[nolagirl]

My baby is in trouble and I didn't even know there was a problem! My girl Nola will 7 on June 6th. On Saturday while Daddy was brushing her he ran the brush across the brown patch on her butt just like Rotties love when all of sudden she began bleeding, oozing brownish thick nasty stuff and pus. I won't allow the local emergency vet near her after a prior bad experience and was afraid a long trip would due more harm so I kept cleaning her butt and made an appointment first thing with the vets I trust. She had been kind of quiet for about week before but I had chalked this up to winter doldrums. She didn't lick her butt, scoot, wimper or give any other sign of her distress though in hindsight I realize she had been taking longer to go poop and I had thought she was enjoying the outside after a long, cold and wet winter. One night a couple of weeks ago Daddy commented on a really bad smell but it was gone shortly and hasn't returned. I thought it was gas after all she is a Rottie and they do pass stinky gas. Well my baby has an infected and impacted, and now, a ruptured anal gland.

The second part of my failure is in a small bump on her shoulder that started a couple of months ago and was smaller than a flea bite. It did grow but I was fooled by the fact that it went up and down in size even hourly. Bad Bumps don't get smaller after all! Her annual was due in June anyway so I thought I'd have the vet look then. Since we were at the vet Monday I asked her to examine it and she did a needle aspirate and called back within minutes of our arriving home from her office. My baby has a mast tumor and we're devastated! Our personal experiences with cancer have been very negative in both our 2 and 4 legged people. 6 out of 7 gone and the 1 is back at the doctor because she continues to show signs of activity in her bloodtests (she's the 2 legged kind).

Nola is our 3rd Rottie in 20 years and our 2nd rescue and the 3rd to get cancer. She is especially dear in that when she came to us she was a terrified, neurotic mess who feared her own shadow. She and I worked together for over a year and half just to get to the point where she trusted us and no longer had accidents. She became the Rottie she should've been had her childhood been a happier one. The love had paid off and she trusted me and now I've failed her too. How could I not know she was in such distress??? I'm her mother and I should've known something wrong! She is baby, best friend and closest companion and still I missed it. We're torn about how to deal with the cancer since we've watched so many loved ones go after it aggressively only to suffer great pain, illness, indignity and lose the battle anyway. I wouldn't put my worst enemy through what I witnessed of cancer treatment let alone someone precious to me. I hope my baby will forgive me for my failure.