Sending healing thoughts for Tucker

Meet Golden Retriever Tucker, a handsome dude indeed. His mom, Jess, has been a frequent visitor to our blog here, and she has always found joy in my writings and photos. Well, now, she is incredibly worried about her 9-year-old sweetie as he has been having repeated attacks that are related to a recent discovery of tumors. Right now the doctors are not sure how serious they are, but he is having surgery Monday morning.

Here is what Jess wrote to me recently:

It has been a rough few months, as he has been having “episodes” since mid-April. He has had 4 of them altogether, each one worse than the last. Each episode lasts 24-36 hours, and he suddenly becomes completely lethargic, won’t move, won’t eat or drink, won’t go outside, or anything. This last episode happened two weeks ago, and it was the worst one yet. We were getting ready to leave for vacation in a couple days, and he got really bad. It always starts at night, around 9-10 PM, and we end up laying on the floor next to him all night, not sleeping at all. It’s heartbreaking to see him like that, though the vet assures us that he’s not in pain when it happens … just very weak and lethargic.

The vet is hypothesizing that the episodes are caused by the splenic tumor bleeding into Tucker’s abdomen, and basically sending him into shock. It’s heartbreaking to think about. The vet couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him, and finally ended up doing x-rays last week. That’s when they found the masses in his spleen and lung. Our vet seems somewhat optimistic that they may be benign (and that the two masses may not even have anything to do with each other), though we’re trying not to get our hopes up.

We have definitely been spoiling him all week and will especially do it now until Monday. He is the love of our lives, and we are having extreme difficulty thinking about adjusting to life without him one of these days. We have had him since he was 6 weeks old, and he will be 9 in September. I will definitely let you know how the surgery goes on Monday and also the pathology results once we get those. Thank you again for your kind thoughts and support.

Is this a face, or what?

JULY 15 UPDATE: Tucker is out of surgery and will soon be going home to be loved on by mom and dad. To keep up with his progress, check out his new blog.