Month: November 2010

Abby had her one month ampuversary yesterday, and her second round of chemo today. Hopefully her reaction to the chemo will be as minimal as last time. She certainly seemed to have tons of energy afterward!

She did throw up a tiny bit this afternoon – but I think that was because the post-chemo popcorn I gave her didn’t go down well. I guess post-chemo popcorn is a bad idea, and will remember that in future. I need to get this posted and then go see how she feels about dinner tonight. Hopefully she’ll have an appetite. I’ve got everything in the house to tempt her with: turkey, salmon, cottage cheese, and good old plain pasta.

She continues to amaze us with how well she’s doing. The oncologist also said she’s doing great, so we are going to move her chemo appointments to every two weeks instead of every three. Take that, Cancer!

Here’s a picture of her from over the weekend, at her favorite place in the world – Fiesta Island. I’ve also posted some additional pictures and a couple of wee videos of her momentous visit to F.I. on my other blog, here.

Hope all the tripawds and their pawrents had a great Thanksgiving! We sure did. We’re very grateful that our little pup is doing so well.

Now, if I’d just had a limb amputated and someone handed me a handicapped gingerbread man, I think I’d fail to see the humor. I’d probably burst into tears, in fact, since it’s pretty darn mean. But not Abby. She took it stride, accepted the cookie gratefully, and bit his head off.

We have a lot to be thankful for at our house this year! Happy Thanksgiving to all the Tripawd Community!

So, we are 5 days post Abby’s first chemo treatment and she’s still doing really well. Haven’t had to give her any of the anti-nausea medication and she hasn’t been sick at all. This weekend though, we did have to give her a bath, due to a side effect of a chemo side effect.

We’ve been really lucky and it seems the chemo has only affected her appetite. She still has one (which amazes me really, because she’s just never been much of a chow-hound), but it’s hard to know what she’ll eat on any given day. Every day we have to play a little ‘Guess what the dog will eat.’ Something she wolfed down one day, has no appeal the next. We’ve been feeding her different things everyday: wet food, salmon, cottage cheese, plain pasta, whatever she’ll take. Unfortunately, all that variation in her diet meant that when she went to do “her business” yesterday, there was a bit of the “business” on her leg when she came back inside. So into the bath she went. (Which she hates. Truth be told, this was only her second bath since we got her almost a year ago – although we do hose her down post visits to the beach. She’s funny – she loves the water, but hates a bath.)

I posted a bunch more pictures of her here and here if you want to check them out. We think she’s just the cutest thing! We’re so happy with how well she’s doing so far!

Well, Abby had her first chemo session today and she loved it. (She’s so nutty.) It was the most excited I’ve seen her in about a month. She was bouncing all over the place and kissing everyone and hopping around. Hopefully she’ll be OK with the nausea the next couple of days. They gave me some medicine to bring home and give her if necessary.

Below is a picture of her looking oh-so-happy to be at her appointment. (She is checking out the dog and cat art hanging on the wall.)

Abby got her staples out yesterday, 10 days post surgery. She’s doing really great. Unfortunately she still has to wear her e-collar, since otherwise she chews on the oh-so-delicious scabs. (mmmmm. scabs.)

In fairness to dogs, I guess if I had no fingers, I’d chew any scabs I had as well. After all, who can say they never picked at a scab? Not me!

Anyway, enough about scabs. She was so happy to go back to the vet. They just love her there and she loves them. The whole staff gets very excited when she comes in. (My hubby jokes it’s because she is their new cash cow! But, really… they do love her.)  And I’m so glad she’s not afraid to go back there! Hopefully that will continue. Managed to get her to not chew on herself long enough to get a pic to show how well she’s doing:

Tomorrow we start chemo – as long as the oncologist is done with jury duty! Ugh. Hopefully they won’t have to reschedule us. I’m anxious to get in there and get started!

I’ll post again following the chemo. Really hoping she doesn’t react too badly to it! Wish us luck!

Also, I’ve posted a wee video of her getting around on three legs at my other blog, here.

Yesterday, Abby had her follow up appointment at the vet to have her drain removed. She’s such a sweetheart. I thought she might be afraid to head back in there, but no, as soon as we pulled into the vet’s parking lot she was ready to jump out of the car. With the help of my little handmade sling, I got her out of the car, and then had to trot alongside as she hopped happily to the front door. She went in, all smiles and wagging tail. Everyone there was SO happy to see her. And she was so happy to see them. She’s such a love. They all thought she was doing great!

While I was there, I asked about her aloofness (which continues, as shown in the photo below of her “hiding” in the jasmine again this morning). They said it’s normal after surgery and is most likely due to some continuing discomfort. As some of my friends and family theorized, it is believed to go back to their wolfy instincts, where, in the wild, a hurt animal will go off on its own in an attempt to hide its weakness. Then last night I downloaded the great Tripawd e-book (wish I’d had it from the very beginning) and saw the same advice/explanation. So, while the Tramadol may be making her act a little weird (it definitely makes her tummy upset), I think it’s better to put up with the side effects than have her be in pain, so I’m erring on the side of giving her a bit more pain meds for now, rather than too little. The vet said there is not really a fear of giving her too much, as there could be with some other drugs. The guidelines they gave me (1/2 to 2 pills every 6 to 8 hours) really give a range so I’ve been tweaking how much to give her and have kinda come up with something that seems to be working. She only spent a little while by herself this morning, and then came back inside. In fact, she is laying here by me while I type this. Things are moving along – and I keep having to remind myself we are only at day 6, post-op, so she’s doing really great. I’m officially going to try to stop worrying! At least for now. 🙂

I posted a question the other day on the Recovery forum about Abby’s aloofness since her surgery. (Thanks, by the way, to everyone who offered suggestions and support.) I’m pretty convinced it’s a side effect of feeling funky on the Tramadol, but plan to talk to the vet about it when we go see him today to have her drain taken out (hoorah! That thing is just icky. I realize it’s there for a good reason – but it’s still icky and it bugs her.)

Thought I’d post some pics of Abby channeling Greta Garbo in “Grand Hotel”.

Hello all. Well, I’m sure the same with all of you, this isn’t really a site I would have joined if things hadn’t conspired against us… Just found out our 15-month-old puppy, Abby, has osteosarcoma last Monday. Here we are, only a week later, and she has already had her right front leg amputated. I’d started a blog about it on blogspot – Pooch Smooches – for my friends and family to keep up with what’s happening before finding the TriPawds site. I figured I’d do some posting on here as well, since there’s an instant community of folks in the same situation.

Things have moved so quickly, but I’ve already

posted about all that on my other blog. For now I just wanted to say hi and introduce Abby as a new member of the tripawd team. (I’ve also got a lot of pictures of her on the other one.)

Since she is young and strong, and also since her chest xray and lymph node lab work were clear, we are hopeful that we’ve done the right thing.

As I’ve seen some others say on their blogs – you can second guess yourself a lot, but so far so good. She is already doing so much better than I imagined. AND she had her first post-op poop today, so that was terribly exciting. I know you can all relate.

Hopefully we’ll be posting about hitting many happy milestones on here. Next stop – get the ‘drain’ taken out. Then, on to chemo… We are not looking back, but are hopping happily forward.  Jackie, Abby’s mom