Back to the Beach

We went back to the beach today for the first time since the "toe incident" last week. Abby was more than ready to go back after four days sans-beach! The first day went OK, because we were busy - she had to go to her oncologist appointment and then we went to visit our friend Mazli, plus we had our little Arby's picnic at the park, so all that tired her out. Day Two was OK as well - she was a little tired from the pain meds and content enough with just a wee walk in the neighborhood and a photo shoot (she always enjoys a bit of modeling):

"How cute am I?"

Is this what they mean by "get a long little doggy"?

Chilling & watching mama make dinner

But, by day three she'd had enough laying around! She took her frustrations out on Barney, starting with turning him into a tripawd:

Day Four she turned him into a uni-pawd with a purple colostomy bag. (That little bag actually holds the remains of his music-box-innards. Luckily we no longer have to hear that song!)

So today I pretty much had to take her back to the beach or there's no telling what she might have chewed next. Here is a very short video to show that she was feeling fine. (Ignore my high squeaky voice... In fact, you might want to turn the volume down so it doesn't pierce your ear drum...)

It was pretty quiet at first, as you can see from the mostly empty beach in the video, but we did run into some of her friends later and she had a good time playing. She did stumble once on some of the softer, deeper sand, so I think her toe might still hurt a wee bit, but she is not about to let it slow her down. I wish she would be a little more careful with herself, but that is not part of her plan.

One last little thing - remember Lylee, the Tripawd Warrior Princess with her pink cape who I mentioned in my last post? Well, we found out last night that she is the lucky latest stop on the continuing Kill Barney Tour. Check out the link for some cute pics of her and her Monkeybutt siblings with the box o' Barney. [If you missed it, I explained Monkeybutts here.]

Thanks for reading and for the well wishes for Abby!

And Yet More Worrying!

Let me just cut to the chase and say Abby had a good check up. But not before scaring us, yet again.

This latest round of scaring started last night. We were watching the Rugby World Cup (which is INSANE and so interesting to watch, btw. If you've never watched rugby before, it's pretty fascinating. You can't believe the things that happen to these big beefy dudes and how they throw themselves at each other - and yet, no one ever gets carried off on a stretcher! At least, not that we have seen yet...) Anyway, we were watching US v. Russia - nothing like a good old cold war rivalry - and the US was doing well*, so Mike yelled "Go!", and Abby went.... She started racing up and down our long stretch of hardwood floor and spazzing out, and then suddenly pulled up lame. She flopped over onto the area rug and held up her lone good front leg out as if to say, "This hurts really bad!

Panic set it, but after a few minutes of resting, she was up and hopping about again. Then in the night I heard her get up to bark at something. She must have re-hurt herself, because in the morning she could barely walk. I attempted to carry her around all morning (she insists on being in whatever room I'm in), which was just barely doable. She is "only" 45 lbs, but rather unwieldy.

I got her oncologist visit rescheduled to an earlier time, got the Tripawds folks busy sending positive thoughts (or "pawsitive" as we like to say on the site - yes, we are silly that way), and hoped it wasn't a case of the cancer spreading to her good leg.

At her appointment, Dr. V. messed with her shoulder, ankle, wrist and toe and the only time she fussed was with the toe. Hooray! He said it doesn't seem swollen at all so is probably just a mild sprain. He said it is very very rare for OSA to spread to a toe, so not to worry. He said to give her tramadol for the pain and only do short leash walks in the neighborhood for a few days. No beach. But that is good timing as Fiesta Island is closed for 3 days because of some big silly boat race thingy, so we couldn't go there anyway. If all goes well she can go back to the beach next week. :)

In other good news, he listened to her lungs for a good long time and said they sounded great. He said if we didn't know the mets were in there (damn Boris & Natasha!) he wouldn't be able to tell there was anything wrong with her. In additional good news, she weighed 47 lbs, which is great as we are trying to get her weight up just a bit. To celebrate all the good news, Abby and I stopped at Arbys and got a roast beef sandwich for lunch. We stopped at the park and shared it. :)

Next appointment will be for x-rays to check on Boris & Natasha on Oct 28 – just one day shy of her one year ampuversary!!

Sorry I have no pics of Abby to share today. I hate to have a post without any pics, so I'll just post this drawing I did that I put up on Facebook and on the Tripawds site, so most of you have already seen it. We've been joking lately on the Tripawds forums about "Tripawd Girl Power" and how our hero girls needed some pink capes, so I did this drawing of some Tripawd Warrior Princesses (TWP) - that is Abby in the middle. 

One of the ladies ran with my idea and made a pink cape for her TWP, Lylee. Here is Lylee modeling her cape (with sparkles even!) at a Tripawds get together in Northern California. Wish we could have gone!

Unfortunately, Abby didn't have a pink cape to wear to her appointment today, but she wore her Tripawds bandana instead, and I'm sure it brought her good luck. 

Thanks for reading and thanks for thinking good thoughts for our girl! 

* The US won! The matches are on Universal Sports Network - you should check one out. It makes American football look like powder-puff girls.