DOGS RULE !!! To share all the good times for being dog lovers.

Mya has been doing very well with her surgery and the 5 rounds of chemo, even bounced off a couple of minor skin infections. She seems to be very healthy no side affects at this point, her coat is coming back, she has almost mastered the 3 step. Mya and Macleod both really dig the snow, Mya has done well in the snow and its been icy here. She is sitting in the office with me now.

She just said ” AROOOWOOWOOWOOoo..! ” That means, stop taking my picture already!!, some cell phones freak her out…

We had Mya’s first follow-up appointment Jan 3 2017, she’s a “wiggly” one so they give her a mild sedation for her procedures. We drop her off in the morning and pick her up in the afternoon once she’s past recovery. Usually we are dealing with the bill at the counter when Mya comes out and she wants to stand up at the counter and say hi to everyone, but this time we had to sit with the doctor to go over the findings. She said they found something in the chest Xray … it sounded like a car crash… felt like it too, I actually got a ringing in my ears like I just ran into a wall. They did 2 images of her chest at different angles and can see two items in one image but not in the other, bearing the hope that the anomalies are not located in the lung but out side maybe near the surface. We are planning a CT scan this week of both the chest and abdomen to determine weather there has been any spread to other organs and weather she is a candidate for a Metastectomy. If it turns out to be cancer our options are surgery, or an oral chemo which also has two protocols. Surgery is a lesser option for us and has had a lower track record of success. The chemo option is Piroxcam and Cytoxin with the second protocol adding Palladia to the other two. We are hoping to get some good news from the CT scan but for now we are just going to try and love her to death. I’m still looking hard at CBD oil and still can’t find the negative, aside from THC being harmful or at least poorly tolerated in animals. There are a number of places locally claiming to have pure CBD oils now. A good friend of mine has a plus prime Boston who has been having seizures, he has been giving him CBD and is controlling them. If he has a seizure he rubs a little on the gums and within seconds there is a change. He will come out of it in half the time and recover in hours rather than days. More and more people I hear that get it for their elderly parents. If it were just my body in this, there would be no question. I see where the politicians have a hard time, Geeezz did I just say that. I don’t want to jump into something if I’m not sure, but in the very same hand I don’t want to wait if it won’t do any harm.  We will keep throwing punches…  Oh ya! and kicks… the other day Mya and I were playing on the bed and in flopping around she chicken kicked me right in the liver, right out’a fight night, if I was standing I’d of hit the floor. So she’s still got a lot of fight in her.

Even Mya was crying, but she just wanted to go home. We are at Canada West Medical Services, In Vancouver, and our oncologist has just explained to us that Mya has had her last of the chemo. All her tests and blood work came back clean. We realised we wouldn’t be seeing all the amazing people that have taken care of our little girl every few weeks over the last five months. The doctor said she was going to miss her and we all got a little welly.

We have reached a major mile stone but sure had to push through it the last two months. Mya’s toe nail had bumped the chemo back a week at #4. Two days before the scheduled #5 we noticed a little bump on her cheek about the size of a dime. Through the hair you could see it was a little red. The next day it was worse, the hair was gone in the middle and you could see a little blood at the centre. Think she scratched it in the night. When we picked her up on the 23rd they had shaved the area and cleaned it up, THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE ! a couple inches up her jaw we couldn’t even see. The doctor thought our two dogs may have had a little jaw wag at each other. The first spot was a small puncture wound and the second could have been a matching K9. Dang… dissension in the ranks. I know Mya still tries to dominate Macleod, and that week they did have a couple of bones to gnaw on so maybe Big Mac stood up to it that time. Alison and I noticed that Macleod didn’t come out of his kennel till quite late even when I made something to eat, He usually appears right behind me if I’m in the kitchen, “stealth like that of a cheetah”. He seemed to be hiding out… we wondered if they might have had a moment.

Its been snowing sub zero for weeks now my Mal’s love it. The other day they were both out for a breath of crisp air and Macleod jumped over this little block wall, well, Mya followed, AAAA!!! it was like slow motion She arched up and leaped right over like an equestrian, all gracefully… then landed right on her face… good thing it was snowing. She brushed it off and I started filming them playing in the snow a few minuets later Mya tried to tackle Macleod and rolled off the amp side, and again right on her face but this time she let out a big yelp, the snow wasn’t so soft right there. Ok, I think its time for a nice safe nap.

I can see that her remaining limbs are getting bigger, a little more muscular. Her hair is coming back on her face and legs, the patch quilt look is starting to fade. Now that she is done with antibiotics and chemo we think she will start feeling even better then she has. She has done so well and has after going through so much it has truly changed my way of thinking. Most of the things we all worry about don’t even matter in the big picture.

