Day 2736

I spent most of the day at the hospital. Our dogs have had every conceivable type of surgery over the years, but none of this really prepares you for surgery in a large metropolitan hospital. There are mountains of forms to sign. You can easily get lost in the labyrinth of hallways leading to your destination. It can all be fairly intimidating. I noticed that Janet's blood pressure was higher than normal when they looked at her vital signs in the pre-op staging area. The nurse just laughed. "Everyone's blood pressure is high in this room," she said.

While we were waiting, I met the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, a nurse-patient liaison, and more operating room nurses than I can remember. There was actually a second surgeon, but he was busy in another operation, and didn't introduce himself. Everyone was extremely professional and did their best to put us at ease.

There is no way to be relaxed about major surgery though. Janet was scared and I was just hoping that my innate fear of doctors and hospitals wasn't showing. I didn't want to make things worse. The only comfort was that Janet had done her homework and found a superb surgeon. Everybody said that this guy was the very best. When the anesthesiologist came to prepare her for the operating room, I went home to feed and walk Dash while waiting for the call that everything was OK.

The surgery went quicker than I thought it would. The first surgeon called about an hour an a half after I got home and the second surgeon called an hour after that to say everything was completed. Surgeons are not very talkative, but both seemed pleased with the results and said there were no complications.

When I went to visit Janet this evening after she got out of the recovery room, she was all hooked up to tubes and looked very tired. She was hungry though and said she wished they had brought her a ham sandwich instead of Jello and chicken broth. There was probably good reason that the doctors didn't want her to eat solid food right away. It was hard enough to get her to drink a glass of water through a straw. Janet wanted me to text her family and friends and let them know she was OK. This took forever, since I'm terrible at texting. I don't see how anyone can do this quickly. I can barely see the tiny keyboard.

If all goes well tonight, Janet will be released from the hospital later tomorrow. There will be a nurse that comes to the house for a while and then I will take over most of the post-op care. Dot prepared me well for being a caregiver, so I think everything will be fine.

It's been a long day. Actually, it's been a very long year. I often wish that life would return to normal, but lately I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as normal. When you get to know people well, you realize that nobody's life is all that normal. We are all dealing with things we never expected.

Barley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1899

I've been on pins and needles all day. Time passes very slowly when things are completely out of your control. We got up early this morning and drove Dot to the veterinary specialty center in Lewisville so she could be admitted for surgery. We filled out a bunch of paperwork, said goodbye to Dot, and then we waited. It was very quiet in the house today without Dot to warn us of cats and squirrels in the back yard. Even Dash could sense that something was wrong. I could tell Dot was scared when we were admitting her to the hospital this morning. I tried to reassure her, but I don't think I did a very good job. I was scared too

I tried to keep myself busy while I waited for the all important phone call from the surgeon. I went out to breakfast, even though it was almost lunchtime when we arrived back in Dallas. I finished a couple of writing assignments and sent them off to the client. I took Dash on a long and somewhat cold walk and then did a lot of pacing around the house. Finally, about 4:30 PM, the call I'd been waiting for arrived. The surgeon had good news. The arduous three hour surgery has gone well. The surgeon felt that she had been successful in removing the broken disc fragments in the L1 vertebrae that had been pressing on Dot's spinal cord. Now that the spinal cord is no longer compressed, the nerves will have a chance to heal and if we are lucky, Dot will walk again. Sometimes when a spinal disc ruptures, the fragments become attached to, or embedded in nearby blood vessels and are very difficult to remove. Dot was lucky. The fragments that had broken off and caused her paralysis were still clean and the surgeon was successful in removing all of them.

Dot is still not out of the woods yet, but she survived the surgery. That's the important thing. When the surgeon called, Dot was just waking up from anesthesia and was still under heavy sedation. She will be watched carefully tonight and for the next several days until her condition stabilizes. On Saturday, Dot's physical therapy vet will come to the hospital to give her acupuncture. This, along with cold pacs and laser treatments, will help reduce inflammation and speed healing.The best thing I heard from the surgeon today was that while Dot was waking up from anesthesia, she moved her rear legs. It was just a reflex action, but it means that there is still a nerve connection between the legs and the spine. There is hope.

Dot will spend the next five days in the hospital. While she is recovering, Janet and I will try to prepare the house for her return. We will need to connect the rooms with rubber backed carpet runners so Dot can safely move about without slipping on the brick floors. We will construct a "safe" area where we can leave Dot for short periods of time when we have to leave the house. It is very difficult to crate a large dog with leg injuries, so I am envisioning something that can be placed securely around a dog bed, so she cannot attempt to get up and move about on her own without supervision. Even if things go very well, we will have to continue to support Dot using the Help 'Em Up Harness for quite a while.

Our very first Dalmatian had spinal surgery to remove a tumor when he was eight years old. Spot's recovery was difficult for all of us, but he did learn to walk again and continued to live a happy life. I'm hoping that Dot can do the same. Spot's spinal surgery was the first. I'm hoping that Dot's will be the last. After dealing with nine difficult surgeries on five different dogs, I'm not sure I have the stamina to do this again.

Bingo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1680

Dot is resting in the ICU after a very long and arduous day. Sometimes waiting is the hardest thing of all. I could hardly breathe until I got a call from Dot's surgeon toward the end of the day. "The procedure went exactly as expected," he told me. This is as close to joy and elation as you'll ever get from a surgeon. Surgeons are extremely matter-of-fact. This is a good thing. You wouldn't want an overly emotional surgeon cutting you open. I've talked to surgeons before and I was delighted with his short message. I could tell from the tone of his voice that the surgeon was pleased. He should be. This was a difficult and somewhat risky surgery and he had succeeded in allowing Dot to move forward and continue her journey to recovery. Dot isn't out of the woods yet, but a thumbs up from her surgeon was the best news I've heard all week.

