Author: mosby

One nice thing about the last few weeks is that I’ve been able to spend a lot more time with Mosby. While Mosby loves his daycare (and misses it!), with both my husband and I working a full time job and Mosby going to daycare every weekday, we really only spent time together on the weekends and weeknights. Now I work from home once a week or so to take him to appointments or just generally watch over him if he is having an issue. While it isn’t the same as our days when I was in law school and we could go on long runs every day, it’s been nice. I’m working at the kitchen table right now, and Mosby is snoozing on the bed right behind my chair.

Mosby still isn’t doing long sets of stairs, so this is what I looked downstairs to find after I went upstairs to get dressed this morning. Parked out waiting for me.

Those would be our guest bathroom rugs, which were among the first to be requisitioned for use on our hardwoods when Mosby started limping. Our house is basically a patchwork quilt of rugs and runners now.

Mosby’s first acupuncture appointment went well. The vet said that his back is basically a mess. He had some discomfort when the needles went in, because his muscles are basically knots, but then started to relax. The vet said that sometimes you don’t see the full effect until the second or third session if they are really sore. He seems pretty relaxed right now.

Mosby seems to be in good spirits in general. He is enjoying his meals and enjoying the peanut butter, Easy Cheese and liverwurst that we alternate his meds in. Here he is saying hello with a blurry wagging tail.

We had hoped that Mosby could go to daycare Monday though Wednesday this week (2nd chemo is scheduled for Thursday), but with his back issues we decided that he should rest at home these three days. Then he’ll be rested up for chemo on Thursday. Friday my husband will take off and stay home with him while he recovers.

Tomorrow morning I’ve scheduled an appointment with  a vet to do acupuncture on his back, and during this visit I will also catch up with his PT vet to discuss managing Mosby’s back pain and the best plan for moving forward. I hope she has some additional insight and ideas. I know that we need to strengthen his abs and back to reduce this strain, but at the same time we can’t do things that hurt his back and make him less likely to use it. We need to be able to do the water treadmill, but I don’t know at what point they’ll declare his infection “clear.” It’s looking less bad, but hasn’t healed up, and I’m afraid it could grow over some hair and create a bigger problem.

Thursday is Mosby’s 2nd chemo if all goes according to plan. Hopefully, his blood work will be good to move forward and the infection won’t create a reason to delay. Delaying the chemo means delaying the 3rd chemo, which means delaying the surgery to remove the sarcoma that we’re supposed to do 2 weeks after the 3rd chemo. Hopefully on Thursday the surgeon will also evaluate his leg and determine the scope of the surgery that will need to be done when the time comes.

It is in no way a burden to manage all this for Mosby. I do it because I love him and want the best for him. I would do it a million times over, without hesitation.

But I had a pretty big reminder of just how much stress and anxiety balancing Mosby’s care and a full time job and a household can cause on a person physically and mentally. Mosby may have ended up in the ER Thursday night, but I ended up in the ER Friday night with a severe sudden unilateral headache, followed by dizziness and low blood pressure, and me passing out. We were pretty scared – I’m extremely reluctant to go to the doctor, so the fact that I voluntarily went to the ER says something. A CT scan and EKG ruled out bad things, but they aren’t really sure what it was. I was out of it, maybe just from shock, for about 2 hours. The rest of the weekend was uneventful. I’m assuming that whatever it was, was caused in large part by stress. I’ll follow up with my primary this week, but I doubt it will be anything but a physical reaction to the last month or so. In the mean time, I’m going to try to focus on positive things. The problem is that it is hard, when there are so many things that are not positive. But I’m going to try.

Anyway, not trying to be a downer. But I did want to be honest in terms of what these last 5 weeks have been like. I wish Mosby were one of those dogs who had really sprung back to normal life 2 weeks after surgery. I don’t want that for me, I want that for him. And until he’s at a point where I do think he is happy again, it is going to be hard to live with this dark cloud above my head.

 

Two days ago we had to make a trip to the ER, because Mosby was panting, whining and clearly in a lot of stress. One trip later (which they didn’t charge us for — they said we’d pay enough!), they decided he has extreme pain in his lower back due to the strain of learning to walk with three legs, and upped his pain killers. That seems to be helping, as well as putting a warm pack on his back several times a day. When he is happy, I’m happy. Fingers crossed this continues.

As a treat, we took him to Tractor Supply to help pick out his grain free food, and also took him with us to Lowes. His tail wagged the whole time. He loves people and didn’t understand why every person didn’t come over to pet him. We definitely got some sympathy / pity looks, but some people really cooed over how handsome he was and asked if they could pet him (of course! He will be sad if you don’t!).

Mosby is snoozing near me, and it’s time for his next warm pack, so I’ll do that in a moment.

Edited to add: It’s Mosby’s 4 week ampuversary!

Today has been a good day for Mosby – and we needed it! We started out with a trip to PT, which went well, although he still can’t do the water treadmill until his infection is totally cleared. Boo. He’s doing great with sit-to-stands, cookie stretches (why don’t I have cookie stretches in my exercise program?), and hip rocking. Last night I had him do “high five” while sitting. He’s a super star.

Meanwhile, his infection does look a little better and is hopefully healing, and we tried peanut butter for his meds for the first time. He ate the meloxicam with no problems. We have slightly bigger pills tonight, so we’ll see how it goes, but it’s promising. His tummy has mostly settled, as well.

The weather is nice outside and it’s put him in a good mood. He also played with his nylabone today! Ok, I sort of encouraged him, but he did romp a bit and chew on it. He enjoyed our trips outside. I’m going to try to post some videos and a photo below. He is having a nice nap right now – he deserves it!

Ok, trying to post a video of him today:

And here he is chewing his bone today:

Last but not least, this is from a few days ago, but Mosby wanted to show off one of his best tricks:

It seems like as every time we think we have resolved or at least developed a strategy for one problem, another one arises. Mosby’s wound seems to be healing, but starting yesterday he developed tummy issues, that have yet to resolve. He obviously feels awful and needs to go out a lot. Or else he lays there and whines. And, of course, repeated squatting on one leg is taking a toll on him. The good news is that we went to the vet today to get his CBC, and his white blood cell count is normal. Platelets are a little down, but the vet did not seem concerned. When I mentioned his tummy issues, the vet said that can be a symptom of the antibiotic he’s on – which we switched to due to the wound infection. He gave me a probiotic to give to Mosby once a day, so I have given him that, but things have not resolved. I just want my poor boy to feel better. We are going to try giving him some pumpkin with dinner and hope that helps.

Today was a holiday at my work, although I worked at home and also had to attend a committee meeting for a nonprofit I’m on the board of, so I brought Mosby along to the meeting. The nonprofit is horse-related, so there are lots of dog people, but Mosby’s also just a great citizen in general. He greeted everyone sweetly, and then laid down on the bed I brought and snoozed through the meeting.

So far his appetite doesn’t seem to be affected, but he’s obviously miserable, and I just wish I could fix it. A lot of days it seems like we just keep getting kicked while we’re down. I hope that there are good days ahead.