I can’t believe how quickly, but also slowly this month has gone! It seems like a forever ago that Meg was just back from hospital, but also saying “it’s been one/two/three/four weeks since surgery” kept changing over very fast!
Everyday people see Meg at the park and ask what happened to her, always somewhat disappointed to hear a sad cancer story, not a heroic gory story, yet everyone is amazed at how quickly she has recovered. We always see people trying to watch her without us noticing, or on the flip side, people will come from all corners to ask about that three legged dog.
Today we saw our first tripawd since Megs surgery, sadly Meg and that dog didn’t really notice each other, let alone bond! Next time.
Meg can do just about everything she could do before, and is the same joyful, cranky, silly girl. The only thing she can’t do is scratch her ear, but she has learnt if she comes up to us and wags her stump about we’ll scratch for her.
Happy girl
It makes me wonder what I was so stressed about before surgery, and why I was so scared that we’d end up with a different dog on three legs.
In the next few weeks we have a santa paws photo shoot AND a photo shoot with Meg and Dotti that we won not long after Megs surgery.
After 14 days, this afternoon Meg took a trip to the vet and got her stitches out! Her wound is looking good and she was given a clean bill of health from the vet*
*we still have to go back in a few months to check the cancer didn’t actually spread
Go Meggymoo!
A trip to the doggo park afterwards was well and truly in order – Meg was very happy to not be held back from chasing other dogs, and running away from other dogs.
Her sparkle is well and truly back, although she is still getting tired easily and has sore muscles, who could blame her for that though! She is missing a leg after all!
Now to get on with life though! Mainly sleep.
Also today, Meg’s lil belly had finally lost enough swelling for her ruffwear web master harness to fit again, and she went for her first walk around the block with it, only the second time she has gone around the block since the surgery! It seemed to help her balance, especially towards the end once she tired.
Ruffwear Web Master harness (XXS)
Get ready for new adventures as a stitch free tripawd Meg!
I swear dogs have a talent of knowing when it is Sunday, which means our regular vet shuts in the early afternoons.
For the last two sundays Meg has presented herself with complications that I would love to call the vet about, or better yet, bring her into the clinic and have her looked at right away. Because I’m a paranoid furmum of course!
Yesterday we were coming home from a short trip, and I went to get the dogs out of the car. They were’t on leads and given there was a dog across the road that they’d run across to, it seemed easier to carry them from the car to the gate into the apartment complex.
In the time it took to pick Dotti up and give her to Tim (a second or two), Meg decided she was ready to jump out the car like she used to as a quad-dog. She landed it, seemed fine. I was furious at her of course.
That was until I saw a bit of blood where she was laying, and some blood across Dotti’s face (get out of it, Dot!). Flipped Meg over and had a look at the incision – about 2 or 3 centimetres of the wound was bleeding, and almost looked like it had come open. The stitches were still in but it didn’t look good! This of course had to happen right before we were due to arrive at a get together around the corner (with the dogs, of course).
All regular vets were closed and calling the 24hr emergency vets for advice seemed costly, especially if she needed to go in there! The internet isn’t helpful for these things, especially when we weren’t even sure what she’d done to the wound. The wound stopped bleeding and looked to be a bit more stuck together again when I looked at it 5 minutes later. We put the cone back on and reluctantly got on with the evening. I was fearing the entire thing would come open, infections, stitches falling out, all sorts of drama that would result in an expensive trip to the 24hr vets. Luckily none of these things happened (although, I wouldn’t be opposed to her having a course of antibiotics), and Meg happily rested and lapped up attention at our friends get together.
Meg is fine, the incision site looked back to normal by the time we went to bed and again this morning.
Lesson learned though – no more exerting yourself before ‘stitches out Wednesday’, Meg!
I can’t believe it has been over a week since Meg had her surgery!! We’ve had quite a few ups and downs the last few days, but it seems like finally we are on the up again!
End of Day 5
After I posted my last update things took a turn. Meg still wasn’t eating, threw up a few times, had very runny poop and was panting very heavily. A reaction to the rimadyl, the same that she had after her biopsy. Thankfully she calmed down and slept through the night.
Day 6
After a panicked call to the vet, he said Meg would have to go off the rimadyl, we should start giving her anti-acids and if she didn’t start eating she would need to spend the next day at the vets on an IV drip :O Not to mention if the pain was bad from no rimadyl, she would need another fentanyl patch.
Meg seemingly heard all this news, and an hour after her antacid, ate some chicken, and seemed like her lively self. Sore and tired, but herself.
