The Defiance of My Princess

This is my Princess. My nine and half year old lady. My first attempt at parenting. My truest companion. My best friend.

She has a tumor. It’s non-malignant, because God knows I can’t handle that right now. But it’s locally invasive, and it’s growing. It needs to come out. That will likely require taking half of her upper jaw, a procedure the vet assures me is far less horrific than it sounds. Nonetheless, I’m scared.

My Princess came to me at a time when I was desperate for unconditional love. Seven years in to a crumbling relationship, and in the midst of a career shift that left me way too much time to think, the best solution was clearly to get a puppy. She sat on my lap in the car the entire drive home and has never left my heart since.

As a healthcare professional, I’m used to navigating the always frustrating, sometimes enraging labyrinth of “the system”. Skirting the need for referrals, bribing the scheduler to shove me in to an already overloaded schedule, using the phrase “That is unacceptable” eight times in one phone call. I get that world. But I’ve never had to traverse it for my baby.

Trying to get an appointment with a surgical specialist just to get X-rays brought me to tears. Who in their right mind thinks I’m going to wait two months for a preliminary visit?!? The scheduler, a nice but firm woman, calmly told me my vet marked the referral as “non-emergent.” How is that possible? Of course it’s emergent! It’s my Princess we’re talking about here.

She is not dying, but she is hurting, and that is unacceptable.

I don’t have children, but I understand well the complex challenges of raising something that feels like your heart walking around outside your body. For going on ten years now, she has given me purpose. Hungover, crying, entertaining, reading, sleeping, eating, sexting, she interrupts all activities because she is my priority. Her needs come before mine.

Even though she is now a big sister, a role she quite reluctantly took on, she is still the Princess. She doesn’t sit on the floor…she wants my seat. She will manipulate me in to getting up so she can have it. She rarely plays with toys, but the frog is hers. She ate her brother’s face the first time he dared pull it off her couch. That’s right…her couch. She is sweet, but she must come to you on her own terms. She huffs to let you know she expects part of your meal to become hers. She cuddles, but she will only allow my husband to use her as a pillow. She loves little people, primarily because they have yummy goodness all over their faces. She holds court, and not a person in the room, dog lover or hater, can resist an introduction.

She is my Princess.

My girl is the originator of defiance. She has had attitude from the day I picked her up. She knows what she wants, sees “No” as the start of the negotiation, and food as the object of her affection. She picks and chooses who she likes, unconcerned with hurt feelings. She is loyal, but she will not allow wallowing. Most importantly, she is WAY smarter than the boys. And she knows it.

Despite this tumor, my girl is steadfast. Right now, she sleeps soundly next to me in the chair. My chair. Seriously, we’re sharing it. Or at least she has me thinking that.