Holidays

The holidays were okay this year. Definately different and I don't think I'd like a repeat next year.

Work: I was able to take days off here and there to finish finals and get things done around the house, although any day I took off seemed to be not the reason I stayed home! I was able to catch up at work though, which was nice.

Home: Well I came home from work on Wednesday evening and Chief did not come to the door! Chief is always at the door when I get home. So I walked in the house and called him (no Chief, no noise) I started to get upset and was afraid to go into the bedroom to find him gone. So I rattled his food bag, opened the refridgerator, kept calling him (no Chief). I kind of tried to peek in the bedroom and I saw him balled up next to the bed not even moving, so I didn't have the nerve to check on him. I waited out front our house for Dan since he was on his way home. So, Dan comes home and I tell him, "Chief didn't come to the door, I think he died." (I had recalled how that morning he kept coughing but didn't seem bad). Dan ran into the house and there is Chief standing there by the couch (Dan just looked at me like, "What, are you nuts, he's right there") I told him then something isin't right.

So, something wasn't right. Chief could barely walk. He laid on the carpet and wouldn't get up. So I gave him some left over Doxy from when he had lyme (since he did the same thing) and we kept an eye on him all night. The next morning he did seem to perk up, but still couldn't really walk right. So just in case I called the vet (besides I didn't have any more Doxy if he needed it for the lyme). So we go to the vet that evening and start talking about lyme, and his coughing. Then I mentioned something about how his stomach looks bloated and the fact he wouldn't lay on his side like he usually would. The vet strongly suggested xrays and had a bad feeling something was going to show up - she was right. A LARGE mass was pushing his intestine's to one side and starting to block one lung (despite that everything looked okay). She took bloodwork and suggested an ultrasound the next day so that we could have a better idea of how bad the tumor was or if it had spread. She would call us the next day after setting up the ultrasound and getting the blood results back.

She called us the next morning. The ultrasound office was closed until Tuesday but got his bloodwork back which showed his red blood cells going down and white blood cells fighting something. She strongly suggested surgery ASAP and said if we waited until Tuesday (everything was closed for the weekend) he would most likely not make it since all the blood levels were going down anyway and we were risking his spleen rupturing (which is fatal in one hour). After a lot of talking about it, Dan and I decided to risk surgery knowing he may not make it out because of his age and everything going on. We were pretty much on pins and needles driving him over there. The vet explained he probably couldn't walk because of the low blood count was slowing taking the oxygen out of him making it hard for his muscles to move, she would call us soon if it was bad and we needed to have him put down, or after the surgery.

So we are watching the clock like it's a ticking time bomb. Holding our breath not to get a call too soon (meaning it was really bad)..... well then it turned into two hours! Then we thought that might be bad. The vet finally calls at 3:00 and tells us his spleen had ruptured before surgery but he looks pretty good, she was able to get the tumor out but he lost a lot of blood and we needed to wait until tomorrow to see how his blood count does. We had actually gotten him there just in time.

So we stayed out late to kill time and not think about it. I think when we both got up this morning we were not optimistic he would pull through (at least I wasn't). The vet called and told us the blood count looks good, he seems bored and we can bring him home today (the other option would have been the emergency vet over the weekend)! Chief can kind of walk but looks very sore. His stomach doesn't look as big (sorry mom, he looks thinner now). He is eating a little which is good (the vet said he wouldn't eat but felt he would at home). Stitches/staples out in 7-10 days and biopsy results in 2 weeks.

Earlier, we had decided that we would do what we could to give Chief a long life that is comfortable - the prayer to St. Francis helped too I'm sure.

Here's a picture of Chief when he came home (you can see his shaved paw from the catheter) and the kitty cat lecturing him on how to be healthy:

Have a happy new year!