My buddy.

I am loving all your sweet comments and prayers!  And so is Charlie.  He is doing so, so great.  We can gladly say that he has fully recovered from his surgery - the boy is eating everything in sight and is just plain *happy*.  And nothing makes his momma happier!  So on that end, we are just so grateful that he is feeling good and back to his old self.  (And so is Gertie - she has her wrestling partner back.)

 

As for an update on his cancer, we made some decisions late last week.  The hub took him back to the vet to have his stitches removed and was able to go over everything with the doctor and learn more.  (Again - very thankful for the hub handling all of the vet visits and whatnot - I would be a blubbering mess and they'd have to muzzle me!)  We were initially thinking we were going to move forward with chemo.  But after talking with the doctor, we have decided not to do chemo or any other "treatment."  As I mentioned, Charlie's cancer is very, very aggressive and we learned he's way off the scale of being a good candidate for chemo.  They could do it, but it will come back.  It may delay it some, but it will come back.  They say doggies actually handle chemo better than humans generally do, but we still don't want to put him through any unnecessary discomfort.  After being asked what she'd do if Charlie was her dog, the vet said she would not do the chemo.  We're instead going to go on the defense by giving him Benadryl daily (from here on out) and he'll also be starting another medication this week that should help ward off tumors from returning as quickly.  The tumors are all related to some kind of allergic reaction that ultimately develops into a growth - yeah, I have no idea how to explain it.  I can't do the medical lingo, much less understand it, so that's my best interpretation.

 

Who knows...  it could come back in a month.  Or maybe we'll be successful and can keep him tumor-free for a year or more.  There's just no way of knowing, but we definitely feel good about our decision.  And I'm feeling much better about it all simply because he's feeling so good right now.  I love seeing him all happy and playful, so I'm just trying to soak up all those moments.  I don't know how many more nights I'll have to spoon with my buddy, but I'm loving every minute I have with him now.

 

Thanks again for all the prayers - keep 'em coming!