Mya

Macleod

Terry

Allison

We all want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Wow its been  a while since I’ve had a few minuets, I’m starting to realize I have to stop… once in a while at least. Seems I’ve been trying to busy myself to keep from focusing on all that has come about. You can’t focus on any one thing when you are Juggling…

I believe my last post Mya had finished round two. We just had round 4 last Wed. and we have scheduled round 5 on Nov 23 we will speak with the oncologist to determine if she needs a sixth.  She has no ill effect from the chemo. In fact I dropped the (a) ball and forgot to bring in Mya’s meds when I picked her up from the appointment, some time Saturday I asked how many pills Mya had left and Allison said “what pills”, ‘corse I panicked, phoned the oncology department and they reminded me they were the anti-nausea pills and we could just start them now . So she didn’t really need the Nausea medication at least didn’t appear to, but wouldn’t tell me if she did … At the third round appointment they noticed a toe nail that was cracked on her rear leg that was getting infected, we’ve spent so much attention on the wound and her front leg that I didn’t even see the rear nail. I’ve noticed the edges of the nails are curling inward slightly not wearing off like Macleod. He still launches when he walks and she is using her feet more to slow her down.  We made it through Halloween { not gonna lie, I kinda wanted to dress Mya up as a flower, with her cone and a green stocking on her leg  }. Kids spent most of the night in the bedroom with the radio on. They sure don’t like the bang. When I got home today I was laying in front of the TV with Mya ( she watches ) and a commercial came on with a low rumble in the background and her eyes looked up, I could see the fear sweep across her face, so I gave her a snuggle said it’s OK it was just the TV. Then a dog food commercial came on and she mowed me over trying to get to TV ’cause there was a dog on the screen. Wonder what she’d do if the dog was in a thunder storm ???

Today I saw a guy walking with his daughter and they had a dog with them that was limping . I watched them walk across the intersection where I was turning , I made my turn and got about half a block and had to pull over and wait for them. I wanted to ask if they knew the cause or if it was a mystery. Turns out it was a car accident a few years ago,  didn’t feel like a weirdo at all … I haven’t seen the dark brown rear amp dog I saw last month but a few weeks ago I did see another front leg Tripawd walking down the street with his Dad and of course I pulled over and talked to him. His Bull Terrier was also in a car accident and a bad surgery resulted in the bone failing then amputation about three years ago. This guy was sporting a big pack board all loaded up, just down from Alaska, he said his boy goes everywhere with him and most of the time he wears out before the dog does.

When I picked Mya up from the appointment I was trying to put the step down, that I made for her to get in and out of the van, and was messing with it trying to make it level, Well she took half a step back and just leaped over me , the step, and landed a couple of feet deep in the van like it was nothing.  Mya has become my inspiration, She just keeps amazing me.

Driving through town this morning and I saw another Tripawd . It was a brown lab or something like that with a rear amp, I tried to pull over in the next driveway but someone did a Cali’ lane change in front of me and I lost my cheese. By the time I got back there the dog was gone. Before all this went down with Mya we didn’t hear much about Tripawds at all, now we know a few friends and family and now city-mates that are in the same boat. Smaller world every day …

Mya is running a bit more now, she moves better at a nice gallop than a walk/hop, but still has a time with stopping fast. I got a video of her sitting up and trying to tackle Macleod the other day but saved it in the wrong format and had deleted the original. I’ll keep working on it. She has had no adverse affects from her second round of Carboplatin, and hasn’t needed the cone collar in a few days.

Mya had her second round of Carboplatin on Wed 21st. She had a slight drop in white blood cell count on second fallow up visit Fri 16th. for blood work but it had returned to normal by the Wed appointment. She had been licking her shaved spot and irritated it so she has a nice little blue flower around her neck, we went for the “Elizabethan collar” instead of the hard cone , this one is soft and can be folded inward for a less awkward wear. Looks kinda like a cape for our little super hero. We have a steroid cream that we put on the irritated spot 3X a day, the swelling has gone down. She is slowly getting her energy back but is a little sleepier since the chemo. There’s no blood work scheduled until the 3rd round and they will do a chest X-ray then as well. Took Macleod out for a walk at the park and walked by some one with an ice cream cone, Macleod stopped in his tracks and just looked at me. There is an ice cream shop in the park with “doggy ice cream”. I tied him to the parking sign behind my van and went in for some treats, they were busy as usual and by the time I got back the sign post had a bit of a lean to it, he really likes doggy ice cream…

I have a video of Mya trying to tackle Macleod and her sitting up for some pets but I can’t get it to play properly just getting the audio, see what I can figure out and try it again…

was able to post this one of her giving me the evil eye