"Unfortunately, I have some bad news...."

This is what the vet told me yesterday after examining Chloe and it keeps replaying over and over in my head since. Here is what happened....

So her appointment was at 3:30 yesterday. We get there and the vet tech asks what is going on. I explain that she has not been acting right for about a month, she is not eating very well, most of the time not at all and we have tried numerous tricks to try and get her to eat. I also mention that she has started throwing up and she drinks constantly. The vet tech asks how she is acting and I tell them that is a bit lethargic. I tell them about the loaf of bread she ate, including some of the plastic, and the vet tech writes all of this in her chart. She takes her temp and it is 103.4, which she says is high for her. She takes her back to weigh her and she now weighs 85 lbs. She was last at the vet a couple of months ago for a broken blood vessel in her ear and she weighed 92 lbs, so in two months, she has lost 7 lbs. All in all, I am starting to get more and more worried. What I thought might have been a self-inflicted problem (she ate something she wasn't supposed to [i.e., the bread]) is starting to not look like the case.

So the vet comes in and does a physical exam on her. We talk about her ear and the fact that it healed up nicely. He checks her belly, her ears, her gums and mouth, and her heart. Then he stands up, looks at me and says "Unfortunately, I have some bad news. She has a splenic tumor." After that, it gets a bit grey for me because I am stuck on the word "tumor." He said it is the size of a basketball and it is pressing on her stomach and other organs, which is making her not feel good. Hence the not eating and the vomiting. He said that it is a 50/50 shot that it is cancerous. He mentioned that he didn't feel it a couple of months ago when she was in for her ear, and when I ask him what are the chances that the tumor has grown to the size of basketball in two months being cancerous, and he just nodded and said pretty good. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.....Chloe has a basketball size, cancerous tumor in her spleen. I ask what are my options here. He said:

1. He could go in and do exploratory surgery to determine if it is benign or malignant. With a tumor that size, they would have to remove her spleen and her life expectancy after a spleen removal is 1-2 years. If during the surgery, the open her up and see that it is malignant and it has spread, they would put her down right then.
2. He said right now, her life expectancy is about 60 days. One option is to wait it out and try and make her feel better so she can eat and not throw up with some medication. He said the medication may or may not work. He said that I would know within 24 hours of her taking it. The issue with this is there is a good chance the tumor will burst and she will bleed to death internally. I told him it would be extremely hard for me to just wait for her to die and me find her one morning dead.
3. The last option is to put her down. He said that if we want to do that, he recommends doing it within the week.

So, I left the office with the medication and the vet gave her some last night before we left. I guess I will know today if the medication is working. Now, we have to decide what we are going to do. If I decide to put her down, I have to do it soon. I can not stand to see her suffer and I absolutely could not imagine leaving the tumor to burst and have her bleed to death. I did some research last night on the internet and did not find many credible resources, but what I read pretty much said the same thing. Like her momma, she does not handle anesthesia very well and I worry about putting her through surgery, only for them to end up putting her down on the table if it has spread everywhere.

I just can't believe this is happening. It is crazy to think that I have had her longer than I have had Ted. We just need to know make a decision I never thought I would have to make.....