Lylee Girl – Our Best Girl Ever!

Photo: Our Girlie happy to be feeling better ~ 11 days post op!

So of course for our first trip out it had to be the beach!

I let her tell me how much she wanted to do. She was already standing up and ready to exit the car when we parked. I very slowly and carefully helped her out. And then she had a good sniff to read all the other doggies’ calling cards before gently hopping onto the beach. The sand was soft at the top of the beach so we just stopped and let her get her beach legs first.

A nice man was nearby and came over to see us and asked all “the questions”. It was a good first public interaction – he was very positive and she got to lean against him and get some good scratches. She was already a confirmed leaner now she uses that technique to the max 🙂

So she decided to go down to the water and we took a rest on the way. She got her toes wet but decided to stay at the waters edge. Then we took another rest and a photo shoot and then back to the car we went. I stopped her half way for a rest but she was ‘on a hop’ and so went all the way back with the nice man on the way back saying how well she did! A good 1st trip!

Tomorrow we go back to the oncologist for a repeat of x rays and an abdominal ultrasound, to check that everything still looks good (her chest x-rays in May looked clear). And if she is ready we might start our first chemo treatment of Carboplatin. We decided to do chemo because of the aggressive nature of Lylee’s cancer. It came back from pathology as a nasty one 🙁

I have already started her on many alternative treatments which I will describe in our next post!

Her breathing still seems laboured. This is the 1st day off tramadol. Her breathing has seemed fast all through the recovery so I’m hoping it will slow down now she is healing well and off tramadol and this isn’t anything dire. (worrying mother)

Wish us luck for tomorrow! Huggs and licks. oxoxo

PHOTO: Beach Girl!

We got good news from Lylee’s health insurance company that they approved our claim for her osteosarcoma diagnosis and all the entailing medical treatment. Yay!!!

We got health insurance, for all the furkids, last year after she broke her leg and we found out just how the medical bills can very quickly mount up!

Phew ~ this is a relief :))

I wish everyone could be covered for their babes!

Photo: Lylee sez “I want to feel my happy self again soon”

Our sweet girlie is not liking all this painful recovery stuff. She has pretty much just been sleeping and alternating a few times a day between her beds in the bedroom, under the dining room table and under the desk in the office.

She has been eating her meals, and going to the toilet regularly (1 & 2). Which is great. Her vitals are good. Her respiration is still increased. I now know this is a combination of pain and the pain meds. I gave her a small amount (6mg orally) of acepromazine last night to relax as her anxiety level was a bit high. This really helped her and she got a really good nights sleep and seemed much happier in the morning.

Then thru the day I think the pain and the adjusting of her body from one side to the other in her beds started really wearing on her. You can see her not want to lie down all the way on her hurtie side.  Pain kinda just pulls you down eventually. She is still on carprofen and tramadol and I can increase the tramadol but it’s a balance as this can increase the panting.

We postponed the visit to UC Davis this week to next week. Still researching all the different ways to approach her health adventure to rid her body of all cancer cells and to excellent health ! If it can be done we will do it! Cancer is a sneaky enemy but we will do our best.

Lylee says “Thank you for all the love and healing prayers and thoughts, they feel really good. Lick, lick, a little wag and woofs to come when I’m feeling better” xoxoxo

Photo: Always ‘Daddy’s Girl’ whether quadpawd or tripawd!

Lylee is slowly recovering from her surgery – it was a biggie and so it will take time. She is eating and drinking well (lots of treats too) and peeing and pooing fabulously! She sleeps most of the time. She has seemed a bit understandably depressed. Her respiration has been up and we were not sure if it was from the pain meds or pain itself. If only she could just tell her us! I decided seeing ‘pink elephants’ was preferential to horrible pain so have kept up the meds. The fentanyl patch will be losing it’s potency in the next day and she will be only getting tramadol and carprofen, so that should disappear the elephants.

So I arranged an appointment with the oncologist at the same hospital as the surgeon for today. We left Lylee at home at my request to the doc which she was fine with. Our girl doesn’t need another car ride just yet.

