The Brad Hole

We took him into the vet yesterday afternoon for what would have been his "final" visit, but turned into a regular check-up once he started eating and drinking. From roughly 10pm on Wednesday night until the vet visit yesterday, he'd been eating baby food like a pig, and that hasn't really stopped.

The vet was surprised, bordering on shocked, at his condition. His mouth and tongue had healed to what he termed was a healthy pink. His tongue nubbin looked good and his weight was 13 lbs, which matched his weight on Monday when we brought him in. I checked his records, and his piggiest weight was 15.5 lbs, although he was down to 14.1 before we brought him in for surgery. So for the moment his weight loss has been arrested and I suspect he'll plump back up to 14+ before too long, given that he really hadn't eaten anything between last Thursday and Wednesday night.

I asked our vet, Dr. Toben, about our next steps. I had thoughts of perhaps getting an x-ray to see where the cancer is at, but he made a good point: the x-ray won't really change anything for us. The cancer is terminal and we aren't planning on radiation therapy or invasive surgery due to its fast-spreading nature, so just knowing that he's got tumors here or there will only add to the worry, it won't tell us how long he's got because it's impossible to tell for sure. Our best course of action is simply to wait for his health to decline and not waste any time getting him back in - or more likely euthanizing him - when we see his attitude deteriorate. At this point, as our vet said, it's about quality of life rather than quantity.