We’re doing so well that I guess I’m left to worry about the little things, the odd things, the could-be-a-sign-of-doom-or-could-be-absolutely-nothing things.
I’m quite good at that, actually.
So far the things are: eye goop, coughing, licking his front legs. Also just relentless dog depression. The coughing was only short bouts two days a few days ago, so I’m hopeful that was just poor air quality or allergies or something. We’re in a bit of a unique situation in that we were pretty sure R did have a little lung met when we took his leg off. Caused some debate at that point, but there was a 1/100 chance the little dot wasn’t a lung met, and even if it was he might live months longer and did I want him possibly living those months in constant fear of breaking that leg? Well, no. So we took the leg, no knowing how long we had left. Hence, coughing is scary. Eye goop I’ve weirdly heard can also be a lung met thing? So, of course, I assume immediately that’s that too. But we’re gonna keep hoping that’s allergies too. Then the leg licking. Assume he’s got horrible front leg pain and we’ll be hobbling by the end of the month. Or, you know, allergies again. (I may or may not be such a little neurotic worrier that I made them x-ray his front legs before we did surgery just to make sure he wasn’t one of the like 5% of weirdos that has bone tumors in other limbs as well.)
The doggie depression just won’t quit. I try to give him a little more freedom and entertainment every day, but then it’s also another day has passed without what he really wants… So I think we’re always just breaking even. Today we tried food in the snuffle, chews hidden under blankets, purple rhino ‘tug’ (but I really only ‘tug’ long enough to shake his head a few times and let him have it if he actually starts to pull), squeaky squirrels hidden in my hoodie, and a walk all the way to the corner and back (including ACROSS THE STREET). Still not enough. Still no love. No love for Momma. Poor Momma. She’s gonna be as depressed as R by the end of this.
Four more days until [for the love of all that is good in the world, PLEASE] stitches come out. Will also be our first chemo potentially. We’ll see how that goes. COVID time is indeed weird and I think it makes the vet way more stressful for R than otherwise. He knows I’m going to leave him and walk out the door. He basically tries to claw up my body to make sure I can’t go. I feel terrible. I know some people choose not to do chemo because of that stress to the pup (and it WILL be stressful for R) but I figure it’s four stressful visits balanced against maybe many more months of fetch and sunshine. Hope R agrees with that tradeoff.
Hope R agrees with all these tradeoffs.