Month: March 2010

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after fighting an ugly infection in her remaining elbow, we decided that the chemo treatment would be completed with our vets.  they are the BEST, without a doubt.  i remain with gayle for every procedure, and the fear factor is greatly reduced for all. 

we had our first chemo treatment on monday march 4th.  gayle’s getting doxorubicin – projected to be five treatments (every 21 days), if she can tolerate it.   so far, so good.  she’s been pretty tired and rests alot since the treatment, but no ugly side effects so far.  a few soft poops, but nothing like i’d worried about. 

so, here we are, hanging out with many belly rubs and kisses…hoping for even more.  more ‘blog’ as we continue our path together!!

Tripawds is a user-supported community. Thank you for your support!

in january of 2010, we noticed (quite by accident) that the ‘wrist’ of gayle’s right leg seemed slighly swollen.  at first we thought spider bite, etc, but it didn’t go down.  there was no pain associated, so it didn’t seem like a ‘big deal’. 

our vet (and we LOVE our vet team at Bluegrass Animal Hospital in Knoxville) decided it was a bigger deal, and did a needle biopsy.  there were a few broken spindle cells, but, it wasn’t clear what was going on.  gayle went under the knife to do a biopsy (i was allowed to be with her the whole time, which was conforting to both of us) – the tumor wasn’t large, but it was very deep. 

the results from this indicated soft tissue sarcoma, high grade.  we went to the local vet school for further tests, etc.  no visible tumors elsewhere, with ultrasound, xray, etc.  gayle’s right front leg was removed on february 17th.

looking back, we probably should have kept all the procedures with our vets, but so much happened so fast…it seemed like the vet school was the best answer.  we had a few complications/issues but all is better now so i’ll not go into bashing mode here.  this is my only comment – when people or animals go to a ‘teaching hospital’, i get the idea that any outcome is a ‘learning experience’.  i just don’t feel they have a focus on the best for the patient in all aspects.  that’s just me.  anyway, gayle came home thursday february 18th, our beautiful tripawd sister.

well, here’s where we’ll start.  gayle came to live with us in may of 2000.  we’d recently lost our 10 yr old afghan hound in march, and i was still very ‘un-ready’ to rejoin life.  but, life has a way of reaching up to grab you if you’re ready or not.  coming home one nite, during a terrible thunder storm, i just decided to take a back road near the lake… i don’t know if phil (our afghan) lead me to gayle, or if he lead gayle to me – but during the drive i saw something fussing in the muddy ditch, and there she was.  no bigger than a minute…don’t know how she got there, but she ran to me and we’ve been together since. 

i’ve always said gayle’s alot like me, being sturdy and ‘farm girl’ like.  who knew the path we’d take together.

as a luddite, i’m not sure i’ll be the best representative for gayle here, but we’ll try to post as we go!!