Our Dear Miko

Poor Miko. He just turned 11 yrs old, and he doesn't even know he's an old man. Unfortunately, his body does. Just this past week I noticed that he was having trouble defecating again, and his belly seemed very hard. He didn't complain when I touched it, he just seems uncomfortable. So, I called Dr Don again and yesterday afternoon Miko and I went for a visit to see what's the problem. I was hoping that he had eaten something that got stuck and that surgery would quickly help him. No, of course not.

Miko has a very huge, very fast growing tumor in his belly. From the x-rays it appears to have invaded almost his entire abdominal cavity. Dr Don cannot tell if his intestines are just being pushed out of the way, or if they are encased by the tumor and the tumor is constricting them. Dr Don did some blood work, too, so we should have those results back this afternoon. Miko appears to be anemic, and Dr Don thinks the tumor is stealing all of his blood. At this point it looks like very costly surgery is our only option to keep Miko alive. And, that will probably have to be done several hours away at TX A&M. There is no guarantee that he would survive the surgery, either. It seems our dear sweet Miko only has a couple of weeks left to live. Dr Don said he worries that this tumor may rupture and Miko will bleed internally.

Six weeks ago, Miko had abdominal x-rays done for a completely unrelated reason, and there is no evidence of a tumor in those x-rays. Today, it's huge. We just sent our beloved Nala Bear (shown with Miko in the picture above) to the Rainbow Bridge six months ago. Bill always said that Miko wouldn't live much longer than Nala. They'd been best buddies for 10.5 yrs. I had the sad task of calling Bill yesterday afternoon to tell him his dog was very ill, then I got to go home and explain it all again to Y. I asked Y if he knew what a tumor is? No. Do you know what cancer is? Yes.

"Miko has cancer?"

"Yes, he does."

"Miko is dead?"

"No, Miko is downstairs."

"Oh, okay."

I then told Y that we would wait to see what his test results said, and we would make a decision about Miko at that time. Bill and I had wondered aloud whether the doctors could just go in and snip away the blood vessels feeding the tumor and let it die of starvation. Who knows. I'm sure that would be almost as expensive as removal.

We'll be taking Miko to the dog park this weekend as soon as it stops raining. He deserves at least one more chance to greet all the dogs, and then make his round of the humans begging each and everyone of them to pet him forever.

Natalie

TX