Happy Birthday To Me!

I celebrated my birthday this past Sunday, Mother's Day. It's the day Mom & Dad have "designated" as my special day. They've assigned Mother's Day to me because, as you know, they found me on the street (in front of a PetSmart, actually) and nobody knows when my real birthday is.

The adoption papers went through pretty near Mother's Day in 2002 and I was also really saggy after having pumped out a bunch of puppies, so the Mother's Day commemoration seemed a good tie-in.


This year's celebration was kinda special for me. It was about a year ago that I began showing the symptoms of what would eventually turn out to be my malignant melanoma. Untreated, I wouldn't have made it to my Dad's birthday in July of last year, statistically speaking. I knew I would, though. I just love birthdays!

I got to eat a Frosty Paws, which is an ice cream-like concoction for dogs. Yum! This video doesn't really capture the essence of my joy, but it'll do.


How old am I, you ask? Shame on you. A lady never reveals her age.


Besides, how the hell should I know!?!?

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Spring is nigh! Green pee in the mornin' ta ya!

"Today?", replied the boy. "Why, Christmas Day."

"I haven't missed it."

We've been in the new house for a year now, a year ago yesterday, actually. Mom and Dad keep saying that this year went by so fast and that they still can't believe that it's been more than two since they first got it into their heads that they'd be able to buy this place.

They hired a guy, Gerry, to paint the whole house and it was fun for me 'cause he'd bring his puppy, Duncan, with him once in a while. I liked playing with him (and with his super-cool velcro-covered soccer ball), but I didn't much care for getting blamed for his "accidents". Gerry implicated me in the "Laundry Room Incident", but I don't think Dad believed it for a minute. If my Dad was anything like his Dad, he'd have had the belt off his pants, makin' like Buddy Rich on my backside before you could say "scarred for life".

I've had quite a year, myself. I won't go over the details again in this posting, though. I know how it makes some people scared and others just sad, but it's not such a depressing tale of woe, really. I'm having a great time! Mom and Dad got a tree (my first) and I got to open a few presents early! (They weren't home and the presents weren't really for me, but, hey, if they're on the floor--they're mine!) I even have a Christmas video on YouTube...

Mom and Dad said that since I've been such a good girl, Santa will come tonight. (I hope they left his name at the guard shack). I suppose a velcro-covered soccer ball might be nice, but Santa, if you happen to read my blog, just between you and me, we already have everything we could ever want...

Merry Christmas, everyone!

What About Me?

I'd overheard Mom & Dad talking about how they were going to go away for another long weekend before the end of the summer. Actually, I snooped Mom's history on AOL and figured out that they were planning a trip to Ithaca, NY. It's a quaint college town nestled up in the foothills in the Finger Lakes region. It's got small town charm energized by a large student population from Cornell University and Ithaca College, rustic B&B's, good restaurants and BLAH,BLAH, FREAKIN' BLAH...

Hey, what about ME??!!!

Now, you all know that I'm not the complaining type, but geez, yet another jolt of radiation and right back into the kennel for another swell weekend of concrete smackin' good times! Come On!

I put my foot down and demanded that they do something for me for a change. Mom thought that it sounded like a good idea, but Dad asked "Do you think all the money I've spent on radiation and vaccines was for ME?" Since I'd finished the last of the treatments a few days before all of this came up, I felt emboldened enough to join Mom in "laughing him off". Looking back, I don't really remember anyone laughing...


When Mom asked me where I wanted to go for my special day, I could think of only one place -- Coney Island. I'd been dreaming of the day when I could relive my mispent youth by hanging out on the boardwalk, drinking beer from a can hidden in a paper bag, getting wasted and going for a ride on the Wonder Wheel. They agreed to take me, but Dad said that I couldn't have any beer because of my meds and that he would get drunk for the both of us. I clearly remember Mom NOT laughing at that.