It was a very long day. I got up at dawn to walk Dash before we drove to the cancer center to have a consultation with Dot's surgeon before she was wheeled into the operating room. You have to bite your lip when talking to surgeons. He mentioned risks that I had never even considered. I trust him though. This was the same surgeon who had expertly removed Dash's cancerous thyroid without any of the complications that are often associated with thyroid tumors. Later in the day when he called to let us know how Dot was doing, he told me that he was very glad that Janet and I had been proactive and gone to the extra step of having a CAT scan. "Sometimes, this is the only way to find these tumors," he said, adding that the growth was even larger than he expected and that if it hadn't been removed, Dot would have definitely died.

As soon as we got Dot checked in for surgery, I drove Janet across town to another hospital and we got her checked in for her colonoscopy. We both have a colonoscopy every five years and today was her turn. I basically spent the day driving back and forth between one hospital and the other. Veterinary Specialists of North Texas is much smaller than the huge complex of buildings at Baylor, but it is every bit as advanced. If you have a very, very sick pet, I would highly recommend VSNT. If I was very sick myself, I would want to go to Baylor. My own liver doctors practice at Baylor and most of Janet's doctors are there as well.

The next few days are critical for Dot. Ileus is always a risk after abdominal surgery. This intestinal paralysis is usually temporary, but if the tiny muscles inside the intestines do not begin functioning again after surgery, food can't move through the intestines causing serious complications. There is always a danger that the sutures won't hold either. It usually takes four or five days before you're out of the woods with abdominal surgery. I'm going to remain positive though. Dot passed a very important milestone in her road to recovery this afternoon.

I'm glad that Dot has so many friends. Three different vets who have Dot as a patient contacted me today to check on her progress. Her medical team is larger and much nicer than mine. Sometimes I worry about what will happen to Janet and I as we grow older and start to fall apart. Dot and Dash will always have someone to look out for them. I think we're going to be on our own.

I'm not sure if we'll be able to see Dot tomorrow. She's still pretty fragile. I hope that she sleeps well tonight and that her intestines begin working normally again as soon as possible. If we're really lucky, the doctors say she might be ready to eat a little food tomorrow evening.

Pongo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1534

I got a phone call form Dash's surgeon at about 3 PM this afternoon. He told me that the procedure went as planned. Surgeons are different than other doctors. They are very matter-of-fact, displaying little of the warmth and empathy that veterinarians are famous for. I actually like this. I usually misinterpret emotion and empathy anyway, so I prefer sticking to the facts. The facts in this case were fantastic. The surgeon was able to remove the entire tumor with no serious hemorrhaging issues. Hemorrhaging is typically a problem with thyroid tumors, since these fast growing cancers quickly develop their own vascular system, which can cause serious bleeding problems when the tumor is removed. Dash is resting in the ICU now. The hospital will keep him under observation for several days to make sure there is not any internal bleeding, and then he will be released.

The most important thing now is to find out the results from the pathology report. The tumor is sent off to a lab for analysis and they determine exactly what kind of cancer it is. It often takes up to two weeks to get these results and they will determine what happens next. Certain types of cancers will require no further treatment. Other types will require radiation to eradicate the remaining malignant cells. The most aggressive forms of cancer might require a combination of radiation and chemotherapy. That's all in the future though. For now, Dash is doing well. The surgeon was very pleased and said it was very lucky that we caught this tumor so early. He said that two or three months from now, the outcome might have been very different.

The ironic thing about this whole situation is that a tick might have saved Dash's life. Vets are always trying to get me to use a flea and tick preventative like Frontline on Dot and Dash. I am very reluctant to do this, because both dogs have very sensitive skin and when I have used these topical preventatives in the past, their skin quickly becomes red and raw. Instead, I check the dogs carefully for ticks every evening. That's how I found the tumor.

It was amazing that I got any work done at all today, since most of my time was consumed with the dogs. When I wasn't up at the cancer center with Dash, I was over at the physical therapy center with Dot. Dot is the good news dog of the week. She has completely recovered from her episode of eating the bedroom carpet and seems to have more energy now. Her new perkiness may be the result of a new drug we are trying that is supposed to reduce the onset of Canine Cognitive Dysfnction. I guess this is what they call Alzheimers in dogs. The active ingredient in this product is supposed to protect nerve cells in the brain from damage associated with excessive calcium levels. Some vets are very skeptical, saying that the apoaequorin that that is supposed to prevent dementia will never even reach the brain in a pill and is destroyed by the dog's stomach acid instead. All I know is that Dot is definitely perkier and more alert this week.

I got a call from the specialty pharmacy today saying that my second shipment of Sovaldi and Rabavirin will arrive by FedEx tomorrow. This means I am already one third of the way through my 12-week treatment. The way they ship these pills, you'd think I was receiving a shipment of gold coins. As much as the Sovaldi costs, they might as well be sending me gold coins.

On a totally unrelated note, Baidu shares surged in after hours trading after the company released fourth quarter results that were much better than analysts expected. Yay! I still own some Baidu stock. Maybe this fortuitous turn of events will help me pay for Dash. Hepatitis-C and cancer have certainly taught me one thing: modern medicine is breathtakingly expensive. It may be worth it though. Dash and I are both still alive. Thanks for all the kind words I received from you guys today. It means a lot to me that you are thinking about Dash.

Bingo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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