[NAGDU] Mill'E's medical misadventures

[The Pawpower Pack]

On Wednesday, I took my 14 year old retired golden Mill'E into the veffs because she was not eating with her normal gusto.  He did labs, which showed beginning stage kidney disease— no surprise as she's been on NSAIDS for quite some time now. He also took abdominal xrays because both he and I felt a mass.  It was a baseball size mass  near the spleen.  Wednesday we had some very hard decisions to make. Surgery at her age is risky. Surgery for a kidney dog at her age, doubley so.  But if I chose not to do the surgery,  the kindest thing to do would be to let her go.  We had no idea what we'd find when he opened her up.  I said we would do the surgery, and if he found cancer when he opened her up he would just not even wake her up, he'd just let her go.  
Wednesday night, we spent time together, she ate willingly— a cheeseburger and mc Donalds fries, lol. And a bag of twizzlers— her favorite! 
We arrived at the vets on Thursday morning, and when we were leaving the house, I was getting Laveau ready to work, wwhen Mill'E pushed her aside and thrust her head through the harness.  She had not guided in about 4 years because of her arthritis but if she wanted to do it this time, I was not going to argue.  
She guided me into the vets, stood while I removed the harness and gave me a kiss.  Then walked away with the vet tech.  
The time when she was in surgery were some of the longest hours of my life and I freely admit that I was drinking margaritas by noon.  
The vet texted to say that she had a baseball sized mass attached to the tip of her spleen.  He removed it, and her spleen, and did not see any lesions that would indicate cancer.  He sewed her back up and last night she stayed with him.  
She's home with me now, resting on the bed and taking it easy.  
We will get pathology back next week.  It will either be a hemangioma— benign tumor, or hemangiosarcoma, very aggressive form of cancer with the high likelyhood it has already spread to other organs— brain, heart etc.  
Because it's so aggressive, usually vets who open a gog with this kind of tumor will be able to see visual signs of the spread, so we are hopeful. 

Most dogs who have this, show no signs, and die from splenic rupture and blood loss.  We are so very fortunate that we found the tumor before it ruptured.  Even benign hemangiomas will kill a dog if they rupture and are not removed.  I've been reading about it and it's horrifying.  I'm so glad she didn't go through that, even if she has cancer, at least she didn't have to go through a splenic rupture.  
So now we wait for the pathology and hope for the best. 


 Rox and the kitchen Bitches: 
Mill'E, Laveau, Soleil
Pawpower4me at gmail.com
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