It all started on November 18th when my boyfriend got home from work and McClay didn’t quite seem himself, he was walking really slow, lethargic, he had difficulty rising from lying position, panting, his tummy was tucked up and tense, he was peeing a lot and he had thrown up 4 or 5 times around the house. There was a lot of grass in his vomit so I thought he might have eaten to much grass as he has done many times before and just really didn’t feel well. We waited throughout the night to see if he would improve, he didn’t, so the next morning we brought him down to the vet right away. He spent all day and night at the vet, test after test, radiograph, blood work, urinalysis, IV Fluids, they thought it might have been a blockage because I feed my dogs raw diet, eventually they came back with a kidney infection, sent us home with antibiotics. Ten days passed he still didn’t seem himself, we brought him back, we got more antibiotics and they suggested us doing an ultrasound of his kidneys, so we did, they came back normal, they told us to continue with the antibiotics. We had a playdate with friends of our dogs and both her dog and McClay accidently collided while playing, McClay came over sat down next to me and didn’t move much afterwards, when we got home he went in our bedroom and laid down and was panting, it was odd behaviour as he was always around us. The next day there was no improvement, finally I had enough brought him back on Dec 23rd and said he just doesn’t seem right, was back to being lethargic, sleeping a lot, peeing a lot, drinking a lot of water and his gums were pale, the antibiotics don’t seem to be working. After more blood work and an ultrasound of his other organs the vet came back and told us she had bad news, he was showing a huge mass on his liver and his spleen and she had drawn blood from his abdomen, he was bleeding internally from the mass on his liver. I asked the vet our opinions and she suggested euthanasia, which to me wasn’t an option yet. We immediately called my friends vet to get a second opinion, they got us in right away and the second vet was a lot more positive about things, he said we are going to get McClay through Christmas and New Years, he suggested giving him some liver to eat and Vitamin K and after the new year we are going to send him to the surgerians at the University of PEI and get the tumor on his liver and spleen removed, but in the meantime we had to watch he didn’t have an impacts or hits that could cause his liver to rupture. We promised that day to McClay that we would beat this, we wouldn’t give up so he couldn’t give up on us, we were going to fight!
On Dec 27th that morning we brought him in for a Reiki treatment, he was like a completely different dog after that session, he had more hop in his step, he was walking more briskly, he was back to himself, but later that night we had to bring him to the emergency vet, he was having really bad diarrhea with blood in it. The vet at the emergency clinic also suggested euthanasia, after explaining to them that wasn’t an opinion yet and we had a plan with our vet, they monitored him for the night and the next day we drove to the University of PEI about 3 hours. The people at the university were great, they were so caring, and he was in the best possible place with the best possible care that I could humanly offer. On Wednesday night they just monitored him, gave him fluids and redone all the ultrasounds and radiographs that our previous vet had done, if his cancer had spread they weren’t going to do surgery and he would come back home with us. It was the worst night of my life, every time my phone rang I would cry, finally the next morning they called, the cancer had spread to his lungs but not enough that they couldn’t do the surgery and we could fight the rest with chemotherapy. They were going to give him a transfusion the night before the surgery because there was more blood in his belly then currently following through his system. McClay went in for surgery on Dec 30th at 9am, he got out of surgery at 1pm and was doing well, lifting his head but we weren’t out of the woods yet, the next 24 to 48 hours after surgery are critical too. They had told us they removed two lobes of his liver because the right side had ruptured probably from the impact with his play buddy just before Christmas, they also removed his spleen, even though the ultrasound from the first vet said there was a mass on his spleen, there wasn’t, they took it as more as a precaution. At 3:30 pm they called to tell us McClay had crashed and they revived him once, did they have my permission to try again, of course! They tried again a second time and they got his heart beating but his breathing was shallow and there was no brain activity. McClay died from a blot clot to the brain resulting from the surgery. He fought for his life and we fought for his life, we sent him energy constantly throughout the day, love, healing, drawing out his negative energies, we fought for him and he fought back for us, at the end of the day the universe had different plans for my boy and it was completely out of our control.
We are not religious people but we prayed and asked the angels every minute of every day to help heal McClay, to make him happy and healthy. In a way our prayers were answered, if McClay lived that day, he would have been happy for a little while but he wouldn’t have been healthy and he would have had long road ahead of battling cancer.
I miss my boy terribly, my heart aches for him every day and I long just too hug him, smell him and touch him. His sister, she misses her brother too and she hasn’t been the same dog since he passed. Our lives will never be the same because of McClay and we are so lucky that we constantly received his love and got to see his great personality for 8 wonderful years.
We love you Mom’s boy and we will all be together again someday.

Don't give up on your dog, fight and stay positive. They can sense when you give up so they give up., fight!

Also get a second opinion, always get a second opinion, if you got diagnosed with cancer yourself and your doctor suggested death to you would you not get another opinion? Vets are no different