Whispering softly....

It's been five days since my last update, and once again I feel like the sky might be kind of falling down ... but I'm afraid to say it out loud. So I'll just kind of whisper it.

We had a great weekend. The kids were here all weekend, and surprisingly, Knothead didn't make a great display about needing them home with her when she woke up on Mother's Day. So I got to spend the morning helping them get ready to celebrate Mother's Day with her. Hmmm. What's wrong with that picture? But how do you say no to a kid who is asking you to help him make a card? I can't do it.

After we dropped them off, we loaded Big Dawg into the truck, along with HB's mother, and headed up to my sister's campground for an old fashioned family bitch fest. My family definitely puts the fun in dysfunctional when we're all together, and I love every moment of it.

They were delighted to see Big Dawg and kept getting annoyed with me referring to it as his farewell tour ... but really ... it probably was! We took him on short walks around the grounds and up through the woods. We fed him up good and let him lay around the deck soaking up the sun. He slept all the way home, and didn't seem to have over done it. The next two days he was more energetic and his appetite is astounding!

Today we came home from work to find him standing at the bottom of the stairs, unable to get up them at all. When I got him to walk toward me, it became apparent that his hind right leg is in trouble. He was "knuckling" ... which means just that ... walking on his knuckles on that paw.

I called our Dr. Awesomes, who told us to bring him in right away. He has preferred customer status there and they are so good to us.

She said it could be an injury, in which case the high dosage of prednozone that he's on and rest tonight should clear it up. She said it could also be neurological, and that a tumor or lymph node could be swollen to the point that it's pressing on his nerves, causing him to lose control of that back leg and not even realize that he's knuckling, in which case we're on the downward spiral and should consider euthenasia.

He was in obvious distress, but we chose not to medicate him any further. The only pain control he could be offered was morphine and we would have had to monitor his heart and everything. We just brought him home, and made him comfortable. If he's still not doing well in the morning, we'll take him down to the vet office for the day where they will be able to help him with the pain, monitor him and keep him until we can make whatever decisions we have to make.

Here's the kicker. It will be eight full weeks on Friday since he's been diagnosed. We were told he might have four weeks, so we've been on bonus time for the last four weeks. Throughout these eight weeks, I've been able to take a fair amount of time to work from home and be with him, take him to appointments, monitor him, etc. HB has even taken a day off here and there which is much harder for him to manage.

Tomorrow, however, neither of us can take off ... and we have to be out tomorrow night for a few hours as well. I have a major presentation to make. I've been building toward it for months now, and people are coming in from various parts of the province to be there. HB teaches at two schools, and one of the schools has its spring musical tomorrow night. He has rehearsals all day and then of course the play tomorrow evening. I was supposed to be helping him out tomorrow night, but may find myself unable to do so.

As long as I don't find myself back at the vet's, saying goodbye.

Besides ... how do I dare make this decision? Every time I whisper "the sky is falling", he proves me wrong. I want him to do that one more time. Keep that damn sky where it belongs.