Floating Hope

Part of what we do here is learning to keep hope optimistically floating while still looking at what might be reality straight in the eye.
Rudy is not well. He is 33 and a half years old, that's pretty old for a horse. He lost one of his eyes last year but recovered from the surgery well. And he has been dealing with a melanoma and arthritis for many years now but has been able to keep happily trucking on.

Last weekend Rudy suddenly went down unexpectedly, he was out flat and we thought he might never get up. He did get up a couple of times but then went right back down again, it didn't look like a colic so we had no idea what was going on. We called out the vets on an emergency visit and discovered that Rudy was bleeding internally. We think he may have a tumor that is intermittently bleeding out. But there is also a slim possibility that Rudy is having a GI bleed from his arthritis meds. We did some blood work that has confirmed that he has been bleeding unbeknownst to us for a while. We started him on antibiotics and ulcer meds and are holding his arthritis meds to see how he does.

Rudy hasn't gone back down again so that is good, and he is no longer passing blood clots in his stool. His appetite really hasn't picked up much, through out the day he is only eating a few handfuls of food.
He doesn't seem to be suffering or in any kind of distress, he is a little slower than usual but still is interested in going out to the pasture and hanging out with his friends.
Thursday the vets will come back to repeat his blood work and see if his blood cells are improving. Until then we wait and watch for any signs or clues on how Rudy is feeling.

We don't know if this is a life ending event with cancer hiding inside, or if this is just a bump in his road with a treatable bleeding ulcer.
We hope on friday when the blood results come back that the vets tell us he is on the mend. But we know that this may not be what they tell us, they may say that Rudy's life is coming to an end.
We truly hope that hope floats knowing that it might also be about to sink.
But whatever happens later this week, one thing we know for sure, we will stand beside him for as long as he needs.
Love you sweet boy.