It’s called a glioma.

That’s her tumor.  Her mass.  It’s recurrent and aggressive.  It’s cancer.

Our four year old dog has a malignancy atypical for her age, but because of her recessive traits of her breed mixture, we experienced a lightening strike.

We’re shattered and confused and angry that we have to make decisions based on hope.  We’re mourning for the time we won’t have with her before she’s even left us.

She doesn’t understand our sorrow; she wiggles and gives kisses and wants to be out of her cone of shame.  She’ll have her sutures finally removed during the first week of May, and then she can run (as fast as she can) and wrestle (as hard as she can) and snuggle (as much as she wants).  She doesn’t know she’s sick.

Over the next couple of weeks, we decide her treatment plan.  Our options are:

1. surgery to remove the tumor (check)

2. chemo

NOTE: surgery and chemo will buy us probably six months symptom free.

3. radiation

NOTE: surgery, chemo and radiation will likely get us a year, maybe more.  It will all depend on how she responds to treatment.

4. nothing

After treatment, whichever we pick, we can opt for 3 month images to determine the success vs. regrowth rate.  When she starts to exhibit symptoms, we treat those with medication until her quality of life is impacted.

And so we grieve and talk and weep and hold both pups close.

I hate this.