Wednesday, January 12, 2011
First, I want to start off by thanking everyone for the well wishes and positive thoughts. It means a lot and is very helpful when trying to get through stressful days like yesterday.
Luna has been doing very well since coming home yesterday evening. As soon as she got some dinner she was ready to snooze. She was happy to snuggle on the couch with us, but when we went to bed, she got super excited. She couldn't wait to get up on the big bed and do some serious snoozing. About 1 minute after I put her on the bed she was sawing logs.
I haven't had a chance to get pictures of her stitches. I know she has 6 stitches in her ear, but I'm not sure how many she has on her elbow. When I normally pet Luna, I usually give her a scratch behind her ear, so I have to be really careful not to fall into old habits and pet her stitched up ear.
She doesn't seem to be in much pain, although she is on a pain med for the next few days. Today, she seems very content to sleep, so that is what we are going to let her do.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Update 6:30PM:
Luna is home and all things considered is doing very well. She has about 6 stitches in her ear and a few more on her elbow. So far, the elbow incision seems to be giving her the most trouble. She was very happy to get some dinner a few minutes ago. She is still a bit drowsy. We are going to curl up on the sofa and just relax. More updates coming tomorrow. Thanks for all the good wishes. Luna is back home and on the road to recovery.
Update 1:30PM:
Luna is out of surgery and doing well. In total, they removed 3 mast cell tumors. Two on her ear, one on the inside, one on the outside and one tumor from her shoulder. All 3 have been sent out for testing and hopefully we will have the results soon. The good news for today is that Luna is waking up and will be ready to go home this evening.
We dropped a purple spotted Luna off at the vet this morning for her tumor removal and a dental cleaning. We marked all the little bumps that we could find last night and I am hoping that none of those come back as mast cell tumors.
Unfortunately, the only thing we can really do now is wait. I should hopefully hear something by 1PM (Eastern Time). As soon as I know something, I will give you an update.
Monday, January 10, 2011
On Thursday night, we were watching TV and Luna was on my lap. I was petting her when I noticed a bump on her ear. I moved her fur and found a bump that looked eerily similar to the bump that Benjamin had on his chest a while back. Knowing that Benjamin's bump was bad news, I call the vet first thing Friday morning and made an appointment for Friday afternoon.
The vet was optimistic at first because the lump seemed very superficial, but he still did an aspiration and took a look at the fluid he extracted under the microscope. After he took a look at the cells, he confirmed our suspicions that the bump was a mast cell tumor.
So, Luna goes in for surgery on Tuesday to have the lump removed. After the tumor is removed it will be sent to be biopsied and we will get the grade of the tumor. If we are really lucky it will come back a grade 1. But grade 2 would be OK too, as long as there are clean margins.
The only good thing about this situation is that we have a pretty good understanding of the process having been through the same thing with Benjamin.
Luna has a few other bumps on her that we don't think are trouble, but we are going to have the vet take a look at all of them since she is going to be under. With her skin issues, Luna does tend to get a lot of little bumps that come and go. Our vet's advice was to mark her up with lipstick so that he could find them all easily. They will do their own search as well, but that way he will be able to easily spot all the bumps that we know about. So, we will be taking Luna the leopard in for her surgery on Tuesday. Luna is taking it all in stride, but I just can't wait until we have her back home on Tuesday night.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Last Friday, Luna went to the eye vet for a checkup. I am very happy to report it was the best checkup she has had in some time. The tear production in both her eyes was great and there have been no major changes since the last visit. Which means all the drops stay the same and we don't have to go back for another checkup for 6 more months. Go Looney!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
The boys recently had their annual checkups and many of the things that cropped up in the exam were related to age. Since then, I have been wondering how the pugs will age. I have also been thinking about Henry and his cataracts a lot and how they will progress over time. Will they remain fairly small or will they grow and eventually take most of his vision?
