One Hundred Days

May 1, 2010.

This is my one hundredth post on Dead Dog Walking. One hundred days of sitting down in front of the computer to tell Nicholai's story of survival. One hundred days of home-made food, vitamins, herbs, and supplements. One hundred days of walks in snow, rain, mist, and sun. One hundred days of waxing and waning lymph nodes, telling me cancer is still here. One hundred days past one hundred days, past one hundred days, past the first hundred days I thought he wouldn't make it.

One hundred days.

Not counting the days I don't quite get to the page, and leave writing a post for another day. Not counting the days I'm just too busy to sit down for thirty minutes and pull thoughts into coherent sentences. Not counting days spent on the road, or whirling with unexpected news, days I'm not willing to commit ideas to words on a page.

And obviously, I'm counting. Today, Nicholai is the dog of 500 unexpected days.

This morning we walked in quiet under heavy gray clouds along the Sandy River. I ran hard a few times, like in the old days, and it felt good. I love the muscle straining, heart pounding, lungs expanding feeling I get with running, but I don't run much anymore due to a foot injury and other niggling musculoskeletal problems associated with the number of miles on this frame. But Nicholai lives on and on with lymphoma – energetic and in good humor – and I decided to borrow a page from his book on living with gusto in the moment.

When I began this blog in January, I thought (feared?) I wouldn't be writing long. Now it seems that Mr. Pickle will challenge the blogger in me more than I ever expected; to pay meticulous attention to what matters, to keep showing up at the page, to keep telling the story.

However many more – or how few – days are left.