a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Waiting

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

Waiting

I visited Rem for a while around 8:30 and went back for about an hour just after 11. The transfusion was *still* dripping, which is just an annoyance at how slow they set it, although I understand why. Chest x-ray this morning shows "a lot of fluid in his lungs." That means that the bleeding hadn't really stopped yet, or if it has, it's so recent that we can't tell. The big question is whether all of this blood they dripped in is just dripping right back out. They'll do blood tests when the drip is done and then again tomorrow morning. This afternoon they're going to give him a dose of adriamycin, since it hasn't appeared to make him sick in the past and, in my limited ability to observe, seems to have knocked the tumor back a bit each time. So he's going to be there for a few more hours.

He was very excited to see me and to scarf some doggie junk food. But he settled down very quickly, dumped his chin on my leg and went back to sleep. Tells me that he's still weak, probably not feeling his best with all the fluid in his chest.

Time creeps closer to a moment when I will have to make a decision for him. I keep hoping that the line will be clearly cut, but I don't know that it will be so. He was not a happy dog yesterday, although he wasn't in obvious acute pain. But he couldn't even monitor the cow situation while we were driving, and he so clearly wanted to in the back part of his brain that hadn't gone completely fuzzy.

I wait.

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