2nd November

The last few days have been up and down for all of us. Yogi has had periods of eating a little and being fairly bright. Considering that he is probably the world's biggest glutton under normal circumstances, this is worrying. Understandably he is in pain from his operation. But I still wish that he would eat more. Everything possible is being offered to him. From roast topside of beef to veggie sausages (odd, but he loves them). He will eat a little, then nothing. Today is the day he gets the results. Today we will know if he has cancer or not. There is always hope when he is looking brighter and trying to eat and get stronger. As the day wore on, he started to look more listless and tired. Worry set in and the worst is feared. By the time his appointment was due, we both felt that we would be saying goodbye shortly. I cannot describe how devastating that feeling is.

When we got to the vets, he seemed more full of himself. More like the old Yogi. Hope started to return even more as he had "a go"at another dog in the waiting room.
John (the vet) called us in. Wasting no time, he said that yes, he had cancer, but not the one that he had feared (multicentric lymphoma) it was lymphoma, but a much rarer one that began in the alimentary canal and could be treated by chemotherapy. Talk about mixed emotions. Yes, he had cancer, but now there was a chance. Now the problem was trying to take in everything that was being explained. He needed to balance the healing of the (substantial) wound with the starting of chemo. Otherwise the steroids would break down the healing of cells that had already taken place. Since Yogi's glands were growing on a daily basis, I thought that he should start as soon as possible. John wanted to wait until a week after the operation to give maximum healing time for the wound. Since he looked bright this should be OK. So he was taken home with the idea of feeding him up, resting and praying that he would be well enough to start his chemo on the 6th November.