Good Healing, Hard Goodbye

Good Healing, Hard Goodbye

🌼 Date: Monday, January 12, 2026

⚡ Energy: Emotionally wrung out. Physically tired. Still here.

💔 Status: Good news from my body. Devastating news from my heart.

😭 Outlook: Grateful for progress. Grieving a very loved little soul.

Today came with both good news and bad news — the kind of day where you hold two truths at the same time and neither cancels the other out.

The good news first.

I had my plastics appointment today, and we compared my pictures from a couple weeks ago — before they put the stitches in — to the picture taken today after the remaining stitches I ripped out last week were removed.

What a difference.

Even being on chemo, knowing it slows healing, my wound has come a long way in a short amount of time. The bottom of the hole is almost even with the surface skin now. The top is maybe a millimeter deep, if that. And the hole itself is smaller around than it was when I started chemo a month ago.

That matters.

It tells me my body is still working. Still responding. Still trying. And it confirms that negotiating with my oncologist and moving forward with chemo as scheduled was the right call for me.

I needed that reassurance today.

And then there was the bad news.

When Casey got home, Momo wasn’t acting like himself. He couldn’t stand on his back legs. He couldn’t hold up his head. We knew things had been changing — the last few days he wasn’t finishing his meals and wasn’t drinking much water — but seeing him unable to support his tiny six pounds told us what we didn’t want to admit yet.

It was time.

Casey picked him up and held him against his chest, and we just loved on him — whispered to him, kissed him, told him how good he was — as he passed peacefully in Casey’s arms.

We cried like babies.

One of the hardest parts of loving pets is that they become family. Children, really. And letting them go never gets easier, no matter how many times you’ve had to do it.

Casey took Momo to our vet, and they confirmed what we already knew — he had crossed the rainbow bridge.

Momo is now in heaven, reunited with his brothers Buster and JJ, and with our son Bryan. I find comfort knowing he didn’t go alone, that he had a welcoming party waiting for him.

Today reminded me that healing and loss can exist side by side.
That progress doesn’t protect you from grief.
And that love — real love — always leaves a mark.

Rest easy, little fertigator. You are so very loved.

💗 Tina –
One Badass Day at a Time