Cancer. Covid. Puppy.

How getting a puppy may or may not solve all your problems

If you’re new to my newsletter, welcome! I’m so happy you’re here. My sincere thanks for hanging out in my little corner of the internet: making new Substack friends has truly been one of the highlights of my year.

Today, I’m writing about three things that changed my outlook on life: young adult breast cancer, the COVID-19 pandemic, and my puppy, Flynn.

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Holding Flynn. Photo by Breton Vivian.

Flynn was eight weeks old when he was first placed in my lap.

He had that sweet, impossible-to-describe puppy smell and was so cute I wanted to cry. The little guy was pure love and chaos wrapped in a bundle of curls, with big green eyes and feather-soft red fur. He started hiccuping, and I fell completely in love.

Flynn wasn’t the thing I really wanted: a baby. I’d thought being diagnosed with breast cancer at age twenty-nine was about as bad as things could get, but it wasn’t until my doctor explained the effects of chemotherapy on fertility that I realised how much my life was going to change. Hopefully, getting pregnant wouldn’t be impossible, but it would be a ways off, so I turned my thoughts to puppies instead.

I’ve always wanted a dog, but the timing was never right. My husband and I were away from home too often; our previous rental flat didn’t allow pets, and in the early stages of my treatment, I was just too sick.

But finally, two years after my diagnosis, Flynn burst into our lives. And I mean this quite literally: he was as wild as they come. For several days, my husband and I could scarcely get close to him; it made him too excited. He destroyed everything in sight and seemingly had no clue how to take a nap that wasn’t enforced via timeout.

Though I was still in treatment, I wasn’t quite as sick, having graduated from the traditional Holy-Shit-my-insides-are-melting Chemotherapy to lighter maintenance drugs. Even so, I can’t say I was healthy. I was perpetually exhausted, and my stomach had yet to recover from the barrage of toxic medications.

I was also suffering from a crushing depression.

It wasn’t just cancer which was getting me down, nor the empty space where I’d hoped a baby would be. In a shocking twist of fate, my childhood best friend, Emily, had died of breast cancer eight months into my treatment. I was soaked to the bone with survivor’s guilt.

In my head, my life had become meaningless. I loved my husband more than anything in the world, but my guilt had convinced me I was a deadweight. I’d been too sick to keep working; my family was on the other side of the world, and honestly, I just didn’t like myself. I carried so much shame for getting sick, convinced it was somehow my fault. And after Emily died, I felt ashamed for even being alive.

Paradoxically, I was terrified of death. I’d wake several times a night, breathless and slick with sweat, somehow already midway through a panic attack.

My resilience in the face of cancer and grief was all tapped out. I was a wreck, caught between my fear of death and the belief it should’ve been me who died.

The COVID-19 pandemic only compounded my isolation. I watched as the rest of the world grappled with the issues that had been plaguing me for the past year and a half: fear of the unknown, sickness and death; loneliness and isolation; cancelled plan after cancelled plan; life goals temporarily—or permanently—put on hold.

Selfishly, I could scarcely see beyond my own anger. Anger at having to endure yet more isolation. Anger at the people who seemingly didn’t care about their fellow humans. Anger that my life looked nothing like how I’d hoped it would at thirty-one.

But then we got Flynn, and suddenly, there was this living thing that was dependent on me. He needed constant care, reassurance, and a lot of training. And I needed something to pour my love into.

Flynn gave me hope, a need to get out of bed in the morning, a reason to go outside and into the daylight. And he made me laugh! Every Damn day. In ways I’d all but forgotten were possible.

Flynn at Lovers Point, Pacific Grove. Photo by Breton Vivian.

He isn’t the perfect dog, not by a long shot. He tests our patience at least fifty times a day and seems to thrive on mischief. As a pandemic pup, he’s not used to being left alone, so his separation anxiety is something we’re still helping him overcome.

We’ve since got a second dog, Suki—possibly the goodest girl ever to exist—and she and Flynn form the most lovable, unruly pack. I am, perhaps, guilty of loving them too much. But the last five years have permanently changed me, the same way the pandemic changed so many of us. I’m no longer as drawn to boozy nights out, expensive restaurants, or weekly cinema screenings. I’m most content in the company of my dogs—and my husband, of course—on a hike or at the beach. I daydream about our annual dog-friendly road trips up the California coast.

It might sound silly, but I am happiest when my dogs are their happiest. They have given me so much joy. And they keep giving. They are bottomless wells of silliness and love.

I don’t know how I would’ve survived without them.

Deukmejian Wilderness Park, California. Photo by Breton Vivian.

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What are the things that have changed your outlook on life? I’d love to hear from you in the comments! And if this is the first time you’ve come across my page, I’d be honoured if you considered subscribing. You can expect always thoughtful, occasionally funny, weekly essays about health, happiness and mortality.

I’ll be back next week. In the meantime, if you have a beloved fur baby, please tell me all about them in the comments below :)

Emma

xx

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