"This is not the end....

Gunner 6 July 2015

Well - we were very lucky. Our Very Nice Vet rang on Monday (6/7) to tell us he'd booked Gunner into a Vet Centre in Grimsby for Tuesday morning. That was a relief.
"Soon we'll get to the bottom of what's up with him" I thought.
We did.
The young vet (YV) had spoken with our vet and received Gunner's clinical history from him on Monday. Nonetheless, he asked me to go through the whole story since I first noticed Gunner was not "right" - which I did.It wasn't easy to be chronologically accurate but I got most of it in sensible order. Then the YV told me exactly what he was planning to do.

"Vet's not much good at the poodle-parlour bit" 8 July 2015

 Firstly, he would take blood and analyse it. Then he would do 4 xrays, 1 each side and 2 from the 'bottom' of Gunner's chest. Those would inform him where to focus the ultrasound, which he anticipated would fill in the picture for him. If necessary he would put a camera down Gunner's throat to see if there was a blockage in his tubes which might explain his heavy breathing. I signed the consent form and went home confident that the YV knew exactly what he was doing and that the BestestGundog in all the World was in good hands. He said to phone him at 1430-1500 if we'd heard nothing by then.
As it turned out a very charming receptionist rang at 1345, told me all the work had been completed and that I needed to make an appointment to speak to Michael - the YV. The earliest I could get there was 1500 hrs so we agreed to meet then. 

"I'm watchin' you" 9 July 2015...

Michael took us calmly through all the work that he had done: explained the blood test results; showed us all the x-rays and then the ultrasound film. There had been no need for the camera down throat. He was calm, considerate and thorough leaving no question unanswered.
The conclusion was unequivocal.
Gunner has a 'bleeding' tumour close to his heart which is leaking fluid into his chest cavity, as a result of which his lungs occupy a fraction of the space they should. Basically they are collapsing. Hence the heavy breathing. Michael suspects there are further tumours outside the area covered by his ultrasound. Also Gunner's kidneys are not functioning as they should - hence the amount he is drinking. Although that is also a result of his blood haematology which shows an extremely low red cell count and equally high white cell count... resulting from his body fighting off the 'infection' from the tumour. It is also responsible for his anaemia, which in turn is the reason for his lack of 'bounce'. On the plus side, his prostrate is perfectly normal and healthy. So it's not all bad news - at least the prostrate hyperplasia was not the cause of all the other things.

#TeamGunner training session 9 July 2015

To say we were devastated is an understatement. Michael was of the opinion that we should end Gunner's suffering immediately though he didn't try to persuade us against bringing him home. His concern was that the tumour might suddenly bleed out and cause pain which we could avoid by taking action now.
I don't want my best pal to have pain but he's far from ready to leave us. He is on prednisolone which has eased any pain he might have had and for the past two days he has been happier than most of the past two weeks. So much so that he is eating two meals a day, joining in training sessions with the youngsters and generally strunning (think of a cross between a stroll and a run) around quite happily. He certainly doesn't want to stay sat in the shade where I 'put' him!
He is quite adament that there is "life in the old dog yet".
So the deal we've struck is that he will tell me when he's had enough. Until then we shall post a story a day on this blog for all his pals (in twitterland and across the world) who may not have shared all his history. After all, he is not The Bestest Gundog in All the World for nothing. And we'd both like to go back over "old times" .
Not all the stories will be as long as this one but we wanted to get all this recent history out of the way first so there are no questions in your minds about what/how/why this is going on.
We're happy to have you along with us and hope you enjoy our little meanderings over the next days, weeks....... however long we've got.