Off the gas

After treating Leo with L-spar and watching him be rather miserable on prednisone, we've decided that it's time to take the foot off the gas, so to speak, in terms of treating him. It's not giving up - rather, it's slowing down and allowing him to do things at his own pace.


Effectively, we're not going to do the once-a-week chemo. We're not going to go all-in trying for a remission or near-remission. Instead, we're going for a steady state, and trying to give him the best quality of life that we can.

The big fear is his neck. It got so swollen last week that we feared he may have trouble breathing. He was certainly coughing. And it happened fast. The concern is that it is something that could, rather quickly, become life threatening.

Of course, this whole thing is life-threatening. Rather, it's terminal. The decision we've made finally accepts that fact. It's been hard, I won't lie, and every other day I want to pack him into the car and run over to the vet and have them do something, anything, to make it all go away. But nothing will make it all go away - this is the reality, and it seems like the wise decision. We'll see how much time we get. We'll see how he does (right now, he's not happy on the prednisone, so we've got to find an alternative to that), and what we can do. We're not even into rescue therapy territory yet, but we can see it from here. I'd like to avoid all that for as long as possible, but mostly, I want to make his time as good as possible. Quality over quantity.