Just found out yesterday that my old Golden has a tumor and has weeks/months left to live. He's 13, and has a had a wonderful life and gave my family much more than he got.
This is super hard to take.
Unfortunately came here to post something similar and maybe get some good discussion on it. Know what you are going through. #onecat.
My Rhodesian is round about 6 1/2 years old. A couple months ago we noticed the muscles on the right side of his head collapsed. He wasn't and still isn't in any pain. We had been going through a pretty arduous move at the time, and coordinating with where to put the dog when we were working on the move obviously put a lot of stress on him. We figured it might be stress related but decided to get him checked anyway. We went through several steps and tests, all of which to test out more common, less serious, treatable possibilities, all of which came back negative. The last test we have available is to do an MRI to check for tumors that could be a lot of places, none of which would be good. The doc says that it is more than likely attached to his brain, or to a nerve sheath. She also says that there isn't really any outside chance that it is something else.
Like I said, he isn't in any pain. He also doesn't seem to be effected in any other way --maybe a little bit more drool out of that side of his mouth. Generally an extremely happy dog who is the exact same minus looking a little weird.
The question I'm struggling with is whether or not we should confirm what seems to be the only possible explanation, which would mean spending a decent chunk of change (in the thousands of dollars) on an MRI. If it does confirm it, then we know exactly what is happening and we would be essentially in the same spot. Treatment for that sort of thing is radiation and basically could extend the life of the dog by a couple years, but during the therapy he would be absolutely miserable. The therapy is extremely hard on dogs and they feel like crap. It can go on for a year or two. In addition to be extremely expensive, I don't like the idea of making my dog feel like crap and devalue the good years of his life just to extend the generally less active years he may have left.
Is it wrong to just continue without more tests, and without treatment? I have come to terms with the fact that he could be gone in as little as a few months (could also be a few years) so long as he is enjoying his life and doing dog things, but I am not sure if this is off base. TIA.
