Another curve ball

Quack had been doing really well post immunotherapy, yeah I used the phrase “had been”. His front feet started swelling up and his eyes were red and goopy. Off to Cornell we went and the only thing they found was that his globulins were up a bit. Could just be the immunotherapy kicking in right? The met in his lung was way bigger again too but still not causing any health issues. We go home with pain meds and an anti- inflammatory med. These seem to help and life goes on with his front feet swelling and subsiding and his eyes getting a bit red then subsiding. Then he started having trouble with his back leg, he couldn’t easily get up and he couldn’t do the stairs or jump up on our bed. Back to Cornell we go and the diagnosis is hypertrophic osteopathy. They knock him out for x-rays and hint that we might consider not having him wake up.

We are stunned and devastated. We learn this condition is related to the lung met.  We learn it is progressive, painful and there is nothing really that can stop it for Quack.  Some dogs improve if the lung met is removed.  He’s not a candidate for surgery because his met is growing so rapidly.  Even with surgery the prognosis is poor at best, we’d get maybe 3 months more but the recovery from surgery would be hard and his quality of life would not be great.   We bring Quack home so everyone can say goodbye and he can have a little more time with his family. We have more pain meds on board.

This is how it is for us now. The family is sleeping with him in the living room. We made him a giant bed (a queen and a single) after his amputation surgery and we are using it now so he doesn’t have to do stairs and he’s near the door to go out. Last night he had steak for dinner. We hung out with him and watched the movie “Overboard”. He didn’t care about the movie but he likes having everyone there with him. Today if he’s up for it, he’s going for ice cream and to pick out a big bone at Tractor Supply. We contacted a palliative end of life care specialist to help us with him at home. Almost the worst part of this is I suspect the immunotherapy was working. He developed the one met while still on chemo but once the immunotherapy started he didn’t develop any more. Maybe he would have maybe he wouldn’t.

Oddly, there are a couple little things that are tearing me a part. His fur never quite grew back on the right side of his hind end. It’s almost there but not quite. I wanted his fur to be completely back before the end and likely that won’t happen now. Isn’t that weird that the state of his fur is important to me? Also when he was a puppy he had a completely pink nose. As he aged he started getting black spots on his nose. They would start as a dot and then get bigger. His nose is partly pink and partly black now with a couple of large spots. Well he just got a new spot on the top of his nose and I wanted to see that one get bigger too. He can’t go until that spot is done! Except he will go.  Again, it’s such a silly thing to focus on but for some reason I am. I suspect my next post if I can manage it will be that he’s gone. Great Danes are big it’s the first thing everyone notices about him but they have no idea how truly big he has been in our lives. He’s going to have some amazing days this coming week!   When it is time we’ll let him go.