13 Months & Hoping for Good Luck

Today is Abby's hopefully LUCKY ampuversary #13! So far we haven't done too much to celebrate, as she is still having some lameness in her front leg.

In my last post I mentioned we went to see Dr. V. last week fearing the cancer had spread, but she was vastly improved by the time we got to the office and it seemed like it was just an overuse injury. Well, Tues and Wed last week we went on our little approved 10 minute walks and she seemed to be doing really well. But then Thanksgiving morning she was lame again (because these things ALWAYS happen on a holiday or weekend). At first I was afraid it was a bad reaction to the new pills we'd started (the Masitinib), but we went through the whole long weekend keeping her off the pills and she is still hobbling around - which isn't super easy on only 3 legs.

So, at this point it's either just a nagging injury, or the cancer has in fact spread. We are going for an X-ray tomorrow at 12.30 and then we'll know for sure. Please keep a good thought - or poke a cancer voodoo doll - for our girl. On the plus side: she still has a good appetite (in fact, when we went for the office visit last week she was the heaviest she's been since her amp - over 48lbs! Although their scale is a bit wonky, so not 100% sure that's right...); she gets up and goes outside to do her biz on her own; she still wants to play with me now and then and will go to her basket and pick out a toy; and she follows me into the kitchen after dinner at night to "help" with the clean up.

This weekend, to cheer her up, I got out the remaining Barney. You may recall that when we ordered Abby her very own Barney to kill, the nice folks threw in a spare "Beanie Barney" for free. I haven't really wanted to give him to her since he is full of beans (I mean that literally and not euphemistically), and I figured she'd destroy him, like she always does with her toys, and there'd be wee Barney beans everywhere. So far, though, she's been very gentle with him. When I first gave him to her, she got hold of his hand in her mouth and just hung out there with him like that for a while.



Yesterday I took her to the park to just get outside and enjoy some fresh air. She had a good time, but it was unfortunately short-lived as the Parks Dept. people showed up and started spraying pesticide. Nice.



Hope everyone had a lovely holiday weekend. Although I caught my bro's miserable cold, we had a nice Thanksgiving at his house eating way too much yummy food and playing with the "Santa Hat" app on my sister's iPhone:

In other news, we've been felting again. This time we made a Rio for one of my friends from Tripawds.com.

This was my first attempt at adding a mouth/tongue.

Such a good girl to not eat the mini-Rio!

I'll let you know what happens with the x-ray tomorrow. We are worried but trying not to freak out.

My Big Weekend

Abby here. Mama said I could do the blog post today because she is busy. Mama says November is NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. To be all official-like, you have to sign up and post your progress. You are supposed to write ~1700 words/day but Mama is going rogue! She is doing her own thing with a friend and trying to get 1000 words done a day. Right now, Mama is doing laundry, making granola and working on her book all at the same time, so that leaves me to do the update.

I told Mama she should just stick a picture in her book, because 1 picture = 1000 words. Done for the day, and then she can play with me some more!

I am going to take my own advice and let the pictures tell the story:

Saturday, to celebrate my ONE YEAR ampuversary (Yah me!), we went to In-N-Out. 

The box says "animal fries" but it's not - it's my Flying Dutchman!

I got this flat pig. It squeaks. I hate that.

I tried to nap using Mama's shell of succulents as a pillow.

Sunday we had a big photo shoot with me in my Tripawd Warrior Princess cape and crown.

When we start TWP land, this'll be on the currency

Whaddya think? Cute? Yah, thanks. I know!

OK, enough adulation. I'm bored...

Then Mama put on my TWP outfit. She's so embarrassing.

In other news, we went to see my friend Dr. V. His dog, Hank was there. You might recall that Hank is was my boyfriend. The nice lady left me, Hank and Mama in the room together, and . . . this is hard for me to talk about . . . Hank gave Mama more kisses than me! WtH?? Whatever. There are a lotta other fish that lift their legs to pee. Or whatever that saying is. Anyway, after that two-timer left, Dr. V. came in and listened to my chest a long time - I think because he likes to hug me. He told Mama everything sounded just fine. (I guess he couldn't hear my broken heart!)

