Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Bad Night Leads to Bad Day

First I want to preface that this is 100% not baby related (at least not in the traditional sense).

As many of you know from my posts over the spring, Eric's and my fur-baby, Layla, had cancer.  We found a mass tumor on her spleen that had ruptured.  As a result, she had emergency surgery in the spring to remove her spleen, and spent the next 10 weeks receiving chemotherapy. 

Over the past few months, she has been doing really well.  All of her fur has grown back from the chemo, and her activity has very much improved.  But last night, she took a bad turn.  At around 10:30PM, she essentially collapsed.  We rushed her to the emergency vet, ran several tests, and stayed until almost 2AM, but still didn't have any answers other than her blood pressure was severely low. 

This morning, her oncologist ran some additional tests and found that there is now a mass on her liver.  It appears like she had a small rupture last night, which caused her to bleed internally and for her blood pressure to drop.  We knew the cancer spreading was a possibility since the original mass has ruptured, but we were hoping the chemo would delay the onset. 

Right now, she is doing OK.  They think the rupture was small enough that it seems to have healed itself, but it is very likely this will happen again.  It could be tonight, it could be next month.  We decided after the chemo that we could not afford additional treatments, nor do we want to put her through that again.  As a result, all we can do right now is spend as much time as possible with her and make her comfortable.  Sometime in the near future we will have a very difficult decision to make.

We are picking her up at 3PM today and meeting with the oncologist to let him know what we have decided.  Please keep her in your thoughts!

3 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness my heart is just breaking for you! I couldn't imagine being in your shoes as I know how much fur children are just like real children. Especially ones as sweet as Layla...my thoughts are with you

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  2. I started crying as soon as I saw her pic.

    Oh Lindsay, I am so sorry. I Had to deal with Reese and trying to make the same decision while I was pregnant. It isn't fair! I don't know what to tell you. I'm sorry.

    The decision isn't easy... it sucks.... I still wonder what if.... I miss my buddy. I still cry for him, I am crying now for you, for Layla, and for Reese. I'm sorry.

    When that time comes, Will you ask Layla to tell Reese that I love and miss him and I think of him everyday, that not a single day goes by that I don't wish he was with us still.

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  3. Thanks you guys! We are both really sad and just trying to spend as much time as possible with her while we can. The vet doesn't seem to think she will make it past a month, and its more likely it will happen in the next week or so, but we are trying to prepare ourselves as much as possible. We really wanted her to be here to meet the boys, but we'll just have to tell them all about her as they grow up.

    Courtney, I'll be sure to tell her to find Reese. They can be best friends in doggy heaven!

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