Symptoms: Prelude to D-Day

Simon’s mouth surgery proved to be a false alarm of the worst kind. It was a tease, a lesson that things can change much too quickly. In May 2008, about a month after the surgery, Simon started acting differently. He seemed to slow down slightly. What does this mean in real terms? He wasn’t quite as ready to go jogging with me, quite as excited about long walks, and generally not as quick to “do stuff”. In retrospect, these were the first signs that all was not well with Simon, the dog who lived for outings the way a teen lives to get behind the wheel with buddies.

Vets tell you to bring in your pet when you notice a change in behavior, but this is more easily said than done. Pets are known to go through phases the way humans do. Do you go through slumps? Get bored with your daily run? Grow tired of eating in? Sure, but you don’t run to your doctor with fears of serious illness when you hit a patch of ennui. Likewise, it didn’t occur to me to rush Simon to the vet siting “less perky” as a reason for visit. What about the change in enthusiasm, you say? The weather was starting to get warm – a prelude to the force that is a Virginia summer – and, although usually not so soon, Simon slows down in the heat. The initial change was so subtle that I didn’t even mention it to Stan.

A few weeks later, the imperceptible changes metamorphosed into puzzling signs. Remember his #1 passion, eating? Simon wasn’t as thrilled about mealtimes. We had heard of dogs suddenly rejecting the food they had enjoyed for years only to shake things up a bit, I guess, and favor a whole new dining experience. Simon’s personality is so reliable you can set your watch to it, but we thought maybe this was his doggie midlife crisis and he simply wanted a different menu. We took him to taste test new foods at ProFeed and he seemed very interested. We came home armed with new chow only to have Simon snub the grub a few days later, so we gave the experiment a few more chances. Unfortunately, our apparently picky pup refused to endorse any of the handful of brands we tried.

We resorted to the old standby, chicken and rice, which he seemed to appreciate. Although it was comforting that he was eating, this had to be a temporary solution because – we innocently thought – there was no way our pockets or schedules would accommodate Simon’s homemade food fad in the long term. Had it only been a case of the fickles! One sunny day the first weekend of June, the three of us went on a walk. Simon didn’t want to eat much that morning so we thought some fresh air might persuade his appetite. He was slow, but it was warm and he must not have had much energy after skipping breakfast. Right? Halfway through the walk, Simon refused to go further and laid down on the sidewalk. Finally, a big red flag with flashing neon lights. He was on his belly, not on his side, so it wasn’t as scary but clearly this dog did not feel well. There is no way a healthy Simon normally would be conquered by a relatively short walk – it wasn’t that hot.

Once home, we examined him by feeling around to see if he was tender anywhere. He may have flinched a little as we touched the belly area, but one thing was indisputable – his tonsils seemed to be pretty swollen. As we researched “swollen tonsils dogs” online, “lymphoma” kept sneaking into search results. This was annoying. Simon’s blood test and biopsy just a month prior were negative for cancer. He didn’t have cancer. He must have some sort of tonsillitis or related infection, so we thought, that was tiring him and making it hard for him to eat.

Tired of dealing with Alexandria Animal Hospital’s money machine (they recommend overnight stays for everything), and wanting an accurate and efficient diagnosis, we looked into animal hospitals ranked highly by checkbook.org. We settled on one in Arlington but got their answering system. Their recorded message instructed us to call Southpaws in Fairfax for emergency services. After hearing about Simon’s symptoms, the staff at Southpaws booked an appointment for the next day with Dr. Gieg, one of their internal medicine specialists. That was fast…