Plainfield
So, we had a follow up visit for Plainy today. Basically, this thing has gotten pretty big. Our regular vets have both moved to other practices, so I took him to one of them. She confirmed with the first vet said, which is, it's a fatty deposit, around a mammary gland. We are doing some blood work and we did some xrays today. At this point, we have two options.
1. Surgery. It comes out, and they may or may not get it all, and it may or may not come back, depending on if they get it all. It's kind of out of my price range, but I have up to 8 weeks to decide (that's how long the estimate will be good for, before they would have to do another exam and another round of blood work to clear him for surgery). In 8 weeks, I might be able to round up that much cash, and if not, there is a possible loan in the offing if I go that route. Oh, and then there's the cytology testing. Basically, they could go in, remove this thing, have it tested and find it's cancerous, and he might need even MORE treatment or we decide to advance to option 2 anyway.
2. Do nothing. The thing gets bigger (or hey, maybe it magically stops, sometimes these fatty deposits stop getting biggger). As it is, he's having problems keeping his "area" clean, and needs his cecals hand fed to him when he can't get to them. Eventually, we manage any problems with pain meds and he gets put to sleep when the situation becomes unbearable.
Sigh. See, with all the surgery and shots and stuff he's needed in the past, I told myself that we were done with all that. That he's old (he's between 12 and 14 according to all previous estimates, and the vet said today if she were meeting him for the first time, she'd guess he was 11), and didn't need to be subjected to anymore surgery or procedures. Also, it's clear he's slowing way down. He sleeps almost all the time. He's a tired boy.
And of course, there's the money. It's a chunk of change. I gave up my car when it needed repairs that were much less than this surgery. A bunny is not a car, of course, but just to give an idea of how little money there is floating around these days. Even a loan isn't a great situation, because that needs to be paid back (and there's plenty more debt in line behind that).
On the positive side, he's fairly healthy. He eats like a champ, he's sweet and cuddly and he's got the awesomest attitude and I just love him.
I genuinely want to do the surgery to keep him around longer. But I feel a mix of selfishness (in wanting to keep him around longer than he might want to be kept around) and worry about money when I think about it. But when I think about not doing it, I think I'm just condemning him to a really shitty last few...however long he has left (I've given up trying to guess how long this bunny will live. He's probably going to outlive me at this rate.)
1. Surgery. It comes out, and they may or may not get it all, and it may or may not come back, depending on if they get it all. It's kind of out of my price range, but I have up to 8 weeks to decide (that's how long the estimate will be good for, before they would have to do another exam and another round of blood work to clear him for surgery). In 8 weeks, I might be able to round up that much cash, and if not, there is a possible loan in the offing if I go that route. Oh, and then there's the cytology testing. Basically, they could go in, remove this thing, have it tested and find it's cancerous, and he might need even MORE treatment or we decide to advance to option 2 anyway.
2. Do nothing. The thing gets bigger (or hey, maybe it magically stops, sometimes these fatty deposits stop getting biggger). As it is, he's having problems keeping his "area" clean, and needs his cecals hand fed to him when he can't get to them. Eventually, we manage any problems with pain meds and he gets put to sleep when the situation becomes unbearable.
Sigh. See, with all the surgery and shots and stuff he's needed in the past, I told myself that we were done with all that. That he's old (he's between 12 and 14 according to all previous estimates, and the vet said today if she were meeting him for the first time, she'd guess he was 11), and didn't need to be subjected to anymore surgery or procedures. Also, it's clear he's slowing way down. He sleeps almost all the time. He's a tired boy.
And of course, there's the money. It's a chunk of change. I gave up my car when it needed repairs that were much less than this surgery. A bunny is not a car, of course, but just to give an idea of how little money there is floating around these days. Even a loan isn't a great situation, because that needs to be paid back (and there's plenty more debt in line behind that).
On the positive side, he's fairly healthy. He eats like a champ, he's sweet and cuddly and he's got the awesomest attitude and I just love him.
I genuinely want to do the surgery to keep him around longer. But I feel a mix of selfishness (in wanting to keep him around longer than he might want to be kept around) and worry about money when I think about it. But when I think about not doing it, I think I'm just condemning him to a really shitty last few...however long he has left (I've given up trying to guess how long this bunny will live. He's probably going to outlive me at this rate.)