Why we drive old cars

Well, things are actually going pretty well here. We hope it stays that way for a while. PG is home, she's got the stitches out, and she's pretty much back to her ol' biddy self. Jeannie took her down for her post-surgery appointment on Monday and had a pretty good report. The feeling in her leg is creeping down...it's moved like a half-inch in the last 2 weeks or so...it's now below the knee and on the move. THAT is a huge thing...of course, she will be wearing some kind of a wrap/brace until it eventually works it's way down to the tippy-toes (so that she doesn't hurt herself, such as breaking toes or something as they have no feeling and bending them backwards).

Here is the scar back AFTER she had licked out the first half (you can see the remaining half). It goes all the way from her knee almost to her tail. The black sharpie half-moon near the tail is the line of doom: it's the high-water line of where the giant blood-clot reached (that would have been contaminated with tumor cells, as all the leaking blood passed thru the tumor). The surgeon wants to keep this line available in case it suddenly becomes prudent to take the leg off...it shows how high they have to go (it's clear up past her pelvis...they'd have to take some of that too). We don't intend to go this route unless there is NO other way.

Here you can see the entire 'splint' they have on the leg, protecting the area with no feeling. She can stand on this (in fact, we are under orders to get her to put weight on the leg multiple times a day to help strengthen the atrophied muscle, as she hasn't used this leg for over 3 weeks now). Of course, she doesn't really WANT to stand on this leg...we have to get her relaxed and standing (on 3 legs), put this foot to the ground, and gently raise the good leg. She fights this and you can tell that as we lift the good leg she is lifting herself even as the good leg is off the ground, putting almost no weight on the bad leg...it takes some work to get her to actually bear weight on it..and we do that a few times for 10-15 seconds at a time.

And here's our little angel (devil) snoozing. She jumps up/down of the couches with ease (even though she's not supposed to be doing that). We do our best to keep any moving around to a minimum. The Dr. is afraid too much movement could get the tumor bleeding again. That is indeed a scare, but at SOME point when she's healed, she will be running/jumping around per normal. I'm not sure we can live our (her) life in fear of that beginning again. You have to be able to LIVE. But for now as she heals we follow the directions as best we can.

She's eating good, and we don't have much left in the medication department (HOORAY!). We are off the 'get up in the middle of the night' routine for giving her meds..she now gets them morning and night, and I think we are down to two of six. She's eating good, and she should be happy about that part...she's getting chicken and broccoli (with cheese...we have to sprinkle cheese on top or she will turn her nose up at the broccoli). I'm hoping that someday she will eat the broccoli without the cheese sprinkled on top. But no matter...she's not getting any sugar foods (breads, etc)...just meat and veggies which is supposed to be good for fighting cancer/keeping her tumors in check.

And so...we are quite thankful that the recovery is going as well as it is. Her sisters treat her about the same as always (Sweet Pea will knock her down to get out the door first, or to the doggie food bowls first, or pretty much any other reason there is to knock PG around). So we are always on guard for this...sure don't want her to get hurt by her sisters, as they certainly don't understand the 'recovery' thing.

I will leave you with a post surgery picture of the entire pack. Jeannie has PG covered in a blanket as she has no hair on about a third of her body since they shaved her pretty well for the surgery. I had been sitting where the green pillow was, and amazingly they all stayed put when I got up. You can see PG is quite happy, as she's NOT wearing the cone of shame anymore, and she's getting LOTS of attention.

Jeannie and I fly to Virginia this Saturday, and will be spending the week at her brothers place (the farm). I'm hoping for a relaxing week for the both of us, and that we don't stress too bad about leaving the babies. We have two different doggie-sitters coming over to feed them while we are gone. I've also setup my 'doggie-cams' (webcams) in two main locations so we can peek in on them anytime to see what they are up to (lying around sleeping is pretty normal). They have doggie-doors so have total access to the fenced three sides of the house (so we never have to 'let them out to go'). Thanksgiving is right around the corner, can you BELIEVE IT? I am still in disbelief!

And with that, I wish you a nice weekend. I'll check back in and post something from Virginia most likely.

