Monday, March 30, 2009

Recent pictures of the Hun







It's been a pretty miserable weekend.

Looks like her tumor is indeed "larger in some places" according to the vet. We're doing a long course of hellishly strong antibiotics to help with the sinus infection, swelling and resulting inflammation. They haven't really started working yet. She's acting just fine, playing and prancing and wanting to go with and bogarting the bed. I, however, have been dissolving into tears every 45 minutes or so all week. Every time she makes a stuff-ed up breathing noise I go right back to that awful month where none of us slept and I was sure she was going to die at any moment. I'm leaving in about 20 minutes to go get boyfriend (who's coming home from NY, and who's plane should have landed an hour ago) and I'm glad I get to take Hun with me.

I know we got more than an extra year from the radiation. She should have died in February 2008 and its March 30 2009. And I am happy. I am grateful and humbled and I know we made the best use of that time. But I wanted to be one of those people who are still coming back to the vet for the 'every-3-months-chest-x-ray' 7 years after radiation.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Honding my breath

The vet gave Honey antibiotics after our last visit, she has having some nose drainage issues. she finished the course on Thursday or Friday and by last night was draining again. We've scheduled a CT scan for tomorrow, to "check the status" of the tumor. Apparently it could be growing again. For that they do aplliative radiation, which is 5 courses instead of the 30 she had before. Hopefully we'll know tomorrow evening. About the same time the Boyfriend's plane departs for NY for the week.

Monday, March 16, 2009

one year, three weeks out of radiation and still ALL CLEAR!

Honey had her last set of xrays last week, and I took the morning off work to go to the vet with her, the boyfriend and the boyfriend’s sister, who was visiting for spring break. Her lungs were still all clear, and the lump I found the week before wound up being fatty tissue and not a tumor – this makes her a full year out of radiation and still in stasis – no progression. I seriously almost hugged the vet techs. And I’m fairly sure the vet thinks I’m nuts. I directed him to this lump, on her belly and slightly smaller around than a dine, and he was surprised I’d noticed it while it was still so small. I told him I do weekly full-body dog inspections.

So the boyfriend’s sister got here last Saturday for a weeklong stay. Literally the first thing that happened was our downstairs neighbors started world war 3, and at 5 am were chasing each other around in the middle of the street screaming at each other. The first legible words we caught were “you sent naked pictures of yourself to a married American man!! You have two weeks to get your shit out and I never want to talk to you again!” None of us could figure out why it mattered that this guy was American (the neighbors are too, so it really makes ZERO sense) but after about an hour we called the cops. And then we called them the next night, and the one after…. But by Tuesday night he apparently had a new girlfriend, so we had a whole other range of noises to listen to. I’ve taken to moving chairs around on the non-carpeted areas of our living room every morning before I make coffee. So I think we all finally slept for a few nights, and then at 3 am Thursday night our toilet randomly started flushing.. And didn’t stop for about 45 minutes. I guess that’s better than it backing up, but again, no sleeping. Plus there was an early morning vet trip and my usual ‘omg Honey’s going to be sick’ flip out. Poor kid, it couldn’t have been a very cool spring break.

Honey did flip out when the bf’s sister left to fly back to Florida. It was my fault, we left her at home and took luggage for the airport trip, but I figured she’d chill out by that evening. Nope, she was still totally convinced that we had lost a pack member. Honestly, that dog is never happier than when we have overnight guests, she gets to move from bed to bed and lick lots of faces. Its quite cute, she just gets really nervous when they leave. I can’t wait for bf’s WEEKLONG trip to NY to lecture……. I’ll have to lay in a supply of nonperishable foods so I don’t starve, cause you KNOW I can’t leave her alone for a trip to the grocery store.