My dog is cancer free!

Great, great news!

Bridget, who as I mentioned last week underwent surgery, just passed her biopsy test. Relief all around. Not only did they remove the entire lump and it was deemed clean, vet says that the pathology results revealed that it may not even have been cancer. They can’t be 100 percent sure. But the great news is whatever that nasty lump was is gone, and she has bounced back wonderfully. Hip, hip hooray. Stitches come out next week. Here is a cool shot of her where you can see her scar if you look closely. And if you can’t there’s a second pic too. Not for the squeamish, though.

She has been an absolute trouper and I’m just thrilled she’s back to her old self.

Here’s the gory pic. Don’t look if you’re squeamish! For what it’s worth, she doesn’t even seem to know it’s there, and it now looks much better – this was taken on the day of surgery, eight days ago.

Dog days

I confess to doing no work today. It has been such an emotional drain.

I took Bridget to the vet this morning for her surgery. She was in high spirits (although frustrated that I didn’t give her breakfast – she had to fast from midnight the night before), I on the other hand was a wreck and cried in the vet’s office. He was so sweet he told me he would telephone as soon as her surgery was over so that I could come and wait for her while she was still under. That way when she woke up I’d be the first person she saw.

I got the call at 12:15 p.m. – after trying to spend a couple of hours working in a cafe because I just didn’t want to be home in my house without Bridget. She came through the surgery fine. It took her about an hour to wake up fully before I could take her home, though. She has a huge set of stitches and her bum is all shaved. Poor baby. And she looked, well, stoned!

Vet said that he got the whole mass out and it looked to be contained and didn’t appear to have spread, but we won’t know anything for certain till the lab comes back with the biopsy results – hopefully Monday or Tuesday next week. I brought her home with pain meds and one of those god-awful plastic cones that she has to wear when I’m not supervising her.

She refused to drink for five hours and didn’t move, was clearly in pain. But when the pain killers kicked in, she finally got up and was wagging her tail, drank and ate and seemed to be herself, if not slow, stiff and groggy. She’s now lying on the floor with the silly cone because I’m off to bed shortly and don’t want to risk her going for her stitches. Vet says he will call tomorrow morning to see how she is doing.

I was supposed to go to the premiere of Legally Blonde – the musical tonight and review the show, but had to abandon that plan following Bridget’s surgery. There’s no way I’m leaving her side at all this whole weekend. My friend Sally and her boyfriend were going to take the tix and write the review but that fell through too after she was left dealing with the aftermath of being hit by a car (luckily she’s physically fine, just a little bruised). Wow.

I plan to catch up on the writing bent over the weekend. Dog surgery took over everything today though.

Fear, faith and finally… some work

Apologies for falling off the radar for a couple of days. Truth be told I’ve been busy. I finally landed a copy editing gig – phew and will be starting tomorrow (it’s online and I still get to work from home). I’m plodding away at my web site, getting great help from Jane Boursaw through her course and feeling “up”….

That is until today. I’ve been distracted the last couple of days. My 12 and a half year old Golden Retriever – Bridget – whom I’ve had since she was six weeks old needs surgery! I discovered a small bump/lump on her flank the other day and took her to the vet. She has two large lipomas which are just fat deposits that older dogs get and they’ve been fine for years. I was hoping this one was more of the same. It wasn’t. The vet aspirated the lump and said it needed to be sent to the lab. It took two days for the results to come back. She has a soft tissue sarcoma and is going in to have it surgically removed tomorrow. Only once it’s removed will they know how bad it is and be able to assign it a “grade”. I hope they get the whole thing and that she’s fine, but who knows? It’s very distressing and I’ve been crying a lot this afternoon. I can’t imagine my life without her.  I have no idea how much this is going to cost and given that I have ZERO money I don’t care. That’s why God invented credit cards, right? It may take 10 years to pay it off but right now Bridget’s health is the most important.

So, I haven’t been able to focus on much else since getting this news. Her surgery is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. tomorrow. Please pray for her.