Bruno – Update

The bad news is that Bruno has Lymphoma. This is a serious life-ending condition for a dog (in fact, it’s a life-ending condition for most animals).

So, in consultation with the vet, and, in view of Bruno’s senior status in the number-of-years-still-alive department, I decided not to have a referral to an Oncologist and/or to get into chemotherapy which would likely make him very ill and probably wouldn’t extend his life all that much anyway. – I’ve decided to allow a fairly aggressive treatment by steroids which might extend the lad’s life a bit, but only provided that there’s nothing much in the way of seriously unpleasant side-effects and, I’m advised that this treatment is much more comfortable. The only other alternatives were to do nothing at all or to give up the fight now, neither of which I could do.

Bruno is, as I write,  happy and alert and calm and playful and he seems to be symptom free (although every cough or raspy bark, or period of heavy breathing, or even a twitch, seems suspicious)  and we’ll just continue like this for as long as possible.

But the prospects for much longer than a few months seem unlikely. Its all a bit depressing.

But we’ll do our best to make sure that Bruno’s end of life is as happy and comfortable as possible  and that whenever I have to make the last decision it will be at absolutely the right time(which is sometimes much more than we’re allowed to do for people).

In the meantime, me and the Dawg are of to Santon Bridge tomorrow to bag my final (and Bruno’s final!) Wainwright Outlier and , at the weekend we’ve plans camp near Sedbergh for a little Fight Club Hikering in the Howgills.

I’ll still be doing cafe Akto in the Highlands during the TGO challenge and I’m hoping that he’s still OK for serious walkies immediately after this.

The immediate future is uncertain. Its a bugger, innit? But this is what happens with dogs.

He has his steroids wrapped up in boiled ham by the way. This evening’s tablet fell out onto the kitchen floor. He ate it!

I’m not publishing comments linked to this post by the way – so don’t comment…!