On August 20th, I had my senior photos taken and having made a deal with my mom, I was allowed to take my dog Max and take photos with him.
When prepping him at Cherished Memories, I noticed his eye had a green mucus around it and he wouldn’t open it. Worried, I no longer wanted to involve him in my photos, but my mom promised, and she helped me clean him up and assured me we’d take him to the vet after the photos.
Max is very photogenic, and he looked way better than I did, but he wouldn’t open his eye, so his photos are forever him winking at me. After the photos, we rushed to the vet, and were told to return tomorrow.
On August 21st, 4pm, we took Max again to the vet, brought up concerns, and were told, “He might have a tumor in his *manhood*, has muscle loss in his left shoulder, and scarring tissue in his eye.”
They took Max for 30 minutes, did a few tests, and we returned for results. His eye had a minor issue, and could be treated with eye cream which would be applied every 12 hours. The muscle loss is a side-effect of aging, as he has minor arthritis in his shoulder and spine. But the tumor was unconfirmed.
We would have to wait for the blood results.
That night, I treated his eye, and gave him the prescribed pain medicine. My family and I were afraid of the lab results, and bawled most of the evening.
While at school, I must admit, I cried when I was alone. I wanted Max to be okay, and I was upset that if he did die, he really didn’t love me. He lives for my siblings’ graduations, but not mine? Blatant favoritism.
When I got home, I breathed a sigh of relief when I was told it wasn’t a tumor. While still terrible news, I was grateful that what he did have was minor kidney problems that would be treated every other day or two days every week.
Max is 15 years old, deaf, and partially blind. He’s still kicking and licking himself at ungodly hours of the night. But he’s still here. So I’ll put up with it, if it means he’ll still be with me.
/\__/\
P.S., the image is of when they put a thermometer up his behind hehehehe
