Poor Gus, Poor Paws

Today is friday, and not a happy day. The weather is nice, Dan is coming home, but Gus has a problem. He has not been walking much for the past few days---we thought it was his arthritis, or the rain, or that he hurt his front paw somehow. But he's not been asking for walks, hasn't been eating, and I noticed that he had been chewing on his paw. We bought him booties for walking, which, though he looks funny and cute in, make me so sad to put on him.
so I finally brought him to a vet today. She turned out to be a wonderful gal, and a very good vet. She is not sure what the problem is. It is possibly a minor problem, an allergy to something that affected ALL FOUR PAWS. Yes, all 4 paws are affected, that's why the poor guy can barely walk! But wait, it might be worse. He might have an auto-immune disease, called "Pemphigus". I haven't looked it up yet, but she just said she hopes it isnt' that. There is treatment for it, but it's predisone, which is not pleasant for a dog. It can shorten their life span, but she was vague about this. We just don't know yet.
It was a very hard appointment because she had to shave his paws to check, since he's so hairy, then she needed to take a blood draw to really check this out. Cleaning and checking the paws took about 1/2 hour, and the attendant was sitting on Gus to keep him from moving. He was his wonderful, patient, stoic self. She then had to clean out his ears, because they have stuff in them, and then clean out his eye, which is runny! (I know that some of this is allergy related, as these happen all the time, but all at once, the poor guy!) I was sitting there comforting him.

She was wonderful with him, kept saying what a wonderful, patient good guy he was. And he was. When she was done, she gave him some treats, and he just wagged his tail and looked happily at her, like normal. We have to bring him back next week to see how all the meds do, to see if it's just allergies and an infection.
I was so thrown; I am usually very stoic, and i was fine in the office. I got out to the car and just choked up, and cried. (my tear ducts don't produce many tears, due to my BMT, so I can't really cry, but I did) I just came back and am sitting here, decompressing, feeling so bad for him. At one point, I was holding his head and hugging him, and I think he was shaking.
she gave him a bunch of meds, which is not good at taking, nor is he eating much, so I stopped at the nearest place near here, which happens to be a Burger King, and I bought him some french fries to hide the pills in! He did like those!