Meg & Dotti hanging out
In the afternoon she threw up again. Here we go again I thought, but it seemingly wasn’t the case. She continued on into the evening resting, chilling, eating dinner and being overall ok.
At about 1:30am I heard her salivating a lot. Oh god, here comes the vom! This went on for an hour, with me constantly waking up to check if she was ok, if she was ready to throw up. Finally, she did a small vomit (in her bed of course). Clean up done, and we all attempted to go back to sleep. Just as I was asleep, I heard her get up and start coughing and spluttering. Another spew, bigger this time, on our lovely fluffy grey rug. Typical dogs – can’t make a mess on easy to clean things.
A pee, a tramadol and some candles later (far out vomit stinks!) we all went back to sleep (well, everyone else did, I tossed and turned for another two hours).
Day 7
Despite the horrible night, I could see Meg was feeling back to her pre surgery self on day 7. Anti-acids down, and she sat in the sun waiting to get on with the day. She went out for a lil walk around the apartment block yard, and she even went down the two sets of stairs by herself for the first time!
She ate dog food for breakfast for the first time since the surgery as well. Accomplishments everywhere.
Meggymoo even decided it was time to get back into eating her beloved rawhide chew sticks and greenies dental sticks. She had her sparkle back. And as usual, was keen to get some sun baking in.
I has to sunbake my stump hooman, how else will it go back to tan like the rest of me?!
That afternoon we even took her to the (again, mostly empty) dog park to enjoy some sun before the weather turned. Dotti ran around while Meg tried to hop and follow, but reluctantly decided to sit and stay in the sun.
She spent the afternoon snoozing. No vomits. No runny poops. Just our standard Meggymoo. She even got some KFC scraps for dinner!
Day four was again up and down, with its own set of complications and accomplishments. Meggmoo, our gooseberry, was not interested in food at all. Breakfast, nope, lunch nope, dinner, hand fed after pleading!!
This made things difficult given the vet said she strictly needs food with her daily rimadyl medication or she’ll be sick. She ended up reluctantly eating one cheese slice. That counts right? She hasn’t been sick anyway!
She ran up the steps, again, much to my horror because she ran faster than she ever has as a quad dog, I was sure she’d slip!
She spent the rest of the day snoozing while I stressed over the fact 1) she wasn’t eating 2) she was /still/ managing to do too much exercise (including trying to jump up onto the couch) and 3) we were quickly approaching day 5 and she still hadn’t pooped yet! Pumpkin, sweet potato & lamb baby food to the rescue!
Day 5
Once again, Meg showed no interest in food. It isn’t uncommon for Meg to not want breakfast, but damn it is irritating when she is recovering! She had a few bites of chicken for breakfast, and another cheese slice with her rimadyl. Once again she seemed pretty worn out and sore – she has been shaking most of the day. It is hard to tell what is her natural chihuahua shake and what is pain.
At around midday, Meg shot up from sleep and raced to the door. This was promising given she hadn’t wee’d since the night before! She did a long wee and then stayed in the garden. I held my breath and she squatted her bum down, trying to balance. And there it was. A long waited for, very orange and smelly poop. Finally! 5 days in the making.
This afternoon we all made the trip to the vets for a check up! Vet says we can lower Meg’s tramadol to see if that improves her appetite, but I pointed out her pain issues and she was just as confused as me with what to do. Back to trial and error! The fentanyl patch and wound bandage came off, all was looking well. Then came the big news – the biopsy results from the lymph node in the cancer leg. The vet started saying there is good news and bad news (oh god!) but it seems mostly good, there were mast cells in the lymph BUT they weren’t cancerous (yet?). The vet wasn’t surprised given the tumour was pretty large and close to the lymph. So reluctantly for now, she is seemingly in the clear, but not out of the woods. Chances are we got all the cancer, but a cell or two could’ve been missed and could’ve spread. For now we sit and we wait for any signs of spread to the organs, or any new lumps for that matter, and then we looking into chemo options.
Honestly, I’ve expected the entire time that her cancer journey wasn’t over, and I’m expecting in the future we’ll face a choice of what to do. For now though, I am just happy that she *might* be cancer free, and can get on with living her happy little Meg life.
She is doing a great job of that this afternoon, running around the house like a lunatic (I think she is happy to be bandage free), we’re struggling to keep her still!
Crazy eyes! Hyperactivity episode underway. How did I end up behind a pillow?!
Settle down Meggymoo, still another 9 days until those stitches come out!
