Little Things

He was happy to go for a walk but dragged at times. Dragged most when heading home--he's always been reluctant to end the walk, but he was especially draggy today.

He didn't do the breakfast dance but ate the half can of canned chickeny stuff calmly vs. enthusiastically). Avoided the kibble I added until he established that no more of the canned stuff was coming, then ate that slowly.

Last night he woke me up several times--no longer remember how many--with the hork/cough thing that I've come to associate with fluid in his chest. Vet says that the last ultrasound did show nodules in his lungs, so it's possible he's reacting to those, or they could be bleeding a little into his lungs, or who knows. Not clear that there's any point at this moment in xrays or ultrasounds. Vet did look into at least one other chemo treatment she'd heard about, but oncologist says it wreaks havoc on dogs, isn't likely to be effective on this kind of tumor, and strongly advised against it.

Nothing really to do at the moment except keep watching and waiting. It's nasty game of whether the disease will make it obvious and easy on when it's time to go, or whether it's going to be a gradually increasing spate of downs, in which case I'll have to decide whether this is any kind of a life for a dog to lead. I also don't want it to end the way it has for some hemangiosarcoma dogs--where the tumor ruptures so badly that the dog bleeds to death in front of his owner. That's no way for a dog to go, either. But I think that if that were going to happen to Rem, it would have already happened. Those dogs have mostly been undiagnosed or earlier after the diagnosis, I believe.

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