Exhaustion finally caught up with me and I slept very late this morning. When I did finally get up, I was surprised to see Mr Moo here in the office. Apparently, he had overslept and didn't have time to take a shower and get into work before he had to call into a meeting, so he worked from home all morning. Unfortunately, this meant the phone was tied up the whole time. Argh! As soon as he was finished, I called the vet to see if Zoe's latest results were back. They were and the results were just as we expected. The CBC showed nothing out of the ordinary. Since there doesn't seem to be any other explanation, the fall back answer is some sort of cancer/brain tumor. After I told her about the seizure like episodes Zoe had on Saturday, she said, "Yeah, that definitely indicates a brain tumor of some kind." She said the next step would be to take her to a neurologist for an MRI ($1200 - ouch!) to determine exactly what, if any, treatment would be warranted. Knowing how traumatized Zoe gets from going to these appointments and given her age, I said there's absolutely no way we would put her through all of those tests and possibly surgery, especially since she would probably end up no better off than she is right now. It's just not worth putting her through all that. The vet completely agreed.

We discussed the euthanasia and even penciled in a time for it on Wednesday. Right before we got off the phone, the doctor suggested one last ditch effort we could try. She said if it is indeed a tumor and it is causing all of these problems due to inflammation, it could respond to steroid treatment. Normally, they are very hesitant to suggest steroids unless they know for sure what the problem is. However, since we've already decided against any further diagnostic testing because of how stressful it is for Zoe and we're ready to put her to sleep, the vet is willing to give it a go if we are. It is not meant to be a cure. The best we can hope for is an improvement in her mobility and maybe a few more weeks with her.

Mr Moo and I discussed it a bit and were still having trouble deciding if it would be in Zoe's best interest to try it (there are some potentially nasty side effects) or if we would only be doing it for selfish reasons. I finally suggested that we check the weather report and let the forecast decide for us. If there were a few more sunny days in the immediate future, we would try it. I explained to him that if she could spend her last days lying on her favorite chair in the sunshine and her nights on the fuzzy blankie under Momma's desk with the heater blowing on her, she would be happy. Lo and behold, there is sun in the forecast, so we're going to give it a shot.

Like I said, we're not expecting a miracle cure. She is going to die from this. The questions are just when, how (naturally or euthanasia), and how comfortable can we make her final days.