Although I had not knitted in a decade, somehow in the fall of 2006 I became intensely interested in knitting. I spent many glorious hours in the company of the shelties, listening to music and knitting. Even though I realized that the shelties and I were thoroughly enjoying that time together, I felt very guilty about it. At that time I had absolutely no idea that our little sheltie, Sophie, was sick or would become sick. In retrospect, I am very grateful for that time with her. I could not have picked a better way to have spent that time. I have vowed never to feel guilty again about knitting.
Over the past decade my husband and I have been adopting seniors, many with terminal illnesses. We adopted Sophie in the summer of 2005. It is my understanding that a shelter called a rescue about a tiny little sheltie who was in bad shape. A rescue volunteer immediately went to pick her up. She had an eye injury and even though blood was dripping from her eye down her cheek, she still wagged her tail. She must have been in incredible pain. No one knows what had happened to Sophie. Unfortunately the vets could not save her eye, and she had a very old fracture in her front leg. We were lucky enough to be able to adopt her. She was an absolute angel - magnificent in every way. When she was well enough, we had the leg fracture repaired, and she was pain free. Life was very, very good and being with her are among my happiest moments.
Two days before Thanksgiving in 2006 we had Sophie evaluated for cataract surgery. We did not want her to lose vision in her eye and we thought that it was time to get a baseline. The ophthalmologist thought it was too soon for cataract surgery but noted that there was a melanoma on her iris. He told me that in dogs that it was very rare for a melanoma in this location to be malignant. He told us to come back in four months. While we were there Sophie coughed and I told him that she had been treated with an antibiotic for the cough for the past two weeks. Neither of us made the connection. In a way that was a good thing. Thanksgiving was two days away and we had the best Thanksgiving ever- what a wonderful day. But that night when I put her up on my pillow she coughed again, and she coughed up blood. Needless to say we were at the vet's office the next morning. We quickly determined that she had a mass in her lungs and that it was melanoma. The oncology staff at North Carolina State hospital recommended chemotherapy and we followed their recommendation in order to give her every chance we could. Despite her fearless battle we lost her on December 26, 2007 when she had a catastrophic seizure. Words cannot express how much I miss her or how much I loved her.
To honor her memory and to express my gratitude to our vet - who has gone above and beyond for all our companions - I knitted a Scheherazade for her. With the help of a very special master knitter, we changed the pattern and an angel emerged. (The angel emerged when chart five was skipped.) The theme changed from Sheherazade to the Sophie Angel Wrap. Knitting this brought me great joy and peace.
