Thank you everyone.  You have no idea how much this means to know we're not alone through this.  Its just been a very draining four months.  It is hard to not second guess decisions that were made or not made.  With Nixon, I learned to demand xrays earlier.  Now, I have learned to get fine needle aspirations done too.  I need to find an oncologist that I can work with who understands that studying cancer has become an unfortunate hobby for me.  I didn't just read something on the internet, I'm reading published studies.  The ER vet understood exactly where we are coming from.  She was a little startled when she didn't have to explain the test results to us - I just blurted out HSA - and she nodded and said yes.  She then went over treatment options which only had one humane option.  She told us it wouldn't be wrong for us to put him through surgery but I think she already knew what kind of people we are and how much we love our animals. 

In July, Tex started to experience enough pain in his right wrist that he vocalized, growled, and sometimes snapped if it was moved.  By January, he had lost a lot of mobility in it.  Xrays showed no signs of arthritis or any reason for the loss of mobility.  This was diagnosed as polyarthritis and one of the reasons that a tick-bourne illness was suspected.  He was 3 legged lame off and on until April.  Since the first week of April, he stopped using the leg, even for balance.  He just held it tight to his body.  In March, a tumor did start growing but it didn't look like a tumor until this past Friday in xrays but it had started to impact the ulna.   The tumor was right behind the carpal ball on his leg and was invisible on Xrays.  You could see swelling but no cause.  But I know, even if I had taken him back to the oncologist then for another FNA, the outcome was still going to be the same.   Maybe a few months longer with a higher dose of turkey tail?

We don't know if the abdominal tumor was his spleen (1 out of 2 chance it was) or his liver.  Other organs get impacted too but spleen is the most common.  A lot of these tumors don't even show up on xrays.

Cookie knew Tex wasn't well and had started to ignore him the last few days.  She just gave him his space.  Tex was a companion but she didn't care for him the way she did Nixon yet I've caught her laying with Tex's collar today a few times.  We didn't take his collar off until after he passed so I'm sure she can smell the difference on it.  She wasn't there to say good bye because we weren't expecting this to be a one way trip.  She has asked for a lot of attention today and even though it has been raining non-stop, we went for a mile walk in the rain.  I now own a raincoat from tractor supply.

It is so hard to not go over the past 6 months in my head but I'm trying to let it go.   We did make the best decisions we could with the information we had.  The tears keep coming too.  I miss his big head cuddled up next to me and his teeth.  I'll have to post more pictures later of his big nose and teeth.  I've never had a dog be so gentle when I would give him his pills.  I'd coat them in cream cheese or peanut butter and he'd have my fingers in his mouth as he gently scraped my fingers clean with his teeth.  Such a huge boy but actually so gentle.  I wish you all could have met him next month at the picnic.  He was such a giant of a hound but really a gentle soul who worried a lot.