Enjoying fall!

Tucker is still doing great! I took him to our regular vet today for his semiannual senior wellness exam. Dr. Halliday took a chest x-ray to compare to the one taken right before his spleen was removed in July. It looks like the mass in his lungs is still there and has gotten a little bigger, and there may be a smaller second mass, too. He was pleased with the x-ray, though. He said that hemangiosarcoma metastasis usually shows up as many masses in the lungs, so Tucker is stable right now. His heart (another potential site for metastasis) looks good, too. He has a purple lump (about the size of a walnut) on his side that has gotten steadily bigger over the last few months. Dr. Halliday recommended removing it sooner rather than later, because the bigger it gets, the more difficult it will be to remove. He suspects that it may be related to the cancer (because of the color), but doesn't know for sure. He also felt an enlarged lymph node in Tucker's back left leg, which is strange. He wasn't overly concerned since none of the other lymph nodes are enlarged. Tucker has a mild skin infection (common in golden retrievers, especially during fall allergy time), so he is now on an antibiotic for two weeks. He has seemed especially itchy the last few weeks, so I'm glad that we now have something to make that better.

I scheduled an appointment for him to have the purple lump removed in two weeks (just local anesthesia), and Dr. Halliday will recheck the lymph node at that time. If it's still enlarged, he will aspirate it and check the fluid to see what is going on. Hopefully it is nothing, and the antibiotic may even cause it to shrink back to normal size. All in all, Dr. Halliday is very pleased that Tucker is doing as well as he is. He said that he has a couple of other golden retriever patients who also have hemangiosarcoma, and they are 1-2 years post-splenectomy and still doing great. So, that is encouraging.

We went up to the lake house last weekend with Mom, Dad, and Tucker's Aunt Heather, and Tucker and Molly (Mom and Dad's golden) got to swim and go for a long walk. Tucker must be really out of shape (we don't walk him as much anymore because we don't want to wear him out), because he has been pretty sore all week. :( He had so much fun swimming, though!

Guess that's about it for now. We're enjoying this beautiful fall weather, and Tucker enjoys being outside and rolling around in the grass, especially now that the weather has cooled off a bit.