Her Majesty's health bulletin.

Today HM visited the V-E-T. She weighed in at 7.8 kg, her regular weight being 10.0 kg. And this isn't even the thinnest she's been. The V-E-T said "well she's pretty sick and with the history..." and that was all she wanted to say at first. So I helpfully suggested that my dog is dying and then she had plenty to say about palliative treatment. Yes, she did say "palliative". So we're there, if anyone doubted it.

She said we could do an endoscopy to look for a tumour but that would cost a fortune and it would be untreatable anyway. We could get an epinephrine nasal spray to stop the nose bleeds, but I didn't want to do that because the bleeds seem to relieve the pressure on her throat. We could try an appetite stimulant, which I agreed to although I'm not sure making HM feel hungrier is a blessing because it's not that she's not hungry, she just can't eat. But we can try. And we could try prednisone which "in our older dogs with tumours it sometimes helps relieve the inflammation and might buy her a couple months." But I didn't go with that because a couple more months of starvation doesn't seem like a blessing either.

Then I asked the V-E-T what to look for to know when to put her down and how much it would cost and she asked if I "wanted to go ahead with that today". WTF are you crazy???? Get away from my dog!! So now I'm wondering whether she was just responding to me or whether she said that because it seemed like an appropriate course of action to her for today. I know my cats' old vet would always refuse to put down an animal that she didn't think was sick enough.

Anyway. The moral is, euthanasia will cost $110, cremation $195, plus tax. Of course she can't give a timeline but the concept of "a couple months" was introduced.

But then HM walked all the way back home on her own feet, 16 minutes in the slush and ice on Pembina Highway, and seemed to think it was a grand old time (which makes one of us). There's STILL still life in the old dog yet.