It's my birthday and I'll bark if I want to...

Well Georgie had her 14th birthday today, but poor little thing woke up sick. She started getting restless at around 3 am wandering the house. I got up several times to let her out and eventually got her to snuggle in bed with me. But of course she was very restless. When I put her down on the floor she became ill. This went on for several hours, even after she had her meclizine which is supposed to help with nausea. I called the vet's office and could only get in at 430 pm. We fell asleep together on the couch from 1pm to 3pm. When we woke up she was weak, but no longer vomiting and no pain. But we went to the doctor's anyway. We couldn't identify anything that she may have eaten that would make her ill, and since it's so late we won't have the lab results to rule out any metabolic problems until tomorrow. She got some fluids, blood tests and another abdominal ultrasound (the 3rd in a year). The good news is that it wasn't her pancreas, liver or spleen, but the gastric wall was thickened. This is diagnosed as gastritis but the reason is unknown. The radiologist did say we cannot rule out an infiltrative source (cancer), however her lymph nodes looked ok so it's not lymphoma. All we can do is treat the symptoms and see how she does. If she doesn't get better then we'll have to explore other things. But this is one tough little dog. She keeps bouncing back. She looks better tonight so my hopes are up. It's difficult having a senior dog. It's always a fine balancing act to know what to do next. As long as she's comfortable, no pain, and finds some pleasure we just keep moving forward.