Another great doc! We had a good long chat with her, she explained all of our options plus we asked tons of questions. I had done quite a bit of research so was able to converse somewhat with her about the different chemo protocols. Seems carboplatin is the drug of choice for many vets. So I’m still researching the various other chemo agents and protocols out there.  We are still not sure if we will follow the chemo route yet.

I will be following a comprehensive holistic route anyway. I’ve started to ramp her up with various supplements already and will do a separate post on all the goodies I will be using for her.

Onwards! Love and huggs to everyone!!

And lets keep Lylee in the center of a magical circle of shining love!

Photo: Watch ~ I’ll be doing this with 3 legs very soon!

This is what I posted on the Tripawd discussion forum:

“We just got ‘that’ phone call from the surgeon about the pathology report. Unfortunatley our Lylee does have osteosarcoma and it is a highly aggressive one :((

We are still assimilating the news and so are deep shock. We were really hoping for no cancer as the previous tests were so inconclusive.

It was good we amputated sooner rather than later.

Ugh – why does cancer exist at all!!!!!!”

So now we enter the path of cancer treatment. We were hoping for the “box” from our decision making process to be “Surgery; No cancer”. It is all so yucky!!! Ron & I have already experienced our own brush with cancer diagnosis’s.  So this, unfortunately, isn’t too unfamiliar.

Chemotherapy is the next allopathic line of defense for osteosarcoma. Apparently 80-90% of these cancers have already metastasized, usually to the lungs in the form of micro-metastasis. Her lung x-ray in May looked clear but we will do a follow up

We will go see the oncologist at the specialty hospital where Lylee had her leg removed. And we also go up to UC Davis Teaching hospital, they have a number of clinical trials going on plus it  is one of the top places to go to for all things medical for our furkids.

We will also use other healing modalities with her. There are many other ways to heal that are not so invasive. So we do have lots of options.

Keep sending love, prayers and healing thoughts coming this way.

Photo: Our Lylee Girl first night  home from surgery

She made it!!!

Way to go Lylee!! She is the BEST! What a girl!

The photo was just taken a few hours ago, back from the hospital. She is resting comfortably and so happy to back home. She  has a fentanyl patch (you can see on her back leg) which will deliver narcotic pain meds transdermally for about 3-4 days. Plus tramadol pain med orally as needed and antibiotics.

It has been a bit of an adventure and I’ll share her hospital stay later. But most importantly the surgeon was very happy with her operation and recovery. The surgeon did take extra muscle and tissue around the humerus so to get wider margins if the biopsy comes back positive. So the incision is a bit longer.

She is a great hoppaw (hopper:) and seems quite confident moving around.

Now she just wants to sleep and relax. She is soooooo happy to be home!

Please keep sending her love and healing wishes and good thoughts for a great pathology report.

Photo: Lylee and her kitty bro, Wildman.

Well, we did it. Lylee went into surgery today to have her right front leg amputated.

It has been a huge roller-coaster ride in deciding what to do. Yesterday when the vet clinic called to confirm her surgery we let it go to voicemail as we were still undecided and then in the evening I got to a place of yes, we need to do this.

Then I woke up this AM and realized that, no, it is the wrong decision. I want to get more clarity and take all her records up to UC Davis and also to the surgeon who did her fracture repair, Tim Selmeyer @ Veterinary Surgical Associates.

When I told Ron he then came up with a brilliant idea to use a decision matrix which is essentially a very simple but really effective tool when trying to get clarity. We saw this being used in a video on Climate change on You Tube. It is basically a box divided into four, across the top is ‘Surgery’ and then ‘No Surgery’ and down the side is ‘Cancer’ and then ‘No Cancer’.

So you have four quarters with four different outcomes. In each of these boxes you write the pros and cons of each equation, being sure to include and focus on what could happen in the worst case scenario in each situation.  For Example: “What is the worst that could happen if we did surgery and there was no cancer?”  “What is the worst that could happen if we didn’t do surgery and there was cancer?”  This process resulted in surprising clarity.  Obviously the box of No Surgery and No Cancer is the best , but to achieve that outcome we would have to do extensive testing of her leg which would be expensive, painful and could still not achieve certainty about whether there was cancer or not. And we were unwilling to wait and see and do x rays in a month. If it was cancer then it could spread exponentially during the wait.

