Doom Dogs

[Drunk Monk]

Poor Dani. How is she bearing all this? And is the rest of the menagerie tuned into what’s happening with her, do you think?

[Greg]

Dani is in tremendous spirits. She is up and bouncing and just annoyed by all the contraptions currently on her body. I'm sure she takes delight in pulling off her blood containment pads. She lags behind but she still goes on the afternoon walks with us to make sure she gets fed her carrots when the horses get theirs.

Maeve has always been in her own world so she pays little attention to her pesky younger sister except for the occasional sniff to the wound on her rear. The cats and Dani don't interact all that much unless she is stealing their treats or their food.

Both dogs have trouble navigating the dog door on the interior door in the laundry room. Maeve sets off an unholy racket until the Queen or I lets her majesty in. Whereas Dani just sort of pokes her nose at the barrier until one of us hear's the poking and lets her in. However, when the Queen and I are asleep, both dogs come and go through the door at will. The only seek help from us when we are awake.

[Greg]

Boy, do I hate vets. I just got off the vet's assistant with the biopsy results. She gave a chunk jargon about suspicious sarcomas and what they expect. I eventually had to stop her ask her if what to dog has is cancer. She said yes. Could have started with that instead of trying to spare my feelings by obfuscation. I believe the term she used was Osteosarcoma.

But that's the upshot. Dani has cancer. When we go in Thursday to get her staple removed (of which she removed two of by herself yesterday when she had the collar off) she'll get some chest x-rays to see if the cancer has metastasized into her lungs which is very common with this form of cancer.

We are not going to go crazy treating the cancer. We think that might do more harm than good. We will let nature take it's course.

[King Bob]

Sorry to hear that Greg.

[Greg]

Thank you.

[cranefly]

Osteosarcoma.  Rough.  Sorry to hear this.

[Greg]

Thank you.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

I’m sorry, Greg.

[Greg]

Thank you.

[Drunk Monk]

Ouch osteo. That sux.

As long as Dani's spirits hold up, there's not much to do but be present I guess.

[Greg]

That's our thinking. She lives as long as she wants to live. Treat intake will be high.

[Greg]

Vet visit day. This was our scheduled appointment to have Dani's staples pulled out and we added on an x-ray to see if the cancer was in her lungs which is very prevalent with this type of cancer. Since Dani started pulling her staples out earlier, they had to put a few more back in to replace the ones she removed but the majority were taken out. As for the x-ray, the lungs look fine for now. No cancer there. They just look like old dog lungs with a touch of COPD.

Nothing to do now but wait and see what happens. Fingers crossed. But it was a happier diagnosis from Dr. Laserchef than we expected.

[Greg]

The race to the bottom continues. It's 2am. I noticed maeve was in considerable distress in my office. She was wimpering and twitching her head. She's also unable to stand. Currently all the Vets in Fresno have a 2 to 4 hour wait time. Except for the bad Vet office which I really don't want to go to. I think she's having a Vestibular Ear flare up. Actually, I'm hoping she's having a Vestibular Ear flare up because that might resolve itself in 24 hours or so.

Good times.

[cranefly]

May this latest issue resolve in the best way possible.

[Drunk Monk]

Bummer. Again hoping for the best.

Our neighbor in the back of our lot is going through the same thing with his two old dogs (both in there mid teens I think). Joey has several large tumors; one recently burst on his paw and would not stop bleeding so that was a vet trip. Notchy has a growth on her lower lip that gets bloody and miss her drool a lot. She’s not been eating. Luigi, the owner, works at the boardwalk in maintenance. He keeps to himself mostly and has had both dogs since they were pups. I fear they may go simultaneously. He’s pretty shattered by it all. I’ve been keeping Yuki apart from them mostly; they get along but Yuki doesn’t hold back when playing and they aren’t in a playful state.