Splenectomy for The General

General Lee provided us with an exciting week!
He has been moving just a bit slower of late.  Less willing to take the walk down to the garden not as energetic when he does and engaging less in wrestling and catch me if you can with Queen Coda. We just attributed it to his getting older - He just turned eleven. 

Despite the symptoms of aging he was very enthusiastic about receiving a cow thigh bone, as was Coda hers. This was part of the half cow we purchased last fall. Both dove into the task at hand and spent hours on the front lawn over the course of a week clearing every fiber from the bone.  General Lee, stud that he is, managed to break through to the marrow.  That night he exhibited signs of severe abdominal pain unable to lay down comfortably.  We thought he might have had a bone splinter in his stomach so we took him to the vet.  

After blood work and x-ray we learned he had a very low red blood cell count and that he had been shot with a pellet gun along the way as the pellet remains lodged in his back just below his spine.  Besides that bit of exciting news the x-ray showed a tumor a bit larger than a baseball extending off his spleen.

So after an overnight stay with the vet Lee returned home spleenless and a different dog.  Not only because of the ten inch incision in his belly but with a remarkable amount of pep and energy for someone who just came out of major surgery!  Here he is asking for more belly rubs!

Not out of the woods yet on this as the pathology report will be arriving on Monday. 
But we are very pleased to see how well The General is doing so soon after coming home. 

Stitches come out in two weeks and we are currently  giving him drugs that cost $250 for a ten day supply... Yikes! It is the Chemo concept that makes it spendy - Pharmacists said it was only $25 for the same product two years ago.  WTF.  Looks like I may be driving to Canada soon!

March 12, 2013 Update: General Lee does have cancer.  His spleen had two baseball size tumors and they had hemangiosarcoma a fast moving cancer.  Today he had his first of three chemo session where they used Doxorubicin.  The next one is in three weeks.  The chemo has been shown to nearly double life expectancy so we are hoping for a nice summer for the family!