Not out of the woods yet, but better!

Good grief.

Tristan made it through surgery. They found a SIX POUND hemangiosarcoma (tumour) attached to his spleen, so out came the spleen and the tumour! He's not out of the woods yet, as he just had major surgery, but he can come home tomorrow if he's doing okay. We are so lucky it didn't burst and bleed out. Many dogs just collapse and die from these things, because there are few symptoms until it's too late. I have a friend who lost her GSD that way.

But I noticed his belly was a bit swollen and told Gordon to let the vet know when he dropped Tristan off for his gum surgery this morning. They did an ultrasound and saw the mass.

On the bright side, there were no signs of it having spread throughout his abdomen. The vet said sometimes he opens the dog up and see tons of little hemangiosarcomas as well as the big one, but Tristan was lucky. And no sign of any previous bleeds, either.

He said he's seen some dogs live three months after this surgery, and some dogs live three years. I have a friend who had a dog named, amazingly enough, Tristan, who had the exact same thing happen at the same age. He lived for three years after his surgery!

We'll just take it a day at a time. For now, I want him to get through tonight and come home tomorrow so I can give him a big hug.

I've been worrying a lot about his bad arthritis. We sure didn't see tumour this coming!

So grateful he made it off the operating table. We'll see how it goes from here.

Thanks for continuing good thoughts! We love our goofy old dog.