke Stuart up. Together we let Tierney slip off to heaven. We said our farewells and sang him his song — from our hearts.
There are a lot of cliches that we could say here — and they would all be true. We will miss him, we are heart-shattered, our tears won’t stop falling. But honestly, we are so proud of Tierney Cu. He was a fighter, a warrior. He is our HERO — all 15 pounds of him. We are grateful to him for going on his own terms instead of us having to see him suffer at all. He was “Tierney Cu” all the way to the end.
The other dogs all said “farewell” to Tierney Cu — Laney and Bobbie seemed very affected. Aofie was also quite upset. They will miss the best pack leader ever. We will miss the best “lord of the household” ever. We traditionally say “rest in peace,”but, we want Tierney to be the happy, running around, trouble-causing little boy that we have always loved. So until we meet again at the rainbow bridge we hope that Tierney Cu enjoys heaven and doesn’t cause too much trouble.