Well, I seem to have good news, with a large side of crazy!

Grady's biopsy was scheduled for yesterday. When I called to check on him, the nurse mentioned that he had a drain in, which made me think they must have been able to remove a good bit of his tumor, so I was already feeling pretty good! Apparently, it was much more bizarre than that.

My vet ran xrays before his surgery. Lungs, ribs, spine, skull. His mass was hard and unmovable, so he suspected bone and/or lung involvement. Apparently, nothing lit up. Not just bone, *nothing*, which was surprising. No hint of a tumor. So, he made a small incision to do the biopsy, and gunk started leaking out. This giant, hard as a rock mass was leaking pus and blood. Now, we have no idea where it came from, since there was no cut, scratch, splinter, or injury that we know of, but Grady had the biggest, hardest abscess they've ever seen. There was no fever, the area wasn't hot, no change other than the lump itself. He's currently sleeping like a baby, completely shaved on his tummy and side, with a Penrose drain in (that my kitten is desperate to play with, lol). As an aside, all of his xrays look great, and even his arthritis hasn't gotten any worse. I absolutely cannot believe the bullet we just dodged, especially since his behavior the past 3 days or so had really seemed off. He was really lethargic and kind of depressed. Well, I guess I would be,too, with the amount of nasty that he had pooling against his ribs and lungs! They initially thought he'd lost his hearing while under, but unless he's clairvoyant or just really good at reading my lips, I think he was just out of it and not in the mood to answer them, lol.

Grady on his way to the vet yesterday morning...poor guy thought he was going for a ride. I *did* remind him that when daddy takes him to the vet, they always seem to do surgery, but when I take him, he just gets love and cookies

Thank you all so,so,SO much!

After he finally woke up yesterday, I had a hard time keeping him settled,lol. Last week, he had really started to seem "sick". We were getting half-hearted tail wags when we walked past him, and he wanted his ball, he just didn't want to run, or even walk fast after it. He just seemed tired and weak, and I honestly thought it was too late to do much of anything. Yesterday, his spark was completely back, and we had to work hard to slow him down. Best birthday present (for me, he already had one,lol!) I could ever ask for!!! He's hopping, "talking" loudly if there's food, and his walk is confident again!

At least now I know how I would react, and what I would do, if I'm faced with really hard Grady decisions Apparently, I would be hysterical first, and then rationally convince my husband that Grady wasn't done yet, and we needed to try chemo, which was making my husband cringe to think about.

I'm having a really hard time keeping my kitten away from the drain. Grady is leaving it alone, but his kitten seems to think it's just a new piece of him to play with