Connors in Doha: Athena

Monday, December 19, 2011

Athena

But before Steve could join us back in the US he had to take Athena to the vet for her last days of battling lymphoma cancer. When she was first diagnosed the vet said typical survival time was 2 months after diagnosis. Athena managed to fight for over 6 months before finally succumbing; the vet was always impressed with her when we brought her in and she became a bit of a celebrity among the Doha vet community with how well she was doing. When we first learned about her illness in July, I never thought that we would be leaving for our trip to Florida in November with the possibility of seeing her when we came home. Unfortunately, she didn’t hold on quite long enough for us to make it make from our trip which was very sad. As anyone who knew our dog can attest, she was a wonderfully happy lab who loved people and wanted to do anything that would make you pleased. She was great with kids and even got a few people in this dog-aversion culture to put aside their fears and play fetch with her. Jaydon is still trying to understand what it means for Athena to be gone. He’s woken up a few times in the middle of the night asking about her and has asked if someone stepped on her (he associates being dead with stepping on bugs). Now when someone asks about her he explains that she is bones in the ground (actually she was cremated but we figured that was TMI for an almost 3 year old). She left us just shy of her 9^th birthday and we miss her terribly. I still find myself every once in awhile expecting her to walk in or meet me at the door when I get home. Our cat Mav also misses her and has become a bit more obnoxious with his meowing and is also needing a lot more lap time then he has ever put up with before. A few of our favorite photos of her…