I waited till after the holidays to let you all know about Faith. She had a big seizure in mid-November. We rushed her to the ER vet. Everything else checked out fine so they said they thought it might be a brain tumor and referred us to a neurologist. We had to wait a couple of weeks to get in.
Had an MRI done since we felt like we absolutely had to know what was going on, coming on top of Meadow's epilepsy diagnosis in August. Our hearts were breaking and heads exploding. I prayed very hard the vet would come back in and tell us there was no problem in her brain, but instead he found not one, but two tumors, one on either side. They are meningiomas, the tissue that covers the brain and lines the spinal cord.
She is now on steroids and anti-seizure meds. The array of pill bottles plus Faith's eye ointments have taken over our sideboard.
She has only had one other seizure almost 3 weeks ago. And the steroids have taken away all her arthritis pain so she is actually running around and playing like crazy. She feels great. For which we are incredibly thankful, believe me. But it is cognitive dissonance to watch your dog act like a youngster again, and knowing the end is coming.
They said a few months. Who knows. We are trying to make every day the best it can be for her, doing all her favorite things. She gets her pills wrapped in cheese so that's something she looks forward to.
Faith just barely turned 11. We thought we had years left still of fun times. She is my Nosework partner, and I am so sad about that. She is incredibly good at it and LOVES it.
When I reached out to her breeder, she told me Faith's littermate sister, a big time show dog, also has cancer, of the bladder. SO unfair. With one exception all my dogs have lived over 13 years, most to 14.
All you kind folks out there, please say a little prayer for my beautiful Tri girl to have as much good time left as possible.