Boy, did we have a swell time. I put on my "Pits For Peace" shirt and strolled the boardwalk for a while. A few people even stopped to take my picture! The live-human-target "Shoot The Freak" paintball attraction was closed (bummer), so we headed to Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park. I went on the Bumper Cars and the Spook House Ride and tried to win some stuffed animals at the "One In Wins" stand. After we noshed a few red hots at Nathan's, we all went up for a ride on the Wonder Wheel! It's a really tall, really cool, 85+ year old Ferris Wheel, but I wasn't scared at all!
You can see for miles from up there! The wide beach and ocean, Brighton Beach, the New York Aquarium, the Cyclone roller coaster, soon to close Astroland Amusement Park, the old Parachute Drop ride... even Manhattan! Come along for the ride with me!





We were up so high up and were having so much fun that, even if for just a few spins around that big old wheel, it felt as if we were soaring far away from all the sad things we'd left on the ground. And hey, you know, from waaay up there, everything looks a million miles away...

Still Here...

Alberto Gonzales? -- gone. Tony Snow -- gone. Karl Rove -- gone. Roxanne Murtagh?-- still here!

You, the loyal readers of this blog, seem well aware of my medical condition. You know that I was diagnosed with cancer and that I've had to undergo a course of radiation treatments and vaccinations that have taken a toll on my delicate Pit Bull constitution. Could one of you PLEASE inform my parents??? They did it to me again. They once again decided to go on vacation in the middle of my health crisis and toss me into a kennel. Oh, that's right, I forgot -- "Don't get sick in the summer!" Two vacations within the month? What are they all of a sudden -- FRENCH?

This time they went on a short trip to, of all places, The Adirondack mountains. Now, I understand the 'Dacks are beautiful and all, but let's face it, when you think of my parents (not that you do, but if you had to), images of them hiking through the woods, "bagging peaks", canoeing and rock climbing don't automatically spring into view. More likely, and rightly so, this is the appropriate picture. They accepted a gracious offer from some friends to join them at a house they'd rented in "the middle of nowhere" (Dad's words). It was pointed out to them that while the house was situated on an unpaved road that was a turnoff from yet another unpaved road, it was closer to "the edge" of nowhere than the middle of it. I think Mom and Dad felt a little more at ease after hearing this -- until they were told of the recent Black Bear sightings, that is.

Here's a short video that was taken on one of the ledges on Pitchoff Mountain.

Dad went on the hike.

Mom went to the Art Fair.

Hungry after the hike (and the Art Fair), everyone gathered around the kitchen and dining room for a lot of great food... Leila's mini BLT's, Emily's appetizers and Marnie's corn salad and whole wheat fruit tarts (two separate items) were highlights. RR's breakfasts of apple pancakes, french toast and cheesy omelets were amazing -- so I'm told. So I'm told, because while they were relaxing up in the mountains, I was in North Plainfield freakin' New Jersey contracting Kennel Cough from that annoying Pomeranian in the next "suite". Suite? A quarter-inch thick, placemat-sized, artificial-lambswool-throw-rug and something called an "elimination patio" isn't exactly what I'd imagined a suite to be. ("Excuse me, Massimo, which way to the spa, per favore?)

Enough about them. As for me, I went for my last radiation treatment a couple of days after they got back. I think the combination of my being overly tired from the kennel coupled with the expected cumulative effect of the treatments left me kinda wiped out. I wasn't hungry (apparently a major cause for concern) and for reasons I won't go into, was put on a regimen of Pepto-Bismol and Immodium.

Thankfully, after a worrysome few days, I started eating again and was back to my "regular" habit of eliminating, not on the patio, but on the edge of the Bear-free woods just across the paved street in front of my very own house.

Patios, if you ask me, are best left for BBQ's and beer...

Where's The Love?

Sorry it's taken so long for me to bring you this update. I thought that the silence from this end would heighten the dramatic tension that all of you were feeling. I thought it would trigger an avalanche of well-wishing cards and letters, encouraging comments to the blog, phone calls. Increased traffic to my YouTube videos, maybe. As it turns out, I thought wrong. No calls, no cards, no comments. No extra hits. Truth be told, I was feeling pretty down about it. "Nobody cares about me." "If only I'd been born a Jack Russell Terrier!" and "Why, oh why, did I have to go and get sick in August when so many people are away on vacation?" were among my many self-pitying thoughts. I was inconsolable.

