His heart grew five sizes that day …

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… unfortunately so did the tumor on his kidney. Our Zeus, the 24-year old Old Man, may not be long for this world. At the vet today, Doug was told of a large tumor on one of Zeus’ kidneys, the x-ray couldn’t tell which one. It’s five times the size of his heart.

I’ll give you a minute to let that sink  in. It took me a minute, too.

In people years he’s 93, and there is no treatment even in the human world for tumors on so advanced a creature.  They won’t operate for obvious reasons and even if they could balance the anesthetic without killing him, they wouldn’t know what organs the tumor is attached to without going in first.

So when the blood tests come back on Monday, we can decide on something like a hospice treatment. We want to keep him comfortable but we’re not ushering him to a grave just yet. He raced me to the kitchen this morning, and he can still wake us from a dead sleep at butt o’clock in the morning with a yowl that’s as loud as  a foghorn in a closet. He’s not in distress, doesn’t cry, and loves hot water bottles, chicken and scritches behind the ears.

For the time being, he’s here with us, enjoying sweet milk as often as he can convince someone he hasn’t had any in forever, and nomming tuna when we make tuna salad. Doug has been home convalescing these last 20 months and he’s convinced it’s given Zeus another 20 months. I can’t disagree. Two peas in a pod, them.

This is Zeus and his best friend Doug, and neither are not quite ready to say goodbye just yet.