Day One - We wait

Today marks the beginning of what's hopefully going to be a long journey, and one that I'm praying will provide a happy ending.
We've all heard it before, Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
What exactly does that mean??
In the biblical sense, it means that this morning God gave me my daily manna. I have enough to get through this day. We'll just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings. The good news is that God is faithful, and my hope is he'll meet me tomorrow, the same as today.

So getting back to Day One...

You see, Shelly is my sweet 10 year old tri sheltie.

She's the oldest of our three, and is the absolute sweetest dog ever, and was great at catching a Frisbee in mid air. In fact you could say that Shelly has lived for the Frisbee. There was never a time she would leave it lay on the ground. She'd follow us around the entire yard, holding it in her mouth until at last, you'd grab it from her and give it a lateral toss. She would run after it, almost always catching it before it made it's descent to the ground. It was quite a sight, when she'd leap up 2 or 3 feet, form a perfect pike in mid-air and snatch the Frisbee from the air. She'd happily bring it right back for another round. We'd tire long before she ever did. Well this was a few years back now...

We should have seen a lone Frisbee as one of the first signs. When the Frisbee would be left alone outside, only to be stepped on by anyone walking that direction. At first we thought it was signs of normal aging. At the start of this Shelly was at the age of 8-1/2 or 9. In dog years a human would be about 60 years old. Who in their right mind would be doing hurdles, mid-air pikes and high jumps two, three or more times a day?

Then our daily walks of about 2 miles gradually became shorter and shorter as we found it difficult for her to sustain. She was obviously struggling with her back legs. Oh the life of a Frisbee dog...

She also began peeing about every 2 minutes on our walks so it seemed. Our veterinarian did a brief exam, including a pelvic ultra sound, and told us everything was all clear. It's likely the arthritis that was showing up on x-ray in both back legs, was beginning to take it's toll. He also said sometimes older dogs start marking territory. O.K. we could accept that. The solution was to put her on Rimadyl for arthritis pain management. It seemed to start working immediately. Most symptoms soon became just a distant memory last August.

Then after our interminable winter, things started to worsen once again. We told our vet about the constant urinating during our walks, along with the slow walking from apparently painful joints. We talked about trying a different protocol for her arthritis pain management. A urinalysis indicated a possible UTI so we were given about a weeks supply of antibiotics. O.K. we accepted this and also began to put her on weekly Adequan injections to help with the arthritis. This went on for a few more months before we agreed it was not working. Urinating was becoming more pronounced. Not only was the frequency increasing, the duration was now longer.

My intuition, or truly the Holy Spirit I believe, was now hammering me over the head - SOMETHINGS JUST NOT RIGHT!  I went back to my veterinarian, who was on vacation at this point, and requested we do something quickly. We were seen by one of the associate vets, who was now actually listening to me, so we did some further tests...which led up to yesterday.

We took The Bean, as we generally call Shelly, to VCA a local specialty hospital. I've been there many times before with my previous sheltie Tess, for treatment of DM and ultimately lymphoma.
I spent time this weekend becoming proficient reading all about TCC on Google, or transitional cell carcinoma. What is TCC you ask? In layman's terms, its cancer. Cancer of the bladder, many times it's found in the urethra, which doesn't show up on pelvic ultrasounds.
I braced myself for the worst.

And yep, that's where the mass was found. Large as life. In fact so large, the doctor said he couldn't even get his scope past it into her bladder. Poor baby. No wonder she has been struggling with urinating so much, and for so long!! How could this have gone undiagnosed for so long??

So today we're awaiting for the official biopsy results which are expected later this week, but with all of her symptoms and this finding, it'd be a true miracle if it were anything but TCC.
If you believe in prayer, it would be welcomed for our special little girl. Regardless of this outcome, I do know God is in control. Being where I am on my faith walk, I am confident of this.

Please be watching for more details as they unfold.
God Bless