Well, we all know dogs don't live forever, but our Golden Retriever, Jacob Todd Teson, is unfortunately getting pretty sick. At the end of February (while he was still living at Grammie & Grandad's house since our house was on the market), we noticed a change of behavior in him. He wasn't nearly as energetic - well, as energetic as a 12 year old dog could be. He wouldn't eat some days, began throwing up randomly, wouldn't hardly move on some days, literally laying in the same spot for multiple hours.
We got some blood work done on him, the vet was suspicious of an enlarged heart. Sure enough, the blood work came back and he had elevated cardiac enzymes. To be sure, we did a chest x-ray and it didn't show anything wrong with his heart. But, it did reveal some sort of a mass that appeared to be coming from his spleen. This is very common in large breed dogs and typically shows up later in life.
The symptoms are fatigue, abdominal distention, lack of appetite, general weakness (likely from anemia from the toxins released from the mass). The mass can be benign, but will eventually rupture, and can cause him to bleed to death. Or, the mass can be a hemangiosarcoma, a cancer, and this will eventually spread to other organs in his body. The only real solution is to have his spleen removed, however, it could have already spread and the surgery could be for nothing.
So, we are just going to watch it and carefully keep our eye on how Jake is acting. If he starts having more "bad" days than "good", we will likely take the next step and make that horrible, but necessary, decision to possibly put him to sleep.
Jake has been at our house since Brian and I got married. He is just as much part of our family as any of our kids. He is such a great dog, very gentle, patient, and well-behaved. We definitely lucked out to get such an awesome dog! And...Colin just ADORES him. First thing in the morning, he asks "where gake?" and finds him, giving him a hug, telling him "hello" and we let him outside to go to the bathroom. I guess we should just enjoy the time we have left with Jakey Todd. The vet said these masses can grow very slowly, so he could have quite a bit of time left in his life. However, if and when they decide to rupture, it goes quick from there. Ultimately, we just don't want him to be in any pain or discomfort...
We got some blood work done on him, the vet was suspicious of an enlarged heart. Sure enough, the blood work came back and he had elevated cardiac enzymes. To be sure, we did a chest x-ray and it didn't show anything wrong with his heart. But, it did reveal some sort of a mass that appeared to be coming from his spleen. This is very common in large breed dogs and typically shows up later in life.
The symptoms are fatigue, abdominal distention, lack of appetite, general weakness (likely from anemia from the toxins released from the mass). The mass can be benign, but will eventually rupture, and can cause him to bleed to death. Or, the mass can be a hemangiosarcoma, a cancer, and this will eventually spread to other organs in his body. The only real solution is to have his spleen removed, however, it could have already spread and the surgery could be for nothing.
So, we are just going to watch it and carefully keep our eye on how Jake is acting. If he starts having more "bad" days than "good", we will likely take the next step and make that horrible, but necessary, decision to possibly put him to sleep.
Jake has been at our house since Brian and I got married. He is just as much part of our family as any of our kids. He is such a great dog, very gentle, patient, and well-behaved. We definitely lucked out to get such an awesome dog! And...Colin just ADORES him. First thing in the morning, he asks "where gake?" and finds him, giving him a hug, telling him "hello" and we let him outside to go to the bathroom. I guess we should just enjoy the time we have left with Jakey Todd. The vet said these masses can grow very slowly, so he could have quite a bit of time left in his life. However, if and when they decide to rupture, it goes quick from there. Ultimately, we just don't want him to be in any pain or discomfort...
Such a sweet doggy!
Okay, now that I am done wiping my eyes and blowing my nose...
Here's another picture of our beautiful Maggie Mae. She has got some mad baby acne right now, but that will go away soon hopefully. She's a great sleeper, especially during the day, and I have to wake her up during the day at her 3 hour feeding intervals. At night, since she has reached her birth weight, our doctor said we could let her sleep as long as she wanted. Some nights she will give us 5 hour stretches, which are like heaven!! I am still pumping pretty aggressively to build up my milk stores for when I go back to work. Once you stop breastfeeding as often, your milk supply goes way down, and with Colin, I struggled so much to produce enough milk for him. I don't want to put myself through all that stress with Maggie, plus with me starting school again, that would just be one more thing for me to worry about. I hope this helps to alleviate any stress!
Maggie continues to be a very laid-back little girl, she only cries when she is hungry or really mad at us (like when Colin kicked her in her face with his shoes on, or when we are giving her a bath). Could we be lucky enough to be blessed with 2 easy-going children? I don't know, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed :)
Maggie at 2.5 weeks old (8 lbs 12 oz)
No comments:
Post a Comment