Medical Update--Not So Good

Hey everyone. In September, Khan had a second ear canal ablation (on the other ear) which resulted in total deafness, but completely stopped the pain of his recurring ear infections. He'd been doing well since then. When he had his first ear ablation last December, they found cancer in the ear canal which they said was untreatable. Even though they'd removed what they could find, they said there was a 95% chance it had already spread. However, we saw no sign of it and Khan continued to thrive.

But a few weeks ago we noticed he was eating less, so we tried coaxing him with different kibble and giving him some soft food. He wouldn't eat any kibble, and was only licking at the soft food. We also noticed him starting to withdraw, hiding under desks, no longer jumping up onto the bed, etc. All bad signs, and I thought perhaps the cancer was beginning to show itself. So I made an appointment and brought him in yesterday.

On top of this, I lost my job at the end of October and I haven't been able to find another one. While we were able to finish paying off the second surgery with the help of credit cards (ick), I wasn't sure how we'd pay for anything further. But I assumed it was the cancer and all we'd be able to do was palliative care. Well, I was wrong.

They said we couldn't avoid doing blood work and an ultrasound and that if we didn't find out what was wrong, he'd be gone within a week. So we did the tests. They can't tell me exactly why or how, but Khan has developed pancreatitis and something I've never heard of, called cholangiohepatits (I don't know what the cholangio part means yet). Because he wasn't eating, he also has lipidosis in his liver (fatty deposits). Yikes. So they put him on a month's course of antibiotics --again! Will that boy ever get off antibiotics?? --plus an appetite stimulant, and a medicine for his liver that they said will probably be for life. They wanted to surgically put in a feeding tube, but that would have cost another $400, and the tests and treatment today had already cost $350. So they said we could take him home and try for 3 days to get him to eat. If he isn't eating normally by Friday, a feeding tube is our only option (other than letting him perish of starvation or euthanizing him).

Khan has been through so, so much. I can accept if this is the end of his life, but I want it to be in comfort, and to know that I did all that I could before saying "this is it." So we are trying to get him to eat, and I've given him he first dose of his medicines. I'll update the blog tomorrow or Thursday to say how it's going.