Friday, September 1, 2017

We woke up early and had a good breakfast.

Then we spent the next few hours in Central Park, the Guggenheim Museum, walked through the city to the Trump Tower and Rockefeller Centre and finally had dinner to Applebees.

After dinner, off to more things to see.

A text message arrived on my phone from my wife, Sorana, saying that she took Sparky to the clinic as he was making noises as if in pain and couldnt get up from the floor. She had to put him on a blanket and drag him outside, get him in a cab and drag him again to the clinic. And I was in New York ....

This was not sounding good so I and Nicola aborted the remaining day plans and went back to the hotel. I did not plan on calling back to Canada from New York so no roaming was available on the cell. I managed to add some funds to it and called my wife. She was with the dog at the clinic and waiting to see the doctor. She was sure that Sparky just has a bad infection or maybe pneumonia.

We hung up agreeing that she would send us news as soon as possible.

I turned on the TV and watched the beginning of the Captain Philips movie with Tom Hanks. I opened a beer and laid on the bed in a comfortable position. Great movie, I was enjoying it a lot until a new message arrived. Sparky has terminal lung cancer!

Terminal lung cancer!

Cancer! How can this be possible? For Sparky? There must be a mistake, this cannot be!

I called my wife right away. She was crying. The xray that the vet took showed a mass in Sparky's chest which indicated most probably lymphatic cancer. There was also lots of fluid in the lungs pressing on all other organs and limiting a lot the dog's breathing.

The vet said that they will try to get the fluid out with a diuretic (Furosemide) and if it worked, the dog could live to tomorrow. If not, we may have to put him down that night.

In just one day, we went from Sparky being a bit sick to getting put down.

Surreal is a little word compared to how this felt. Shock, despair, loss of words, panic, all these came one after another that night. My wife explained to the doctor that we were away so asked if we could  do something so the dog lived a few more days until we came back?

The vet sent the xrays to a radiologist asking for a second opinion. The opinion was harsh but a bit better. Lymphoma cancer, maybe a few weeks of life. If Sparky could pee a lot with the Furosemide's help.

Fortunately, the medicine worked very well, Sparky peed continuously for 5 minutes outside and was very happy and playful now. They went back home with a box of pills including Prednisone, Metronidazole, Gabapentin.

The vet gave Sparky 40 mg of prednisone once per day considering that the dog's weight was 45 kgs. He lost more than 5 kgs in the last few days before the diagnostic.

Back in New York, I and my daughter decided to go back home the next day. I started looking on Expedia.ca for tickets and found 2 tickets for a morning flight.

I could not sleep that night. Every 30 minutes, I woke up to check the time and the cell phone. Maybe there were more messages from home, maybe there was an email. My daughter, Nicola, cried until very late in the night and eventually went to sleep.