I Celebrated Too Soon

When the vet called this evening and asked if I could come to the office to get an update on Charlie, I knew it couldn't be good.  We'd pretty much covered vestibular disease earlier in the day.  He'd be dizzy for a while and then get all better.  End of story.

Well, he does have vestibular disease and it will go away.  Sadly we learned that vestibular disease is the least of his troubles.   While doing x-rays, they found a large tumor in his spleen.  Due to his age, the size of the tumor, and the location, there's nothing really to be done.  He said some dogs will live months, some not.

The kids are a mess.  I'm not feeling especially great myself.   Years ago, when puppy Olaf joined our family, we looked at the average life expectancy for their breeds--Bernese Mountain Dogs 7 years, Labrador Retrievers 12 years.  With our dogs being 5 years apart, we knew Olaf would be 7 when Charlie was 12, with the potential for a perfect storm of doggie heartache.   At the time, it seemed a long way down the road, but from this end of things, it sure went fast.

Losing Olaf so recently, and now with Charlie's diagnosis, we've definitely had a rough spell.  But boy did we have some great times with these wonderful dogs.  And hopefully will still have some more with good old Charlie.  I wouldn't trade a minute of it.  Nope, I really wouldn't.

And in the words of Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.