Sammy's time is short

It’s taken all day for me to have the energy to write this. Today at the vet’s office Sammy had the same two procedures as the last visit; ultrasound, echocardiogram. Still no fluid was found in the pericardial sack however they drained 2.5 liters of fluid from her abdomen and chest cavity. That’s quite a lot.

So the vet sat us down and told us that she is very concerned that Sammy has a tumor on her heart. This is the same tumor that we felt probably wasn’t there. The problem is if it exists it is high up on the heart and can not been detected by the tests we have done thus far. The vet is only able to guess that is it there based on the return of the fluid yet not finding any in the pericardial sack. Following this? View the vet's letter.

Our options:
~ Opt for surgery. They would go in through the rib cage to investigate the heart and look to get a visual on the mass. If they found one, they would call us (during surgery) to discus options since most elect not to wake the pet from surgery. There doesn’t seem to be any type of mass that is operable.
~ Get a CT scan. That would be a non-invasive way to see if there is a mass, and as mentioned before, there doesn’t seem to be a “good” mass.
~ Do nothing. If we do nothing, she will continue to retain fluid. We can have the fluid drained again.

We are going to have the CT scan, and we will do it on Wednesday. We feel we need to have conclusive evidence there is a mass. Plus we are on some level still clinging to the hope that she doesn’t have a mass (yet then we have to do more tests to figure out what the issue is.) No one really thinks this is at all likely, but we still hold out hope.

Bottom line, barring a miracle, the best case scenario is she has a month to live. What we are likely to see is increased fluid, and increased difficulty breathing and a loss of appetite. At the same time she will not be in any pain or discomfort other than that associated with the fluid and breathing. This is so hard because her personality, vitality and spirit are as they have always been. She is playful, enthusiastic and energetic. It's hard to imagine she is so sick. I'm sure all this is confusing since previous posts indicated no tumor, no cancer in the lab results. All I can say is that the vet was clear with us that these heart tumors are sometimes hard to find and the cells don't always flake off into the blood.

Thanks again for all of your kind words. We are going to spend the next days with Sammy doing all the things she loves to do and spoiling her rotten. Though we feel the two years we have had with her is not nearly enough, we are lucky to have had any time with her at all.