I think, in some bizarre way, Dad was just trying to cheer me up when he shared his theory that people weren't "showing me the love" because they thought I'd already... how do I put this, well, you know... been tossed my last biscuit. That's crazy! Just because people knew that I'd been diagnosed with a malignant melanoma, given a bleak prognosis and been informed that the proposed treatments were deemed both experimental and expensive and that Mom and Dad were planning a vacation immediately following a scheduled visit to the vet... oh, crap! I was beginning to see his point. I'd heard the whispers at the Dog Park about "the farm". The saying at the park was "The PeeBee's get the meds, the Freebies just get dead." The old timers would explain to the pups that owners of the PeeBees -- the purebreds -- always went the extra mile for their prized investments while the mutts, mongrels and shelter dogs -- the Freebies -- were shipped off to this farm..."upstate". Hey, it may make you may feel better to sugar coat bad news, (the worst news, really), but look, we're dogs, not gullible 4 year old kids. We know the score.

Luckily for me, though, Mom & Dad are suckers for my adorable belligerence and my weepy doe eyes and decided to treat my like a PeeBee and pull out all the stops. Currently I'm in the middle of a course of 4 targeted radiation treatments and I'm scheduled for my second vaccination Friday afternoon.

The route down to the vet's office takes us past a few farms and, I admit, they do look pretty nice. Somehow, though, they look a lot more beautiful to me... on the ride back home.

The "C" Word

In case you haven't heard by now, my test results came back from the vet last week, and just like my Dad in his first semester of freshman physics at NJIT, I got a "C". The BIG "C", actually.
The tumor on my tongue turned out to be a malignant melanoma. We were hoping for something benign, or at the very least, a somewhat less aggressive form of cancer, but alas, what was made painfully clear by that "C" in freshman physics (and by the conspicuous absence of a Jaguar convertible in Dad's Christmas stocking), is that you don't always get what you wish for.


My vet, Dr. Bacon, recommended that we consult with another practice, the Red Bank Veterinary Hospital, in Lincroft. He said that they are the most advanced facility in the state and feature, in addition to many other specialties, an oncology department. He prepared my records and my films (doctor lingo for my chest x-rays) and wrote a letter about my case for the new doc. Mom was reading the letter and I thought the worst when, right at the end, I caught her wiping a tear from her eye. It wasn't so bad, really. Well, yeah, the diagnosis was bad, and the prognosis wasn't good, but I felt a lot better when I found out that what made her cry was that Dr. Bacon ended his letter with... "Roxanne is a nice dog and deserves your best care."

He said I was a nice dog. Now I think I'm gonna cry.


We trekked down to this mecca of pet medicine the following Saturday morning. The place is amazing! It's freakin' ginormous! Automatic doors, flat screen TV's, separate exam rooms for Dentristy, Opthamology, Oncology, Allergies and Skin Disorders, Emergency, Surgery... you name it. Granite everywhere! They even have their own Pharmacy. We checked in, watched a little Animal Planet on the TV and waited to be called.


We met with the Oncologist, the tall, cute Dr. Clifford. He had a diploma on the wall from Penn, which, I'm told, is one of the foremost Veterinary Schools in the country. I liked him a lot. He didn't come across like one of those Med School dropouts who went into pet medicine because it would just be way too embarrassing to become a chiropractor. He really seemed to like animals. Well, he liked me, anyway.


My bloodwork looked good and my lungs sounded OK, though I may have a bit of a heart murmur. He recommended radiation therapy for my tongue and said that I was a good candidate for the new vaccine (yea!). Mom and Dad asked about any side effects and Dr. Clifford said I shouldn't have any problems, that I was "a tank." A tank! He then must've remembered what Dr. Bacon wrote about me because he added, smiling, "a very nice tank..."



Mom looked to set up the appointments for the treatments and Dad went to the cashier to, as he put it, "pay for some of this fine granite..."

Next entry: Under The Gun: My Drugged Up Rendezvous With Dr. McDreamy