A photo I forgot yesterday

Daisy last week after licking a glass dish. Since she wasn't allowed to move, each time she was finished with something she tried to lay around it. Unless there wasn't enough room, then she decided to lay inside it!

A decision is made

The roller coaster doesn't seem to end but I think today we finally found some relief. Daisy ended up back at TLC and then home again Thursday afternoon. Mom flew in Thursday night and Joe had to hold Daisy down in the bed when we came into the house because she was howling and wanted to get to the excitement the others were running around about. She did well until Saturday morning when Joe woke up and she had been sleeping on the wound and it started to bleed. We ran over to TLC and Dr. Salas put two stitches in but when we got home and she went to squat to go to the bathroom, she popped one and the bleeding never stopped. She bled all weekend and then we took her back to TLC yesterday. Dr. Salas wrapped her leg so she can use it and she was walking around on three legs today. Because we are out of options and can't have another weekend like the one that just passed, we've decided to remove the leg. She'll be fine. I know that. We hope to have the consult appointment scheduled tomorrow and do this as soon as possible. The photo with this blog entry was taken Friday. Daisy has definitely returned to her old self. She refused to wear her lampshade (e-collar) on Sunday night. Today she was standing and sitting in her kennel as much as possible because we kept her down all weekend. She looked really happy. I'm thinking maybe it's a relief to her that her leg is taped up and she doesn't have to try not to use it.

A Ginger's Gift Excerpt

The American Association of Suicidology's Surviving Suicide editor, Ginny Sparrow, printed this in the latest issue of the newsletter. Enjoy!

Daisy comes home!

Daisy has been home for about two hours. We got a call this morning from the clinic that Dr. Salas felt she was ready to go home. We were anticipating bringing her home with the drain and he felt we would be able to empty the drain more often at home than they can there which is fine. Joe just did the first emptying a while ago. She walked into the house and made a beeline to the backyard and then came into my office where she snoozed under my desk until I made dinner for her and her siblings. After two bowls of food, I can see her in a bed across the hall. I'm in my office so I'm guessing she'll stay there until I finish work and head to the kitchen shortly to make dinner. It's such a relief to have her home (and not bleeding ) that I think I'm exhausted. We missed her so much and keep our fingers crossed she won't have to leave again.

Another roller coaster week and an anniversary

I keep thinking that each week things are going to get better and Daisy will be stable and we'll be able to return to somewhat of a routine. I can say that as far as I know today, all is relatively quiet. We can't visit Daisy today because the vet clinic is closed but I think that might be a good thing to help her healing. She had a drain put in last week but it wasn't put in at the hole that was leaking since the hope is to get that hole dried out so it will begin to heal. When we saw her yesterday, the leaking had not fully subsided but was getting close. And Daisy definitely wanted to go home. She was very mellow the first few days she was there but late in the week she showed signs of being her old self (which tells us that she's feeling better and knows she's getting better) which means she's ready to run and play. Joe also said that he could feel part of her hip which he hadn't been able to do since the tumor popped up on her leg. We plan to bring her home Thursday because my mom is coming to visit her from Chicago on Thursday for the weekend. In other news, it was five years ago Friday that I found her at a 5K race here in Albuquerque. She followed the first race walker in. I still don't know what possessed me to take her home but something told me I had to. I didn't think Joe would let me keep her since we already had Chaco and Nestle and he (Joe) had been attacked by a German Shepherd as a kid. Joe was in Thailand at the time and after a day of being followed around by this puppy who wanted to bite my ankles, I was about 15 minutes from calling the other woman who said she would take the dog if the puppy didn't work at my house. It was the intervention of my neighbor who saw the puppy in the window of my door and said that I had to keep her and that Joe would love her. And he did.

The roller coaster none of us want to be on

It's hard to write sometimes. We think things might be stable and then an hour later, we have to throw them (the things that might be stable) out the window. Daisy had another round of chemo on Monday. She was doing really well; she was happy, she even wanted to run a little in the morning. On Tuesday I went out for an appointment and, when I came back, the chemo had taken effect. She was tired and then the tumor started to swell. We expected that. But then she started spurting blood from the incision and it's been stitched up twice since then. The blood spurting were the tumor cells dying off. It held from Friday afternoon until this morning when she was feeling better and wanted to play with the others. Then she started to leak again. Tomorrow, she will move into TLC Pet Hospital, our vet clinic, where they can confine her and get it stable. We hate to do that but we know they will give her great care (and she knows them all). Our house is just too active. Still, knowing her days are numbered will make it hard to leave her there tomorrow.

High Desert Dog magazine article

There's an article in the new issue of High Desert Dog magazine here in New Mexico by me. You can read it online here. It's called "Coping with Loss."

Home again

I got home late Thursday night and I've been on recovery since. Life has been hectic since Daisy's tumor popped out on August 23rd and I already had a full schedule planned before that. It's been nice to have a quiet weekend at home. Daisy seemed to be happy that I had returned home. She's sitting here in my office now. She doesn't always come into my office so when she does, a part of me doesn't want to leave. I want to stay with her since she wants to be with me. The picture attached to this blog was taken by Joe when I was gone. Daisy was pretty sick most of the week (following her chemo) and it was one of the times recently that Nestle took on her prior role as Daisy's mom. When I brought Daisy home as a puppy, Nestle was the one who took care of her and then Daisy did the same for Hattie as a puppy.