My younger brother Kevin had been diagnosed with melanoma in the summer of 2012 and had been doing remarkably well, with several rounds of treatments and medications he still looked healthy and had an amazing outlook. However, in late summer of 2013 he began to falter and entered hospice in September. We made numerous trips over to Vancouver and I enjoyed many visits with Kev, sadly he passed away October 17th leaving behind his wife Leesa and two children, Riley and Joby. He was only 52.
A week after my brothers passing our faithful little four-legged family member Murphy came up lame and seemed to have trouble walking on his right hind leg. Initially the vet thought it might be a torn ACL, and he did seem to recover somewhat, but then a week later he lost use of both hind legs and we were referred to a veterinary neurologist in Vancouver. He needed to be fitted with a catheter. After numerous tests the vet had determined it was an issue in the spinal area, but had ruled out any disc problems. He was pretty sure that it was a cancerous tumour in the spinal area. The only treatments would be very invasive, with very low success rates and we had to make the extremely hard decision to take our little guy home for the last time before saying tearful goodbyes. We will miss him. Another puppy is in our future but there is no rush right now - any new dog would be walking in Murphy's shadow...