Cheers!

Happy Veterans Day!

Happy Veterans Day everybody! Time to reflect on the sacrifices that have been made throughout our country's history to get us this far.

If you came here expecting a big post about Veterans day, well, I'm afraid you've been gypped.

You see, for now I'm done on that topic (and no, I'm NOT going to rant on and on this year about how Jeannie gets to sleep in while I the VETERAN gets to get up and go to work like I usually do). You see, Jeannie WILL be getting up early herself this year. But for the details on that you need 'the rest of the story", and that involved PG (because EVERYTHING in our house right now involves PG).

THIS is the rest of the story. It's the 11-11-12 afternoon PG update.

All is well! (and right now that's as good as we can ask for!) She's still wearing "the cone of Shame" (and so am I for that matter). You see, last Thus night during my 2am medical wake-up, I had taken off the cone, dissolved the very last of the dreaded 'drink it' medications (med #4 in our list of 6) in the water, loaded the hypodermic and even managed to get most of it down her gullet. Then I thought I'd give her a break, figuring she will sleep the next 2 hours (I still had a 4am wake-up med to do).

SO..I left off the cone and went back to sleep. And you know the ol' saying: no good deed goes unpunished. I get up at 4am and lo and behold, she did not sleep. No, she started licking the sutures. And somehow, over half of them were now MIA. Just gone. The nice flat (perfect) suture line now was half-way inflamed, the cut skin edges looked like lasagne noodles (all wavy). I felt HORRIBLE! The surgeon is going to SKIN ME ALIVE! However, it's been going on 9 full days since her surgery, so the cut didn't open up. It just doesn't look so 'purty' now. Thankfully we didn't need to take her to the vet to be re-sewn.

So now I'm wearing a virtual cone of shame. Jeannie will take PG down to Ventura tomorrow for her post-surgical followup with the Surgeon. Why is Jeannie taking her instead of me you ask? Well...it IS Veterans Day as you know, and being as she has it off for no other reason than being a Govy worker (THUS ending her amazing string of SLEEPING IN on Veterans days), while I will be working. So the duty of being PG's limo falls to her this time around. And there is a bonus for me: at least I won't be there in person to get thrown under the bus about the missing stitches (as she most assuredly will fling the blame on me, and I don't blame her one bit cuz it was totally me). Also thankfully, in the last few days the ruffled edges have laid down pretty nice and it looks just like the rest, only with no stitches. I'm sure the remaining stitches will come out tomorrow...so my verbal bashing won't be quite so bad I hope. I think her appt is at 10am...so I'll see if I feel like my ears are burning around then.

Anyway, our little angel/devil is doing pretty good, though I have to say she is overall a lousy patient. We go thru a LOT to get her to take her 5 remaining meds...it usually starts out easy, and typically finishes hard (much like Ike and Tina Turner's version of Rolling on the River). If only she would just EAT the blasted fresh piece of chicken (with said pill tucked inside somewhere). But nooooo...she's gotta sniff it, and gently take it, then chew it a few times and BAM, the pill falls out and she finishes the chicken. She only gets one chance with me anymore...then I pick up the pill, PRY her jaws open, force the pill to the back of her throat while holding her head up high, then hold the jaws shut until she swallows it. We do this OVER and OVER and OVER. I'd have thought she'd figure it out and just EAT IT the first time. I think she's just REALLY stubborn.

But other than that it's all going well. We'll know more tomorrow after the followup with the surgeon. We also hope to have a sit-down with our local vet and develop the "plan" for what to do with the cancer. Jeannie's and my thoughts on that are that we will do our very best to treat it with diet...seeing if we can keep it at bay. The Surgeon even admitted it might have been in there for some time, and only due to the bleeding was it discovered. So if we cut out all the sugars (which we have) we will see how she does. We have no intention of putting her thru the radiation, nor letting them take the leg (unless that somehow becomes the prudent thing to do). She's 11 years old in just a few weeks, and we will go from here doing the very best we can. That is our basic plan. Subject to modification at any time of course.

Happy Monday!