Dexter | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

After two long long days of waiting for a phone call from the vet, the biopsy didn’t find cancer or any infections, just a “mild inflammation,” but the vet still thinks that reverse sneezing with bloody noses is cause for concern (and I think she’s still freaked out about the “bloody scare”). She suggests that the next step is a cat scan, thinking that there might be a tumor up where she couldn’t see it, couldn’t reach it to biopsy. Not sure if a cat scan would really provide a definitive answer either, other than the “there’s something there but we can’t be sure what it is, it might be cancer” variety.

So, we know lots of things that it isn’t, but can’t be sure that it isn’t the “big bad.” For now, we are taking a break. We are loving on Dexter, taking care of him the best we can, letting him do what he loves, and living in the limbo of not knowing–kind of almost exactly what we were doing before.

Dexter got to come home yesterday. We marveled all day about how on a sedative he was the same boy, only to discover when we gave him what we thought was his second dose of the day that they must have forgotten to give him one in the morning, because he passed out for almost four hours. This morning, we decided to only give him half the dose. He’s supposed to stay on sedation for three days, to keep him “quiet” and calm, to help him heal. I am simply thankful to have him back home, even if pretty much all he’s doing is sleeping.

Last night, Dexter went to his crate and got his Little D, brought him into the living room where I was and chewed on his leg “bones” (the beans in his feet). This made me very happy. The strange gift of this crisis is that it makes waiting for biopsy results not such a big deal–when you think your dog won’t make it through the night and he does, you are simply grateful for that small grace, the gift of getting to see him one more time.