Taking a Walk in the Snow

Holly’s pathology came back yesterday and it was clean!  We are pawsitively excited by this news!  We are still not sure about chemo – our vet sounds somewhat on the fence about it, too.  We’ll talk to him about it when she gets her stitches removed next week.  I think he’s hesitating because he looked back at old x-rays and thinks she’s had the cancer for almost 2 years, so if it was going to spread it probably would have already spread and moved past microscopic disease.  Between the x-rays and bloodwork looking good, and now the pathology report coming back looking great it’s hard to know what to do.  I don’t know if they checked her lymph nodes – my husband forgot to ask about that when they called yesterday.  Anyway, any thoughts anyone would care to share on chemo vs. no chemo will be appreciated, as always.

So to celebrate, Holly and I took a nice walk in the new snow we have here in Chicago.  We walked about 4 blocks – the furthest we’ve been since her surgery.  And she did great!  I had read in many posts on others’ blogs that it’s easier for them to go faster, so I totally let her set the pace.  And she gave me a pretty good workout – she was moving quickly!  Her new pink coat helped keep her warm, especially where she was shaved for the surgery.  And her tail was up at full mast for the entire walk, which is always a good sign.  Now she’s taking a nap.  Well, she was – the mailman just came.  She never fails to run to the door and bark when he shows up!

She’s still not eating very well, and has been off the antibiotic almost 2 days.  Our vet said it can sometimes take a few days for the antibiotic to work it’s way through the system so hopefully she’ll get her appetite back soon.  In the meantime she’s been eating small amounts of rice and ground beef with broth, or canned dog food.  She absolutely turns her head away at her kibble.  If she doesn’t start eating again soon the vet said he’d switch her pain medications to see if that helps.  She’s been on deramaxx and tramadol almost non-stop for the last 2 months without any trouble, but they may have finally gotten to her tummy.  Anyway, in all other regards she is doing well – just an upset tummy.  I’m hoping the fresh air and walk may help stimulate her appetite.

6 thoughts on “Taking a Walk in the Snow”

  1. Yay for the negative pathology!!! Glad to hear that Holly is doing so well on her walks! If the Deramax and tramadol are having an effect on her tummy… you may want to ask your vet about adding some pepcid AC to the mix… That helped alot with my Jake when he was on his NSAIDS…

    Post some pictures of your baby soon!!

    Angel Jake’s Mom

  2. Thanks – I’ll ask about the pepcid ac. She ate a little kibble tonight when I mixed it with an egg, but only about 1/8 cup. So I’m willing to try anything! I’ll call the vet in the morning and see what he says. I finally posted a picture of the pink coat on the last post – did you see it? She’s stylin’! I’ll post some more pics as soon as she’s feeling a bit better – today (besides 2 walks), she pretty much slept all day. I wish she could tell me what didn’t feel good! I did take her on a car ride and turned the seat warmer on (someone had mentioned that a heating pad sometimes felt good to her dog). I didn’t think she wanted to get out of the car!

  3. Missed the heating pad comment. That was me! Caira Sue liked it a lot. She wouldn’t want to sit down at first, but after we got her to lay down and the pad on, she just melted. We would move it around to her incision (to help keep seromas at bay) and then to the muscles that are all learning a new way to walk.

  4. Thanks, Cairasue’s mom for the heating pad comment – it appears the heated seat in my mini does the trick for Holly! I know we have a real heating pad buried in a box somewhere – I’ll need to dig it out for her.

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