Hi friends, today I’m going to explain my medical situation to you all. My family and I are very sad that it is not the outcome we were hoping and praying for, but I am small and mighty and I will not roll over and give up. I am going to fight as long as I can. In the time I have left I hope to be able to have some more good days to go do things with my mom, and hang out with my siblings. Because not everyone follows us on social media, I am going to review briefly the events of the past ten days. The photo above is from Saturday when Mom and I visited Gramma and took a short walk together.
On Thursday, September 26th, everything in life was fine. On Friday morning, I refused to eat and refused dinner as well. Mom found it odd but didn’t really worry about it. Saturday I went to the Scent Work Trial and earned my title, saw a lot of my human friends, ate lots of treats and had a Grand old time. No one noticed anything off about me at all. I was still not eating, so Monday, Mom made an appointment for me to see the vet.
She had an x-ray taken, and blood work done. This is where the trouble begins. My ALP and ALT were so high one sample had to be diluted for the machine to read it. My x-ray showed an enlarged liver and it was hard to tell anything else. Our vet said I needed an ultrasound asap to see what was going on. Mom asked about our scheduled trip to Pennsylvania and she said she would not travel with me and if I did travel I better have a plan as I could get really ill, really fast. Our trip was cancelled. Health is more important than anything.
Now the hard part begins because only a few places do ultrasounds and there is a wait to get an appointment. We were lucky to get one Wednesday morning at the AERC clinic. See the board standing there as we came in? It even has my name on it. The staff was very friendly and kind to me and Mom.
I needed to see an internist and she is wonderful. Both Mom and I like her a lot. She explains things to Mom, and we can tell she is good, smart, and really cares about her patients. My doctor explained what they saw during the procedure and what some possible outcomes might be. After my ultrasound, we would need to wait up to a week for the results, but our doctor said she would call Mom when she received the findings.
Thursday around lunchtime, she called. Unfortunately, my medical situation is not turning out as we hoped. I have liver carcinoma. Normally, this is a good cancer to have as they take out the tumor, liver regenerates, and life is good. Not in my case. This seems to be an aggressive cancer as it is all over in the liver, and most likely has spread as my lymph nodes are swollen too.
Please don’t be upset with us for not spreading the news right away. Mom and I have needed lots of time to process and cry over this whole, horrible, out of the blue situation. I’m only eight. Everything was checked for my emergency surgery nine months ago and was fine. My July physical showed that I was in tip top shape. We never, ever saw this coming.
What the prognosis is, we don’t know yet. Mom needs to talk to the internist again today. We need to decide if an oncologist is the way to go or not. The biggest problem I have is I am not eating. My whole life I have been super thin, so not eating for ten days is not good. Appetite stimulants and nausea meds have not helped. Believe me, Mom has been cooking and buying everything she can think of but most of it I pick at at best and then leave it.
The blog will be continuing on and as always, as Emma wanted, we will mostly post happy, fun things to make people and pups smile. When we know more about how we are going to deal with this horrible disease, we will let you know either on the blog, and/or on our Facebook page. Mom is having a terrible time with this and can’t imagine a life without me in it, so I hope to hang around as long as I can without feeling miserable.
I love all of you, some of whom I’ve known since the day I arrived here, which happens to be eight years ago this coming Saturday, the thirteenth. My life has been awesome with all the opportunities I’ve been given, it’s just a shame I won’t be able to accomplish more. Nelson I worry about, as he is my biggest fan, but my other sisters will have to take more responsibility with him as I need to care for myself now. Most of all, I worry about my mom, but we hope to spend a lot of the time I have left together. I’m still smiling and wagging my tail, so don’t be too sad just yet.
My GBGV Life is joining Comedy Plus for the Awww Mondays Blog Hop.
English (US) · 