So, his hearing suddenly came back after a little while. My uncle, a retired vet said what happens is the bones in the ear will start to fuse, but occasionally a violent head shake breaks them apart, and he had his hearing until about a month ago. Then he couldn't hear my voice (rather lower frequency) but could hear a whistle until about 2 weeks ago.
Unrelated to his hearing loss, I switched his dog food from dry to Fresh Pet in January following surgery for removal of a large cancerous tumor. (Some of you know the ups and down of that ordeal). It was like rolling the clock back years. He wanted to play our version of softball and soccer again right up until his hearing went completely away the second time.
Thursday we got up, he hopped down off the bed like normal, and we went about the normal routine: Let him outside, come in, he eats while I pee, then we go back out so he can poop. Except when I came out of the bathroom he was sitting looking at me like he does while waiting to go out the second time he fell to the side like a tree was being logged. An end table prevented him from falling completely to the floor. I laid him to the floor and let him rest for a bit, then we got up and did number two. He had a slight limp but he's almost 13, and hell, there's days where I gotta stretch, but he went outside without issue. He came back in and sat waiting near his treat box while I closed the door and he again fell over like previously this time falling against the wall. I let him rest a few minutes and he got back up, finished his food while I sat on the couch and he came over to me while I waited for the vet to open. As I was petting him he fell over again.
I made a call to the vet right after that, but he was occupied and he would call me back. He did not seem in pain, but definitely confused. By the time the vet called me back he had three more collapses, with three out of the six accompanied by evacuation of the bladder. The vet and I talked and he said we might need to see a neurologist, and I said he's going to be 13 in 2 weeks, it would be different if he was 6. So Friday at noon we would go in. He rapidly deteriorated the rest of the day, lacking the strength to even fully stand on his own. He would get up to his front feet, attempt to stand, but would lay right back down. I slept on the floor with him Thursday night, and carried him out to do his business that night. When he licked my face that night (now early morning) his tongue was hot, not warm, but hot. I moved him to the cold tile floor of the kitchen and he immediately seemed more comfortable and slept for 2-3 hours without moving to try and get comfortable like he had been doing all night in the living room. I made him his favorite foods before going to the vet - pancakes and popcorn - but he just turned his head away and laid down. He would only drink water and didn't attempt to move otherwise.
The vet called saying they were ready and I carried him to the truck, and then into the vet where I carried him in and laid him on the table. He wanted to get to the cool floor. The assistant lowered the table to the floor while we waited on the vet and his front feet performed like a deer on ice when he tried to move onto the tile floor. The vet tech left to get the vet, I took off my mask and sat down to wait for the vet. He looked at me, and made one last effort with the last of his strength to get up, walk over to me and lay down at my feet.
The vet came in, and unlike previous visits (Kaiser was a 3 time cancer survivor) he didn't suggest any treatment upon seeing him. In the course of 30 hours he went from normal (other than hearing and a slight limp) to massive fever, and in addition to the collapsed the second toe on his favored foot (left rear) had swollen to between the size of a golf and tennis ball, his lymph nodes on both his rear legs and swollen to the point they were visibly swollen and loss of appetite. We moved him back to the table, he didn't react at all to being moved, we raised him up and the vet gave him the sedative injection. I pet him as he drifted off to sleep from the sedative and said goodbye.
August 12 2007 - July 31 2020
