News and a lesson

They didn't find a visible tumor on R's heart, which was the best that we could hope for today.

In meeting with the cardiologist, I learned more about R's condition. A significant fraction of his red blood cells appear to be damaged (called "acanthocytes") which makes all vets nervous about hemangiosarcoma lurking somewhere in his body. We sent out another blood sample to search for a biomarker that would indicate a tiny heart tumor, below the resolution of an echocardiogram. If it comes back positive, they'll send us to an oncologist. There's a 1-3 day turnaround time on that test.
But, the cardiologist clearly told me that none of R's vets will relax until the acanthocytes start disappearing from his blood - something must have damaged his red blood cells, and we all hope that it was something transient that is gone now. The fear is that there's a hemangiosarcoma tumor someplace that's still too small to see in ultrasounds. So, I guess that we won't fully relax for a while. It's not reasonable to expect his red blood cell population to change substantially for at least a month.

I am reminded very strongly of those 7 months that K lived with osteosarcoma. She taught us about seizing every single day to live as joyfully as we could, even under the burden of a deadly disease.

Now, we need to do that with R - not because we have any definitive diagnosis - but because that's how K taught us to live. At the end of our lives, none of us, including R, would want to regret missing the joy and beauty in each day of our lives.

K galloped with joy, just a few days after stereotactic radiation on her leg tumor