A Phone Call From the Vet

The vet called yesterday afternoon - the results of Xena's final test had come in. The tumor's malignant and it's moved into her lymph nodes. The options aren't doable at all: surgery and radiation will make her fecally incontinent. Chemo doesnt' do much except prolong her life for a certain period but it won't cure it.

The good news is that at least for now, there doesn't seem to be a lot of pain for Xena. She still looks great and, although she has slowed down considerably, she still has her perky moments. We will see as time progresses. At this point I'm going to let her go when I know it's right - before her quality of life starts to go downhill. It's a slow moving tumor and the vet says she could have even a couple of more months.

For now, I am going to spoil her rotten. We're going to take a lot of car rides so she can stick her head out the window and go to a lot of parks where she can run free and chase squirrels. We'll go to flower gardens so she can try to catch bees (I never said she wasn't weird). I'll let her chew her cow hoove bones inside the house even though they stink to high heaven. When she is ready to go, the vet says she will come to the house to put her to sleep, which is what I requested.

The universe certainly works in mysterious ways. We still don't know why she had the seizure. But if she hadn't have had it, I wouldn't have taken her to the vet, and we wouldn't have known about this tumor in her rectum. It would have progressed until it would have become an emergency. At least this way we can do this without her going through too much discomfort.

Thanks so much everyone for your concern. I'll keep you all posted.