I haven’t updated recently about … well, about much of anything, I guess, but what’s on my mind at the moment is Asbjørn, so that’s what you’re getting.

After his major health scare last New Year’s Eve, he’s made a remarkable recovery and is still going strong. His liver levels are still an issue, but the vet and I have decided that, apart from feeding him special liver food, we won’t do any more testing or treating. He’s doing fine, and he’s going on 14 years old (!), so there’s really not much point in subjecting him to more indignity than is absolutely necessary. We’re past the stage–and perhaps even the possibility–of heroic measures, so it’s just not worth worrying about.

More pressing is the issue of a persistent growth that he’s got in his mouth, on the upper gum on one side. At first we thought it was an epulis, and at the end of June the vet sedated him and cut as much of it away as she could. It grew back fairly quickly but looked completely different, which made the vet think it might be something other than an epulis. She said she didn’t really want to speculate about what it was, especially given our previous decisions about testing and overly invasive procedures, but she cut the new growth away at the end of August, going all the way down to his jawbone that time.

Now, a month-and-a-half later, the mystery growth has grown again to the size that it’s bothersome for him when he eats so I’ve made an appointment to take him in on Monday morning to have it cut down again. I really would rather not keep doing this–and I’m sure the vet feels the same–but he’s in such good shape otherwise, and the growth bothers him only when it starts getting so big that it’s in the way, so there’s really nothing else to do. I know that, considering his age and other issues, this could all change quickly, but right now he doesn’t seem at all like someone who’s ready to cash in his chips. So, off to the vet we’ll go.