When It Rains, It Definitely Pours

Things are really hectic around our household lately. Well, for at least the past week and half they have been. Our furbaby, Blaze, is really sick. He started acting strange the weekend before last not wanting to eat, not wanting to leave the couch, and not sleeping in bed with us (this is just craziness). After day 3 of not eating and barely getting off the couch, we took him in to the vet. He ran some in house bloodwork and gave us some medication to start with him and said we should see an improvement within 3-5 days. He perked up a bit the following day and was eating a little bit (but not his dog food). On Thursday of last week, things took a turn for the worse. My hubby had to literally pick him up off the couch to get him to go outside to the bathroom and couldn't get him to eat anything at all. The medicine he was supposed to take we had to put down his throat because he refused to eat what we had put it in. Another trip to the vet that afternoon. This time, bloodwork was sent off, a urine screen was done, and an ultrasound done of his lower half around his kidneys. We were given another type of medication to add to what he was already taking.

Blaze ended up having blood in his urine. The first day we took him to the vet we found out that he had severe anemia, really low red blood cells, and high white blood cells, which made the vet think he had an infection of some sort. We had to wait for the results from Thursday's blood tests.

Fast Forward to Monday morning when the vet finally called me to let me know part of what they found. By the way, Blaze is still very lethargic and isn't really eating all that much and only gets off the couch to go to the bathroom once or twice a day. So, the vet informs me that he is leaning toward Cushings Disease, which is a rest of his life disease that he would have to have medicine for. Which we can not afford, since the amount of meds he would require as big as he is would be twice the amount for a normal size dog. Which breaks my heart.

And I got another phone call today stating that they got the rest of the pathology results back and they are no longer worried about it being Cushings Disease, but that all signs are pointing toward cancer of the spleen or liver cancer...this is the news I have been fearing for a week now. I wish there was more that we could do for him, but our finances just can't do it. I hate that we have to choose like this, but we can't even afford to do a biopsy to verify which type of cancer it is. It actually doesn't really make a difference because we wouldn't be able to do anything further because Chemotherapy for a Great Dane would be astronomical. I can't even believe we are facing this right now. We have been through so much with this dog. He has been such a great addition to our family since before we were even married. He isn't even 6 years old yet. This is so incredibly hard to face right now...

Over this past weekend, we were supposed to celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday with the entire family in from out of town (state) and her closest friends and I get a phone call that she has been admitted into the hospital. They didn't know what was going on, but her bp was 90/50. And my grandma usually has high bp. Her blood count was also much lower than what it should have been which meant she was losing blood somewhere. So we all spent her actual birthday with her in the hospital on Sunday and took her cake to eat. They found out she had a bleeding ulcer...

Oh, and Aiden ended up having another double ear infection on Friday. Thank you tubes for doing your job. I know they don't totally prevent, but I was hoping for a little bit more reprieve than just a little over a month. No such luck...

If you stuck with that, wow. I feel as though it just went on and on. We are keeping Blaze comfortable right now and just letting him be and giving him all the love he deserves. Aiden is feeling much better. And my grandma is still in the hospital, for at least another night. Things might turn around soon...we shall see.