Friday, March 04, 2011

Abels's Diagnosis


Our dog, Abel, started limping about a week ago. We thought, lets just wait a bit and see if it gets any better. Well, it hasn't and so I took him in to the vet today to see what is going on. At first she thought it might be his ACL, but she did an x-ray just to make sure. Turns out he actually has bone cancer. I thought, slow progressing maybe, he'll need some pain meds, but he'll be with us for a while still. She told me that actually it is very aggressive. Dogs who have gone to CSU for cancer treatments make it maybe 6 months past their diagnosis. I was shocked!! This was not at all what I was expecting when I took him in with a limp. I can't believe we could only have a few months left. I know that we aren't the best pet owners ever. We don't play fetch with him every day (he never brings the ball back anyway) and we don't take him for walks all the time, and we don't rub our faces in his fur and baby talk him, but we do love him, and we are going to be very sad to lose him. I was actually crying at the vet. I remember watching "Marley and Me" and thinking "it's a DOG people," but this is hard. He has been a part of our family for almost 5 years. And he's been such a great dog; really one of a kind! I don't really know what else to say.