Hamlet can't see or hear very well anymore. He can't walk very well, either.
His eyes are bad. It looks as if he has cataracts but it's really just a film of gunk that builds up. His ducts don't make tears anymore, so we're using eye drops and washes to flush them out. Our ducts still make plenty of tears.
His ears aren't good. One of them was pretty nasty for a long time, needing to be cleaned out a few times each day, smelling like garbage. It seems as if it's clearing up lately. But we're still not sure that he can hear well, or at all.
He also seems confused much of the time, and he frequently goes in the wrong direction and/or runs into things. With his eyes and ears like they are, it could just be his difficulty figuring out his surroundings. But we get the strong impression that he's at least a little senile.
This comes and goes. Some days, he's more or less okay. After his first laser treatment, it was astonishing how much more energy he had, or how much more sure of himself he seemed to be. But most days he's pretty lethargic...whereas feeding time used to bring him immediately to his bowl, he now tends to sleep through breakfast. Loss of appetite is a bad sign for any dog, and for Hamlet, it's even more worrying...but maybe he just knows that it will be there when he gets around to it.
Yes, I said "laser treatment". He took a bad spill a few weeks back, and was limping pretty bad afterwards. I didn't see any signs of a fracture, but I'm no vet. So we took him in and the vet said that it was advanced arthritis, and that there was a new Class IV laser treatment...we trust our vet, and it didn't even end up being as expensive as some of the things we've had done for our pets.
The results were pretty amazing. The limp was almost completely gone after one treatment, and he was walking better than he had in months, maybe more.
He still doesn't play, really. Sometimes he'll get feisty and bark a few times. Sometimes he'll take a bone, if you put it right up against his mouth, and then walk over to his blanket with it. That's about all that he can manage.
I'm not saying "he doesn't play so he sucks now" or anything like that. I never really thought of him as a toy or entertainment in the first place. What he means to us is maybe too complex and personal to express here. So let's just settle for the cliche "more of a family member than a pet" and continue.
We're not precisely sure how old he is, because he came to us full-grown from a rescue service. We've had him since the first Easter after Kate's father died. Don't press me for the year, I'm bad at that sort of thing. But it's been at least eight and a half years since then, maybe more...
Along the way, he's been diagnosed with cancer. The tumor was removed and it didn't return. We spent several months expecting him to die any day, and that was several years ago. With this kind of evidence, it's tempting to believe that he can beat anything.
Last night, when we wiped his ass after a trip outside, there was a reddish tinge to the stain. Not obviously red, just a rusty brown. And there's now one or two little spots like that around the house where he lays. So I'm thinking "internal bleeding", but of course it could just be a weird temporary thing or even just an irritated ass.
We've got another treatment scheduled in a couple of days. I've told my wife to watch him, and to call the vet to prepare to do a blood test when we come in, and ask if a stool sample would be helpful.
But even if he's fine this time (again), it's not going to be for very long. You can only beat the odds so many times.
So he will get all of the love and attention that I can give, in the time he has left. Whatever needs to be done, I will do.
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