I try not to spend too much time worrying about it because, ultimately, these are things out of my control. But the thought of Henry losing confidence and some of his spunk because of bad vision does worry me. Henry has always been the adventurer. The first to stray from the path, the one that always wants to go new places. I would hate to see bad vision take that spark away from him.
So rather than focus on things that I can't control or that may never even happen, I have been thinking about things that I can actually do to help.
While brainstorming, I thought of a dog I met at a dog park a few years back. I didn't meet the dog up close and personal when we first arrived. Instead, I spotted him meandering around the dog park having a good time meeting other dogs and smelling all the dog park smells. I could tell by how the dog walked that it was on the older side, but I thought it was great that the dog was at the park because it was clearly having a fantastic time.
The dog started to come my way and as it got closer I could hear someone calling out the command "Slow".
When the dog got up to me I could tell that it was blind. A few seconds after the dog arrived at me feet, I met the owner and they confirmed that the dog is blind, but gets around great by listening for verbal cues. I got to see the cues in action when a few minutes later the dog was quickly approaching a tree. The owner called out "Slow" and the sure enough the dog almost came to a complete stop, started to sniff a bit more and then found the tree without bumping into it.
What struck me the most about this dog was that it was completely comfortable in the new environment, where it does not have a good idea of the lay of the land. Plus, there were other dogs zipping around, but none of that seemed to bother the blind dog.
So, I am going to try and teach Henry some verbal commands while he still has all of his vision. That way, if the cataracts do start limiting his sight, hopefully it will be an easier transition for him.
I haven't started training yet, because I have no idea how to even start. I was trying to come up with a small list of words that would handle the most amount of situations Henry might encounter.
It's an ambition goal, but I like training with the pugs, so I figured I might as well teach them something that could possibly come in very handy later in life rather than go for something that is just cute.
I'm sure progress is going to be slow, but I'll let you know how it goes.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Over the last year, I have noticed that the top of Henry's nose is very dry and has even started to crack. Concerned that it might be a sign of a more serious issue, I talked to the vet about it during Henry's last checkup. He assured me it was nothing to be worried about and gave us KeraSolv Gel. Our instructions were to apply it to his nose once daily for the first 10 days and then as needed. Today is the one week mark and I am impressed with how quickly the gel seems to be working.
Above is a before and after closeup of Henry's nose. After a few days, the dry bits of Henry's nose actually started to fall off (gross). He isn't 100% back to normal, but a lot of the buildup has started to come off and I'm sure the rest will continue to come off over the next several days.
I'm not sure if you need a prescription for the KeraSolv gel. Ours came from our vet with a prescription sticker on it with application instructions.
Friday, September 17, 2010
After Benny was done being poked and prodded on the exam table it was Henry's turn. Henry got a little fussy when they were drawing his blood, but other than that he did OK.
My main concern with Henry was his eyes. I have noticed that he is missing a lot of treats when we play our treat toss game. I know that he has the beginnings of cataracts in both of his eyes, but it is extremely early in the process.
The vet took a look and said that it looks like the cataracts are getting a bit bigger, but again it is still early. At this point we should just keep monitoring him to see if we can pick up on any type of vision changes.
Not great news, but it certainly could be worse.
The vet also checked Henry's hips and knee to checkup on his arthritis. Henry has had a bit of arthritis in his hips since he was about a year old. The arthritis has been attributed to his hip dysplasia, but we have done a pretty good job managing it. As he gets older, we do our best to keep an eye on it because the problem is certainly not going to get better as Henry ages. The arthritis might be a tad worse than last year, but all in all Henry is doing great in that department. Henry was also down a pound which I was thrilled about. Keeping Henry at a healthy weight is pretty much the only thing we can do to help his hips and arthritis.
Another small item on Henry's list was his dry nose. Henry's nose has gotten to be extremely dry and cracked. I wasn't sure if this was a sign of some other problem, so I jotted it down on my list of things to ask the vet. The vet said that all is well and that a dry nose is just a part of aging. He gave me a gel to put on his nose to help put a little moisture back into his nose and by golly does that stuff work. Henry is almost back to his puppy nose!
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