He talked to my Mama about taking pictures of me. He is weird. I know EVERYONE likes to take pictures of me, because I'm so beautiful, but he takes pictures of the INSIDES of me. Oh well, I guess it's because I am beautiful on the inside too! Mama is supposed to decide if she wants to see pictures of my insides again. If they look beautiful, than everything is good and I keep eating my spoonful of peanut butter and the little ball of braunschwager like usual. If they don't (which I doubt could happen) then Dr. V. said my Mama could try to give me something different in my little ball of braunschwager . I don't really care what they put in there, as long as it doesn't make my tummy hurt and as long as the ball of braunschwager keeps comin'! Anyway, I'm pretty sure the pictures would be beautiful. I don't take bad pictures!
I'm outta here. Kisses everypawdy!

P.S. from The Mama: we are trying to decide about the x-rays. If we look, and Boris and Natasha are being held at bay/not partying in there, then we'd happily keep doing what we've been doing. On the other hand, if we find that B&N are being bad renters and sub-letting space to all their stupid friends (do B&N have friends?) then we could drop all the stuff we are currently doing (cytoxan/piroxicam and our 'ancient Chinese secret', artemisinin) in favor of trying another at-home chemo drug, Masitinib. It is supposed to be similar to Palladia, but Dr. V. said he's seen dogs that do poorly on one do well on the other, so just because the Palladia didn't agree with her doesn't mean the Masitinib won't either. I was leaning toward not looking and just being blissfully ignorant, BUT...  a woman on Tripawds the other day posted that her dog's lung mets disappeared (!!!) after three months on Palladia. That kinda makes me wanna try the Masitinib. And, who knows, if the x-rays show that our current protocol is effective, we might not even need to try it. We'll see. Of course, I'll keep y'all posted. Now, back to work!

Votes & Something More Important

Abby's pic is up in the Union Tribune Dog Days of Summer photo contest. (Hopefully this voting widget thing works... You should be able to just click on it and vote for her.) It says you can vote once per hour, so have at it! Voting is open until July 29th.

As you can see, I went with the life guard picture. Counting the votes on the site and via email resulted in the watermelon pic edging out the life guard pic by one vote - that is, if Lou the Corgi's vote counts (which of course it does around here!). But (even though I personally prefer the watermelon pic) I thought this one would print up better in the paper. Not that it will actually make it to the paper... I was paging through the competition, just to see what sort of vote numbers others have so far, and some people are really cranking the votes. The dumb thing is that there is no official judging, so they may end up with winning pics that have no relation to summer. The photo I saw with the most votes is a blurry picture of a dog "driving" a car. What does that have to do with summer? Maybe if she was cruising the beach, but no, she's just sitting in the driver's seat. 

Anyway, more important than voting even is the fact that we need your crossed fingers/paws, good vibes, prayers, pagan rituals, whatever you are into so that Abby will have a good follow up x-ray tomorrow. I'm a little nervous about it. I hate sitting in the room alone while they whisk Abby to the back. Then I have to wait and wait, and then try to guess what the look on Dr. V's face means when he opens the door to have me come in the back and look at the x-ray with him. Last time he had a cold, and he sounded all choked up when he said "Come take a look" and I about had a heart attack - but it was just his stupid sore throat, and the Lone Met was still a loner. If it's still a loner tomorrow (oh pleeeeeze) we'll have a re-name the Lone Met contest. 

Will post an update tomorrow after her appointment. In the meantime, Abby got two new bandanas. She'd never worn a bandana before. Didn't realize she would tolerate one, but she looks darn cute in them! Especially the pink one, which was an 8-month ampuversary present from her cousin, Nick, and his girlfriend, Tee. (But really mostly Tee...) The other one is a "Tripawds Rule" bandana from the tripawds.com site. Stylish, eh?

Contemplating life...or maybe just a bug

Watching the sunset through the sage.

In other news, Mike brought home this ridiculously huge trophy the other day after winning the "first annual" badminton tournament at work. (Which is amusing because the stupid thing is bigger than the soccer trophy for the Women's World Cup and because he hasn't played badminton in, oh, about a decade or more.) 

Should have drunk champagne out of it while we had the chance.

Not quite the same, but easier to dust.

Luckily it turned out the BIG trophy will be a perpetual one, so it went back to the office, and we get this little commemorative one for home: 

Thanks in advance for the votes and the good vibes for Ab!