It was suppose to be a day of celebration for me and White Dog. But it is not. White Dog has bone cancer.
I took him to the vet this morning to get the stitches out - I was so excited for him to be able to run free again- but while waiting for my vet, I noticed the hind right leg/elbow was larger than the other. This is the foot that was slightly lame before the accident, but there was no swelling and we found nothing wrong with the foot when he was stitched up two weeks ago. Back then we opted not to xray anything because we assumed the slight lameness was from him getting stepped on on his toes a few days before and there was no swelling.
This morning after we took the stitches out my vet asked me about the lame foot, and I said the elbow swelled up and it seems like it happened overnight. This can and often is the case with bone cancer, it is aggressive and fast moving. It happened that way with Muddy too. He looked at the leg and, I just knew, he knew...we pretended it could be arthritis, and he went to do an xray. I waited in the front room, praying, but I just knew. When my vet came out holding the xray, he was 20 feet from me, our eyes met and I started shaking my head, as did he. Bone cancer.
I know how this goes. We went through it with Muddy, just two years ago. Once you see a lump like this, the cancer is most likely in the lungs and elsewhere. Some people opt to take the leg off, that is a choice they must make about their own situation but we choose not to do that, nor did we with Muddy. I was not expecting this. Since I've been care taking White Dog all these 14 days, I was looking at his wounds and body ALOT. While he still was not putting pressure on that foot, he was not limping, he was able to run, he was eating, and there wasn't swelling.
He probably has about 2-4 months.
I'm gutted. I just...can't...stand it, I feel physical pain right now.
I must watch him and make the decision I had to make with Muddy. He will die here at the farm.
A barn, a filed, a snow storm...without White Dog? It is a hard idea to grasp, and I have not.