It was so great to complete this matrix. Our best scenario or ‘box” ended up being ‘Surgery and No Cancer’. And if after having surgery she in fact did have cancer then it was still the right choice ‘cos we had the leg removed.

Her operation was scheduled for the afternoon. They kindly let us be with her thru her pre-meds and when she was relaxed and sleepy they then took her back.

We knew the op. would take a while but at 8 pm I was getting a little nervous so checked in and was told they were just finishing up. At 9 pm the surgeon called and this is what I posted on the Tripawds forum:

“Just got off the phone with the surgeon, Lylee’s amputation went very well. It took four hours, longer than usual because she said there was more atrophy in her muscles and so her veins were harder to work with and so she went slower and more carefully and she also took wider margins of tissue in an area where there was a fluid pocket (could’ve been from the previous biopsy). And so it also took a bit longer to close her up. Her blood pressure and vitals were all good thru the surgery. I will get to see her tomorrow. It’s a relief that she okay.

Thanks again for all the support. I’m not even a tripawd and I’ve been leaning on you all heavily!

Lylee’s pawrents,

Jo & Ron”

Will update tomorrow. Thank you for all the love, prayers and good thoughts!

Photo: Lylee and her Dad on the beach

We had a great short visit to the beach – a special treat for Lylee Girl. The weather was perfect and the wind was not too bad. The locals call Bodega Bay, Blowdega Bay, as the wind can be so strong at times.

We tied her leg up, like she had it last year when she broke it, so she couldn’t put weight on it. One for pain and also ‘cos she had the bone biopsy recently. She did great hopping. She is a star girl 🙂

We are struggling with the decision to remove her leg on Monday. If it was certain she had cancer it would be an easy choice to do so but we don’t really know. What to do? Ahh!

Send love our way please.

Will let you know how it goes.

xoxo

e

Photo: Me saving the world from evil kelp seaweed

Hello fellow doggie pals,
My Mum ( She’s British so you can translate to Mom :)) took me back to the torturing place again, (it’s also a healing place, so she told me), well, they give me huggs and kisses but I still don’t like the place. But they were very thoughtful and gave me and my mum our own room with a couch and a bed for me where I got to stay with my Mum,  a lady came into the room with the first pre-med sedative and I finally got to relax ( I got a bit stressed waiting and then they took my temperature (why up the bottom?! There has to be a better way!:( )

Anyway, my Mum gave me a nice doggie massage and soon I was much calmer and relaxed. I knew “something” was going to happen as Mum was explaining about going for a little sleep and then a few bits of bone from my sore leg was going to be taken and then sent to some other place where they were going to to see why it’s been such an ouchie leg.

The lady came back and took me to another room where they gave me more stuff and then I don’t remember anything else until I woke up. And even though I was still quite sleepy they brought me back to my mum and then I had more nice massages from her. I was very determined to split this joint ASAP so I willed myself to wake up. As soon as I could I camped out right by the door that I knew was the one to freedom. So my Mum called someone and said we were ready to go.

After the Lady who did the actual stuff on me visited us again, she gave me a hugg and kiss too and I leaned against her but still…. (she also saw me earlier before I left my Mum for the little sleep), and then we were allowed to go. (I didn’t even want my Mum to leave the room go and pay up for all this torture business while we were waiting to go, oh no you don’t, and she wasn’t going to push that ‘cos she knows I am a really good girl, super, super sweet, and they are always commenting what a nice girl I am. It’s true too 🙂

So Mum drove me straight home where I went to my favourite spot right under the dining room table at Grammy’s feet (my wonderful Grammy, who is always giving me treats & love, is staying with us for a while). And then I had a lovely long nap 🙂

Lots of love from,

Lylee Girl

xoxo