Max (update #1 at bottom)

As I was getting things around this morning, trying to get out the door in time for school I heard Max making a funny sound from the other room. I peeked in the front room and watched him for a minute and could tell he was having a hard time breathing. He'd kinda snort while pulling air in and then let out a shallow breath real hard. I went over to him and talked to him, but he didn't even lift his head. Now keep in mind, Max has been a strange dog from the word go. He's had a really hard life too. He's a toy poodle and about nine years old (we're guessing based on the guess the former owners gave us.) My friend and I found him wandering the streets of our neighborhood, dirty as a little scoundrel and COVERED in fleas/ear mites. Long story shortened: we paid the owners $100 to keep him and they gave him up. He's been a really quiet dog too, for the most part. Anyway, back to the point of the post. He's at the vet's office now being given a high dose of antibiotics due to what they think is pneumonia. His chest x-ray came back inconclusive though. She said they can see 1) his lymph nodes are very inflamed 2) he looks to have a really bad case of pneumonia and 3) they want to send the x-rays to a person who looks at radiographs as their primary job to confirm whether or not Max has Cancer. Our vet tech confirmed that she thinks at the very least he has a very bad case of pneumonia, but that there is something more there and they cannot be 100% what it is without a professional opinion. So - they are sending them out today I assume and she said they should be back within 24 hours. TODAY they have given him the high potency antibiotic and are keeping him under observation until 4pm, then I pick him up and will give him two different antibiotics to try and knock this out. And then we wait to see what the other guy says. And of course there's always the financial end of things, which for the day she said should be about $300. Yikes. Hopefully it's just the pneumonia and these treatments will make him better. The alternative is not something we want to really go into. We always tease that Max is going to meet an untimely death (he DID survive getting hit by a car/lost in a strange city/crossing a major highway/being thrown down the stairs and not to mention a big number of his teeth being pulled) but we certainly don't want to be the ones responsible for saying "well, it's too much $ to treat your Cancer, so sorry Max." Plus, my Mom will be crushed if we had to come to that decision. She has such a soft heart for Max and he just ADORES her. So...puh-lease...let it just be pneumonia. I'd rather hope that Max just dies of old age in his bed basket.

I'll update as the news comes in!

He's home, but not all feeling well. They gave him some fluids intravenously and it collected under the skin on one side, so he has this fluid, jelly like blob on his side. The tech said it would be absorbed eventually. It's really gross to feel though. He has two medications to take twice a day, which we started tonight. Tomorrow afternoon the vet should have heard back from the specialist, so until then we wait. I just went under the couch to visit Max and he's just laying there staring off. I feel so bad for him.

Abby was very concerned for Max too. She immediately went to the worst case scenario and asked what we'd do with his body if he died. I just simply told her that the vet would bury him for us and left it at that. I am suppose to watch his breathing and make sure he eats/drinks something, but that's really hard to do with three kids and Max being under the couch. I'll just have to make a point to do it though. Poor Max. :(