Back ground… My big dog… Cancer… Almost 18 months ago she was feeling ill, we brought her in to the emergency clinic on a Sunday… They thought it was her spleen… It was a giant tumor that had pulled off of its blood vessel somewhere around her kidney or adrenal gland, wrapped around her aorta… Size of an avacado, blood clot the size of a honey dew melon, and bleeding out.
My vet on Monday morning told me I would be doing good if she made Tuesday, lucky to make the end of the week and really lucky to make the end of the month (10 days away at the time)… Turned out to be lymphoma.
Here we are… almost 18 months later… A few weeks ago my big dog started drinking and pissing like crazy. Gallons and gallons a day… Brought her in. Had to hold a jar under her ass while she peed, and she peed on my hand.
So, last Monday… lets go for an ultra sound since she had cancer probs earlier… before we run more tests… Daisy was good about it, hour and a half to get there, and she wasn’t allowed to pee. Shaved and rolled all over on a table for an hour… GIANT tumor on her liver… FUCK!!!
OK… Appointment with my vet (who is awesome BTW) on Friday to discuss things… We didn’t make it to Friday…
So Tuesday afternoon Daisy decided she is going to act “sluggish”… By Wednesday morning, I’m crying like a little girl thinking this is it… My little lady calls the vet… I didn’t want to bring her in, because I knew we weren’t bringing her home… We talk it over… All they can see is the tumor on her liver… All her
#'s are good… We even brought the little dog with us, for “moral” support and so she could smell her buddy when she was dead…
A banzai run to the animal hospital an hour south. Both dogs in tow… A vet surgeon with all kinds of letters after his name… real nice guy…
Slicing and dicing… Barely made it home and I get a call… The big ass tumor on Daisy’s liver had pulled off, and she was bleeding out internally, they sopped up over a liter.
However, in the middle of the liver there where 3 other tumors, and there was a tumor in the adrenal gland growing into the kidney…
I opted for sewing her up, though they gave me the option of going in in a few weeks to tackle the adrenal problem and the remaining liver tumors… They also gave me the options of taking all the liver tumors, and also the adrenal tumor… The adrenal deal being the sketchy one… Sew her up…
Daisy was up and eating in 3.5 hours, they thought they may have to keep her for up to 4 days for recovery… BS… She came home the next day, and the day after that she was able to extend herself enough that she could get up on the counter to steal a cat food can…
So… Daisy is a bit over 8 years old… At 6.5 years, I thought I had lost her… Last week I was prepared (sort of, almost, not quite) ready to let her go…
So I’ve decided and the little lady has agreed, we aren’t cutting her open again. That’s just too much. I didn’t really want to do it this time, but all they saw was one tumor… I was ready to start digging, and this ground out here is so hard… about a foot of pick axing and then you can dig.
I’m sort of feeling guilty, I was ready to put my dog down a week ago or so, and now she’s happy and hoppy, with 4000 staples across her abdomen. She had no idea what is going on inside her, she just wants her belly rubbed and a kiss on her pointy(fat) head.
So… When do you call it quits?
I didn’t want to get this far… into and past a second major surgery… but my puppy dog is laying over here next to me snoring her fat ass away, and that makes me pretty damn happy. And she seems pretty damn happy, but I think the next time she takes a turn for the worse… That’s it.