It's a hard thing to be responsible for making the decision for.
I've come up against it so many times. I've only had tumors removed from 1 girl. That's because it's so expensive and money is very tight and I've had to weigh depleting the vet fund and not having it available for absolutely fixable problems that others get against the hopeful life benefit to one kid - not that any one is less valuable than the lot, but sometimes you don't have choices, you know?).
Honestly - I would have had the tumors removed from more girls had I had the funds available without taking it from the other's nestegg. But I wouldn't have done it for them all.
Will they recover normally or suffer complications? Can they have an appreciably healthy time beyond surgery & recovery and the next aging problem?
I've seen so many kids on the ratsites who had a surgery (or 2 or 3) and spent their last months here not enjoying them but recuperating. I've also seen so many that had tumors removed and had many great months til something else got them.
As Jo said, you have to consider 1st the health & spirit of the kid and the ability of your vet. You not only have to remove the tumors but have her spayed as well to lessen the chance of recurrence. My kids have always had the tumors start at about a year and a half. They're seniors by then.
So it's weighing the expectable problem-free time left them against the time enjoyable with the ever increasing mobility difficulties of growing tumors.
They will die from something. I'd rather put a kid to sleep when she's been grounded but not suffering from tumors than see her recover from surgery and be in the same boat a couple months later with debilitating stokes, or rear-end degeneration, or truly suffering with respiratory problems that cause daily agony & terror. But I'd be so happy to see her running around unrestricted a couple months later. But you can't read the future, you can only hope and have faith.
And how much time are you able to spend with them? If you work every day then you can't be home to move a grounded kid out of their pee and keep them washed, then maybe the cost of surgery is the best you can for them, if you don't work then you have time to keep their world big & interesting & fun and keep them clean.
I'd like for my decisions to be all about them. My desires have been, my abilities have to take them & me & my other kids into account. I'd like to make the right decisions for that particular kid. I don't know what the future holds for any one of them beyond the state they are in when I have to make a decision. So I do what I can. And I give all I can any way I can.
And I remember that the kid only cares what today is like. She doesn't give a hoot for tomorrow.
You decide what you with your abilities and disabilities can best give to Chailyn with her abilities and disabilites. If you have the tumors removed then bless every day that she runs unobstructed, if you don't then bless every day that she makes effort to come love you or do anything that was easy before, and when it's time for her to go because of them, thank god she didn't go in terror gasping for air in terror, or being neglected without food or water or love.
It's a sacred thing between you and Chailyn. Lives benefitted by each other, you can affect the day-to-day for each other but you can't cheat God's life-calendar, you can only interfere in the occasions in the time he has given you to be together.
Better to spend it loving than than stressing.
