Upcoming birthday

Frisco's birthday is coming up, and I took the occasion of our visit back to the veterinarian's office to ask her about Frisco's life expectancy. Frisco is about to complete his eighth year, and Dr. Kaur says these dogs may live to 15 or 16 - so Frisco is about at the halfway mark. She conceded that Frisco's chronic health problems - epilepsy and pancreatitis - could shorten his life somewhat. We have not found out what the causes of his epilepsy are, and, if we were able to do so - for example, brain lesions - this might prolong his life - especially if we were able to plow ahead with any needed treatment. As much as we love our dog, brain surgery - for example, to remove a tumor - may be more than we could afford. Dr. Kaur managed to put a positive spin on this, by saying that the remedy for some illnesses (brain surgery) may not be that much worse than the problem itself (epilepsy), in which case it might not be worth doing the surgery even if money were no object. (Dr. Kaur did prescribe a second anti-epilepsy medication for Frisco.)