first, the good news; loki had a spleenectomy this morning and came through it with flying colors. the vet said that he was resting and was looking better. loki's spleen was almost three times the size as a normal one and the vet said that loki's liver didn't have any cancerous tumors or cells, so that was a bit of good news. dr. eisenhour said that he is hoping that overnight and during tomorrow that if loki continues to improve that we can probably be back on the road by wednesday morning. loki is getting prednizone to stabilize the ratio between red- and white-blood cells. loki will also need to be put on a low-fat diet (science diet) because he was a little bit overweight, which is probably why the liver was slightly enlarged. we are keeping our fingers crossed for the little guy to be better.
after we left the vet's office we decided to go out and visit the fort reno visitor center this afternoon. the fort was established during the 1870s as a military fort during the cheyenne-arapaho uprising in the late 1880s-1890s. it was used from 1908 to 1948 as a remount depot, providing horses for the cavalry. since 1948, the fort was transferred to the u.s. department of agriculture as a research station for the agricultural research service (ars). during world war ii, the fort housed the world-famous lipizzan stallions to save them from destruction during bombing raids in austria. fort reno was also used as a german prisoner of war camp during wwii and several of the prisoners are buried in the fort's cemetery, in a separate area from u.s. army personnel. u.s. army personnel and family members buried in the fort reno cemetery date back to the 1870s. the big black horse, black jack, that was riderless during president john f. kennedy's funeral procession also came from fort reno. black jack also participated in three other renowned funerals: president herbert hoover, general douglas macarthur, and president lyndon johnson. and that's the way it is...on the road...
