My Dear Friends,
Thank you for stopping by and leaving me your words of support, comfort and concern.  I’m sure you’re all getting tired of my posts, poems & poetinalia having to do with Rascal and his health problems. To tell you the truth, as an empty-nester it’s really easy to transfer all the love and concern for our own kids onto our furkids.  Of this, I am guilty.   Truth be told, the bond between me and Rascal is very strong, starting when he was barely a year old when he was bite by a poisonous snake several times on the face, neck and possibly in the mouth.  His recovery was long and slow.  I nursed him back to health; he came to work with me every day so I could feed him and give him his meds.  He’s been through several bouts of cancer surgery and this last surgery has been pretty tough for all of us. He was doing fine when he came home on Tuesday, the day after surgery, mostly due to the fact he was drugged and he wasn’t in any shape to fight off our putting a plastic sheath on over his foot and lower limb to keep it dry when he went outside to take a whizz or whatnot. Plus, he needed to be carried outside and I had to help him by lifting up his whizzer leg or else he had to lean on me to prop himself up.  We had forgotten that a male dog needs both his front legs to balance on while raising a back leg.  He couldn’t put any weight on his right leg.  So I’m sure my neighbors are wondering if I’ve lost my mind while watching me steady Rascal or lift his leg up while taking a whizz.

Tuesday night went well because he was doped up and very tired so he slept most of the time.  Wednesday was another story.  We were supposed to change his bandage and it didn’t go well.  Rascal wouldn’t let us touch his leg.  He’s pretty strong and neither of us could hold him still while the other tended to the re-bandaging.  The surgery instructions told us to look for swelling /warmth of his exposed toes; if there was too much swelling, we had to call the surgeons office.  Well, his toes were swollen and we didn’t know how much swelling was too much.  Scott took him back to the TLC Hospital and they had to give Rascal some morphine so they could take a look at his foot and re-bandage it.  Thursday didn’t go well either.  Scott had to drive him back to TLC Hosp (an hour round-trip) where they again had to give him morphine in order to treat his foot.  Rascal had an appt. Friday AM with the surgeon who operated on Rascal and he decided to just take the bloody bandages, plastic, and tape off his foot all together and hope for the best.

In order to stitch the skin together after the mass was removed (not much to work with here, says the surgeon), 2 “relief incisions” were made, one on top of his paw and one underneath.  Well, the “relief incisions” were wide and blood red with oozy on it.  We had to try and keep his foot off the ground when he went outside.  By this time he was hopping pretty well and actually started running 3-legged after a deer in the yard.  But because of his heart condition, he shouldn’t run, shouldn’t jump on/off furniture or use the stairs.  Soooo, we had to carry him up and down the stairs, lift him up and down from couch, etc.  It was very tiring for me to be watching him like a hawk and carrying him around.  Think of carrying around an 18-19 lb. baby on your hip, picking it up and putting it down, etc.  Rascal’s to the point now, several weeks after surgey, to where he’s bearing weight on his foot and does some running in the house, grabs his neoprene frisbee for Scott to toss about 10-15 feet away so he can “fetch it” and bring it back to Scott. He can go after a ball tossed within the LR 5-6 times, then he has to stop.  We can do this several times a day. Everything that has to do with exercise and activity has to be scaled back because of the congestive heart failure. He’s eating well and lost some weight (if a few ounces qualifies.. ;)

The surgeon told Scott last visit that the mass was sarcoma and he didn’t get a clean margin which means it can grow back.  We hope and pray it doesn’t.  If it grows back we are considering the implanted something-or-other beads (forgot the name of it). There’s new ways of treating cancer in dogs and some of them are promising.

In summary, I just had to drop in here to let you know why I haven’t been blogging lately. I’m just too tired to make much sense right now..but this too shall pass..and I’ll be back with my sass before too long! heh heh  Love to all! And Rascal is thankful for all your prayers.  Sometimes, I swear, Rascal is looking at me with a face that shouts out, “I’m Alive, Mom! I’m ALIVE!  Joy resumeth!  I’m A-L-I-V-E!”  (How’s that for some drama.. eh eh.)

The good foot-

The “traumatized” foot*-

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*Everything is “happening” on the other side of his foot, right below his dew claw, and all the gross stuff is under the blue wrap.  I think this was taken 3 days after surgery.  It looked worse than this, believe me!