hold tight
dog news:
my Chesapeake is currently spending the night at the vets. she is doing ok, resting up and getting fluids into her. the story: this Monday I took Chessie into the vets because her back leg was swollen, and we found a growth protruding from under her tail (right above the rectum). the docs felt her leg up, but the lymph nodes were not at all swollen, and it wasn't giving her any pain so they said to merely keep an eye on it & apply hot compresses. they took cell samples from the growth and sent them to the lab [note: this growth is very different from the one on her neck that burst in January, that had deep brown thick fluid, full of dead cells, very disturbing]. this growth seems to be mostly full of normal blood. at any rate, we got the call this morning that the cell samples were benign (nothing malignant). very good.
I came home from work this afternoon and found this news in a note. I smiled and got the dogs corralled to go out. (around 1:30pm) after they did the necessary I noticed that there was blood on the grass, I looked at Chessie and she had blood all over her hind feathers. I had her sit down and yes, the growth had burst and was leaking all over the place. ran her back inside and got her seated on a towel (this is a trial, as she wants to sit under the table and not be bothered -> many crackers were used as inducement). called the vet and they equivocated, leaving it up to my judgment as to whether she needed to come in. if it was slow, minor leakage I could have kept it wrapped, clean and dry the way we did with her neck in the later hours of January's event, but it kept getting messier and messier. after a few minutes I decided it had crossed the line and bundled Chess into the car (with lots of towels). I was unable to contact my mother so left a note, with the kitchen a bloody mess and Hannah shut out of it. in the rush I left my cell on the kitchen table.
when I got to the vet, first they sat me down in the waiting area but the blood became evident so they got me in a room. then we waited some more, with me singing to Chess and feeding her crackers. more blood got a tech's attention, and she got the doc's attention. (I showed up with no appointment, and am grateful it wasn't a super-busy period.) first they looked to see if merely draining the blood from the growth would work, but it showed no signs of stopping. then they took Chess in back to try and cauterize the growth, stop the bleeding. it didn't work, but they slowed the bleeding down and got her settled comfortably. (by now after 2pm) the doc told me they needed to operate and take the growth off, that it would happen around 5pm. I went home .. then at 5:50 my mom called the vets to check on her. Chessie came out of the operation fine, they removed the growth and are having her stay the night to rest up properly, with an IV to compensate for dehydration. we can pick her up tomorrow at 9:30am.
my nerves are shot. I was in a bad way on Tuesday, worrying about Chessie's growth and whether it would turn out to be malignant and spreading. there've been a bunch of stressful and/or sad events in the past weeks: my cousin's dog Heidi died a few weeks ago, she was fourteen and had the same parents as Chess, she'd gotten old and developed a tumor and it was her time. we had about 2 months warning that she was doing poorly. then we found out that on Mother's Day, Julie - my former manager at BN - passed away from colon cancer. we had known it was coming (she was stage IV by the time she was diagnosed 1.5 yrs ago) but it is still a shock. so I've been brooding about that. and then my father has been under very high amounts of stress lately & had a minor meltdown on Friday, so I've been all wrought up over that as well (so hard to see the pain and hurt of those we love and feel powerless to solve it). so there we are. my nerves are shot.
hopefully I will get home from work tomorrow and Chessie will be home and on the mend. I will tell her I love her and be able to pack and get on the plane Friday to head to Wiscon. I'm so excited about Wiscon, I dearly hope it will be a relaxing time in terms of having fun and feeling lots of positive energy. I am conflicted. I am exhausted. I'm gonna hug my dog Hannah some more and think happy thoughts.
my Chesapeake is currently spending the night at the vets. she is doing ok, resting up and getting fluids into her. the story: this Monday I took Chessie into the vets because her back leg was swollen, and we found a growth protruding from under her tail (right above the rectum). the docs felt her leg up, but the lymph nodes were not at all swollen, and it wasn't giving her any pain so they said to merely keep an eye on it & apply hot compresses. they took cell samples from the growth and sent them to the lab [note: this growth is very different from the one on her neck that burst in January, that had deep brown thick fluid, full of dead cells, very disturbing]. this growth seems to be mostly full of normal blood. at any rate, we got the call this morning that the cell samples were benign (nothing malignant). very good.
I came home from work this afternoon and found this news in a note. I smiled and got the dogs corralled to go out. (around 1:30pm) after they did the necessary I noticed that there was blood on the grass, I looked at Chessie and she had blood all over her hind feathers. I had her sit down and yes, the growth had burst and was leaking all over the place. ran her back inside and got her seated on a towel (this is a trial, as she wants to sit under the table and not be bothered -> many crackers were used as inducement). called the vet and they equivocated, leaving it up to my judgment as to whether she needed to come in. if it was slow, minor leakage I could have kept it wrapped, clean and dry the way we did with her neck in the later hours of January's event, but it kept getting messier and messier. after a few minutes I decided it had crossed the line and bundled Chess into the car (with lots of towels). I was unable to contact my mother so left a note, with the kitchen a bloody mess and Hannah shut out of it. in the rush I left my cell on the kitchen table.
when I got to the vet, first they sat me down in the waiting area but the blood became evident so they got me in a room. then we waited some more, with me singing to Chess and feeding her crackers. more blood got a tech's attention, and she got the doc's attention. (I showed up with no appointment, and am grateful it wasn't a super-busy period.) first they looked to see if merely draining the blood from the growth would work, but it showed no signs of stopping. then they took Chess in back to try and cauterize the growth, stop the bleeding. it didn't work, but they slowed the bleeding down and got her settled comfortably. (by now after 2pm) the doc told me they needed to operate and take the growth off, that it would happen around 5pm. I went home .. then at 5:50 my mom called the vets to check on her. Chessie came out of the operation fine, they removed the growth and are having her stay the night to rest up properly, with an IV to compensate for dehydration. we can pick her up tomorrow at 9:30am.
my nerves are shot. I was in a bad way on Tuesday, worrying about Chessie's growth and whether it would turn out to be malignant and spreading. there've been a bunch of stressful and/or sad events in the past weeks: my cousin's dog Heidi died a few weeks ago, she was fourteen and had the same parents as Chess, she'd gotten old and developed a tumor and it was her time. we had about 2 months warning that she was doing poorly. then we found out that on Mother's Day, Julie - my former manager at BN - passed away from colon cancer. we had known it was coming (she was stage IV by the time she was diagnosed 1.5 yrs ago) but it is still a shock. so I've been brooding about that. and then my father has been under very high amounts of stress lately & had a minor meltdown on Friday, so I've been all wrought up over that as well (so hard to see the pain and hurt of those we love and feel powerless to solve it). so there we are. my nerves are shot.
hopefully I will get home from work tomorrow and Chessie will be home and on the mend. I will tell her I love her and be able to pack and get on the plane Friday to head to Wiscon. I'm so excited about Wiscon, I dearly hope it will be a relaxing time in terms of having fun and feeling lots of positive energy. I am conflicted. I am exhausted. I'm gonna hug my dog Hannah some more and think happy thoughts.