Rocky has a mass on his tongue
This is Rocky, my rescue mutt for almost 10 years. I want to tell you his whole story about how far he’s come from the fleabag scaredycat he was to the slightly less scared, epileptic, sweet, gentle dude that he’s become and how he used to break into my freezer and eat pounds of frozen chicken breast while I was gone, but I won’t get into all that.
Unfortunately, we found a pretty large mass on his tongue this weekend and now I’m not sure how much time I have left with him. It’s in the direct center toward the back of his tongue. The vet wouldn’t give me an opinion without a biopsy that they wanted almost $1000 for since they would have to sedate him and take a chunk apparently. Even if it’s not cancerous, which it most likely is, it would have to be removed and the location of it would make for a tough recovery at best. A lot of me feels guilty and I went back and forth rationalizing getting a biopsy and removal but it feels like it would be grasping for something that isn’t there. I’m curious if that’s the correct line of thinking.
You can tell it’s bothering him at least a little bit, but he is eating and moving around ok. He had a bad morning yesterday where he didn’t eat and wasn’t moving that great, to the point where I didn’t think he would even make it to the vet appointment, but he bounced back that afternoon, ate midday and ran to his bowl at dinner time. After a full range of emotion yesterday, some tears and reflection, we’re just going to take it day by day and enjoy the time we have left with him. No matter how long that may be. Here’s to Rocky, who taught me true, unconditional love. He’s the best boy and a true 1 of 1.
First 3 pictures are pretty recent and the last 2 are a couple of my favorites from when he was young around 2017-2018.