Shadow Update

We received some very sad news Thursday on Shadow. For those who haven't been following his story recently...Shadow is our 10 year old rottie. He has been with me (and us) through basically all major events in my life. He is my first child and knows it.



About 6 weeks ago, I took him to work with me because he was losing weight (a lot of weight). I ran some blood work and took some x-rays and discovered that his liver enzymes were elevated (his liver was not working right) and that he had 2 masses in his abdomen. We proceeded with an ultrasound to see what organs, if any, the masses were associated with. On ultrasound, they appeared to be associated with his spleen. We removed his spleen, took a liver biopsy, and removed what turned out to be a necrotic lipoma later that day.



He went to the emergency clinic overnight for monitoring. The Dr there (Dr Donothan...you are awesome!) had to do another surgery on him to stop some bleeding during the night. He came home the next day and started his recovery. I have repeated blood work a few time since then and his liver enzymes are coming back down closer to normal range.



This past weekend is when I felt the lymph nodes under his chin. They were enlarged. I took him to work with me and had Dr Grand look at him. She did a needle aspirate of his lymph nodes and discovered that he had lymphoma. Or at least she is 99.9% sure he does. The only way to know for sure is to remove a lymph node and send it in for biopsy.



She feels that this is an a typical lymphoma because of the way it came up and the fact that it is a disease that normally affects younger dogs. She doesn't think that he will respond to chemo, so we are not going to pursue that option or to biopsy a lymph node since it will not change our course of treatment.



We opted to keep him comfortable for as long as we can (with the average time being 6 weeks from diagnosis) and to enjoy the time we have left with him. We will be taking many trips to the park, going for long walks, and taking some trips to Argyle (where my mom and dad live) and Lake Whitney (where Aaron's parents live). These are all of his favorite things.

Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

A Sad Day

This past Thursday was Morgan and Jake's last day at WCA (where they attend their mother's day out program). After deciding to go back to work full time, and Jess (our baby-sitter) finding a full time job with benefits, we have decided to put Morgan and Jake in full time day care. This has been a bitter-sweet decision for me. They (and I) love their class and time at WCA. They have adjusted so well to "school". I know that slot of the thanks on the adjustment goes to their teachers there, Ms Dee Dee and Ms Suzi. Thanks guys you are GREAT! Here are some pictures from their last day. Enjoy!