Michelle Wright fostered Jana about 10years ago before she was adopted by a kind and patient family. Michelle said that Jana was such a poor, frightened thing as a pup and hoped that she would enjoy many years with these adopters. When this same family recently adopted Bear, they told us Jana’s story:
“Jana had a good life. She never completely overcame her fears, but I think she felt safe and loved with us and she became a truly treasured part of our family.
Her passing was rather sudden and quite unexpected. I’d often tell her that she wasn’t allowed to get sick. But sadly, that is what happened.
Early this fall, Jana developed an occasional cough that we just assumed was an allergy related to the weird weather. We had the vet check her carefully at her annual physical and all seemed to be well. About a month later, we noticed that she was losing weight, so we took her back to the vet, who again listened to her heart and lungs and thought she was OK but told us to bring her back soon if she didn’t start eating better and continued to lose weight.
That was a Monday and things hadn’t changed much by Friday, so I took her back and they did X-rays. There wasn’t a well-defined mass in her lungs, but they were almost completely covered with a milky white substance that the vet initially thought was probably pneumonia but could be cancer. The radiology report came back an hour later and confirmed that it was cancer.
I took Jana to an oncologist a few days later and he spent over half an hour trying to explain that they couldn’t save her. We did the best we could to keep her eating and make her comfortable. She died less than two weeks later.
Jana’s coat got so long over the years that I’d bet Michelle could have walked right past her and not recognized her. She was a very special girl and a very gentle soul, and I would have done anything I could to save her. Thank you, FOHA, for helping to make Jana part of our lives.”
