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Today, I found out that my dog basically has cancer.\u00a0 I kind of knew this was going to be the case, because when things like a hard lump that kind of grew out of nowhere are in play, the conclusion seems kind of forgone, but it doesn\u2019t make it suck any less when the vet tells you it\u2019s a tumor, and the real question really being just how bad of a cancer we\u2019re dealing with here.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s funny, because I had the new vet at my clinic, the one with the least tenure there, which explains why she has the Saturday afternoon shift, but I was just glad that I was able to take my dog in at all today to get checked out in the first place.\u00a0 But she\u2019s pretty young, I imagine she doesn\u2019t have the experience as some of the other doctors at the clinic do, so when she\u2019s explaining things to me, she\u2019s using a lot of technical and medical terminology, and seemingly avoiding use of the dreaded C-word.<\/span><\/p>\n It isn\u2019t until I explain to her that a lot of the terminology is going over my head, and I couldn\u2019t help but notice the seemingly deliberate avoidance of using the word \u201ccancer,\u201d and that I would really appreciate a little more dumbed down explanation of what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 The tech leaves the room at this point for some reason, and the doc is a little more clearer with the explanation, and I feel like I have a little more understanding of the situation to where I can at least brog about it.<\/span><\/p>\n The lump is definitely a tumor, but the clinic doesn\u2019t have the on-site resources to do anything beyond a cursory examination, and sending out slides is really the only way we\u2019re all going to get some more accurate clarity to what we\u2019re dealing with.\u00a0 Given the circumstances of how it appeared to have appeared and grown fairly rapidly over the span of the last two months, things don\u2019t appear to be very optimistic, but again, never going to know until we get some more concrete evidence.<\/span><\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t help the fact that my boy is anywhere from 15-17 years old, which is well at or past life expectancy for his general breed, and the fact that he also has a grade-4 heart murmur.\u00a0 Adding cancer on top of it is like a fucked up cherry on top, but him being the goodest boy on the face of the planet, is still acting fairly normal, his behavior and temperament are still his usual cheerful self, and he\u2019s eating, drinking, pooping and peeing as a normal dog would.\u00a0 Even the girl doing clean-up in the lobby was astounded to hear that he\u2019s (estimated) 16 years old.<\/span><\/p>\n But that\u2019s where we\u2019re at right now.\u00a0 My good boy is not doing well, in spite of the pep he continues to exhibit.\u00a0 Regardless of what the full diagnosis is going to be, the options are not many, nor are they even likely to work, if they\u2019re even possible at all.\u00a0 At his age, it\u2019s not lost on me that we\u2019re definitely in the final act of his expected lifespan, but it never doesn\u2019t suck for pet owners to come to grips with the mortality of their companions, and all I can really think about are all the things I feel guilty to him about not being a better owner; like an asshole, thinking about myself, when he\u2019s the one dealing with fucking cancer, and no-selling it like <\/span>Hercules vs. Sid<\/a> because he\u2019s the best dog there is and he\u2019s showing way more strength than I am, and doesn\u2019t even realize it.<\/span><\/p>\n But he\u2019s not gone yet, and hopefully my life can get its shit together enough to make the even more likely limited time I have with him somewhat better and rewarding.\u00a0 Two years ago, I had concerns on whether or not he\u2019d last long enough to get a picture with my first daughter with a shirt that had a dog that looked a lot like him on it.\u00a0 Not only did we get a good picture, there\u2019s now second daughter in the equation, and here\u2019s hoping that we can repeat that history with her.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today, I found out that my dog basically has cancer.\u00a0 I kind of knew this was going to be the case, because when things like a hard lump that kind of grew out of nowhere are in play, the conclusion seems kind of forgone, but it doesn\u2019t make it suck any less when the vet … Continue reading My boy isn\u2019t well<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,134,4,68],"class_list":["post-48408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-pets","tag-programming","tag-tragedy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48410,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48408\/revisions\/48410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}