Good Days and Bad Days and Going Half Mad Days

A line from a Jimmy Buffett song that I keep hearing in my head. Reminds me of Cassie's situation. Wednesday (at least the afternoon) and Thursday were good days. And they came after a couple bad days that seemed to be halted after we started feeding her canned dog food. Thursday's good days ended with a reminder that, in a sense anyway, she is going mad. The sense being that the tumor is, or will likely, crowd out her brain. Thursday night before be she seemed disoriented. We brought her out to the backyard for a couple minutes and she couldn't seem to find her way around the rearranged rug and chairs. A sign that she was losing her vision? We put her to bed and she seemed just completely beat down, exhausted. I tried to test her vision by moving my hand in front of her face -- I've done this before -- and her eyes didn't track my movements. And finally, her right eye (when facing her) was not tracking straight ahead like the left was, it was wandering up and to the side. I was worried that she'd had, a she might very have had, some kind of stroke that had taken her vision. Maxine & I went to bed very sad. I didn't sleep much last night. I figured there was between a 25% and 50% chance that she'd die during the night. And, I figured the odds were more like 75% that she'd be blind in the morning. I kept thinking 'practical' thoughts like, what to do with her body till morning, and how I could insist on an appointment with our vet's partner tomorrow to put Cassie to sleep if it was a stroke/blindness/further disorientation. We've been getting up (Maxine) at 7:15 to give Cassie time to put something in her stomach and have her phenobarbital at 7:30. But I was up before 7. I let her out of her crate and was somewhat surprised that she was able to make her way across the room. I thought I was probably going to have to carry her outside. It's nearly 11am and she seems fine. Tired, but still all there. The stress of this, that she's going to die, and that she's going to probably fail along the way in characteristics like going blind, is enormously stressful..