Max's tumor is GONE!

Max's surgery was a success! His tumor is all gone!!

Dr. Pluhar called at about a quarter to eleven this morning to say that she'd finished with Max's surgery and he was being brought to have an MRI done before being woken up. Because he's an older dog, his surgery was a little easier than most because his brain had atrophied a bit over time. Because of the tumor and the edema surrounding it, the center line of his brain had shifted to the left (the tumor was on his right side), but after removing those as well as some tissue from his frontal lobe, his brain was centered once again.

Wait a minute! Did you say they removed  part of his brain??

Yeah, I know. It freaks me out a bit, too. But we have been assured that other dogs have had more of their brain removed and lived happy, long lives. 

I'll write more about my feelings on animal research later as I have been thinking a lot about it (more so than usual, which is frequent under normal circumstances) since we've started considering enrolling Max in this study. We're aware that Max could experience side effects that we won't be able to detect, since he can't give us a detailed account of how his body feels at any given time or with any specificity. I was especially concerned that the tumor or surgery could affect his sense of smell, since dogs experience the world through their noses like most of us experience the world through our eyes. 

We aimed to be there so max could see us as
 soon as possible after waking up from anesthesia. 

The best we can do for Max, and all animals, is to pay close attention to their own unique way of communicating and really try to understand what they may be saying or experiencing. It's a simple concept, and often it's easy to do. But when the stakes are high, it's easy to second guess. And when they're really high, the weight of the responsibility for making the decision to approve, pay for, and participate in a highly invasive, life-altering, painful procedure to be performed on someone else's body, without their consent, is difficult. Brandon and I drew on everything that we have learned about Max through living with him for the past eleven years and decided that this study was the best option for him and us. But just because we are confident in the choice we made doesn't change the fact that the options we had to pick from were pretty awful. 

We arrived at the hospital about an hour after I hung up with Dr. Pluhar and we were waiting in the hallway to see Max as he was being brought from the medical imaging area to the ICU. Max was wheeled over to us on a stainless steel cart that had been transformed into a temporary gurney. He had a heated blanket to lay on and soft fleece draped over him to keep him warm. And even though he had just been extubated minutes before, his head was up when they wheeled him around the corner.

I have to admit that seeing him with his shaved head, incision, and stitches was a bit of a shock. Though I had been told what to expect, it's one thing to imagine and another thing to experience. Max looked like any number of animals I have seen photos and video of who have been either documented in or liberated from research labs. I immediately thought of Britches, the infant monkey who'd been liberated from a horrendous lab wherein sadistic people at the University of California had taken him from his mother and sewn his eyes shut and put him in a sterile cage with nothing to cling to but a padded cylinder. Then I thought of the unimaginable numbers of beagles who are, right this moment, languishing alone and in pain in research labs after having their bodies cut into and sewn back together by people who don't care anything about them. 

Max is in our lives because of the incredible work that people have done to expose what is done to these helpless and vulnerable animals. We adopted Max way before the creation of The Beagle Freedom Project, a group working to get labs to release the dogs for home placement after they are no longer wanted for testing as an alternative to killing them. We adopted Max because Brandon was so touched by the plight of beagles in labs.

This may be part of why it was so important to me to be there for him as soon as possible after he woke up. Even if he was too out of it from the drugs to know I was there, I believe that somewhere inside he would know that he is dearly and fiercely loved. That he's not alone and not forgotten and never, ever, ever will be.

I can't say enough wonderful things about the team of clinicians at the U of M. They're ICU staff is incredible, and have always been tender and loving to Max. I know he'll be monitored closely, and any person who interacts with him will do so gently and with his comfort and health in mind. 

I'm so grateful for that, and at the same time my heart hurts with the knowledge that the only difference between Max and any of those other animals in labs waking up from surgery is that someone decided Max would go to live with a family instead of being sold to a research institution. The entire life experience of nearly all domesticated animals is determined by a human (or humans) and there's so very little that they can do about it. 

Maxwell a couple of summers ago, enjoying his yard.

I'd like to acknowledge anyone who has made a choice to listen to and honor someone from another species, and take responsibility for that power that we're born into by virtue of being human. And challenge you to do make a commitment to furthering those actions in whatever way makes sense for you. 

To Max.