A Very Long Day

What a loooooong day. We were told that Lacey would be one of the first dogs operated on. From 11:00 on, I was obsessed with my phone. Every 5 minutes I kept pulling it out of my pocket to see if I had missed a call.  I finally caved at 1:30 and called. They couldn't tell me anything - whether the surgery had happened, whether she was currently in surgery or if she was still waiting.  I called again at 4:00. That's when I found out she still hadn't been operated on and was last one on the list.  After going out for dinner and STILL not hearing anything we just went down there at about 7 pm. She was out of surgery. Yay. Turns out they decided not to remove the toe, they just fused the two together - which is probably why her surgery got pushed to the end of the day as it no longer required bone removal (which is riskier and they prefer a better sterilized room).  We got to see her really briefly and she seemed good.

By the time we got there I was a bit of a stress case and it didn't help knowing that she had probably been a stress case the entire day. I wish they had called - we could have picked her up and hung out with her for most of the day. It would have been way better on all of us. Even just knowing about the delay would have helped.

Anyway, it's done. Hopefully for good.

Lacey's Vet Visit

Lacey saw the Oncologist today.

We heard the best news we could hope for... She was very optimist and doesn't think it is has spread!  :)

Tomorrow we will be getting up bright and early and bringing her back to get a toe and a half removed.  The growth is on the side of her second toe but in order to ensure clean margins and make sure we have enough tissue to close up the incision, we've decided to remove her first toe (the outside toe) completely and part of her second toe. They'll use the skin of the outside toe to close up the gap that the tumour removal will leave on her second toe.

We could have opted to just partially remove both toes, but then we wouldn't be able to get as wide a margin as they want and we'd end up fusing the two toes together to seal up the gap.  Apparently the middle two toes do all the work anyway and the outside ones are just "window dressing".  Her own dog has had an outside toe removed due to a bad break, and her gait hasn't even been affected.  She is thinking it will be similar for Lacey.

Before surgery, we could have tested to see if it had spread elsewhere but we are opting not to.  The first place it would go to is a lymph node in her shoulder/arm and as far as the oncologist can tell, it isn't swollen like it would be if it was affected.  It is so small she didn't think she'd even be able to get a sample from it with a needle.  However, when they are removing the tumour, they are also going to remove the lymph node and get it checked by a pathologist just to be sure.  If the cancer hasn't travelled that far yet, we know it hasn't gone anywhere else either.

She needs to spend the night at the clinic so we are going to stay in Calgary so we can visit her. Besides, driving back and forth 3 days in a row just seemed a bit much.  We are going to try and distract ourselves with the Zoo while she is getting operated on and recovering from the anesthetic.  They said we could come visit as soon as she is able to lay like a sphinx.  :)  I'm hoping we can be there later too when they try and feed her as she won't be released unless she is able to take pain meds orally.  I'm worried she will be too stressed to eat for them.

We should know by Tuesday next week (at the latest) if the surgery worked. If so, there will be nothing left for us to do!  Incredible to believe that the entire turn around time will be 2 weeks!  No wonder my head is spinning.

Sunday Morning

Lacey and I met up with Deirdre, Cricket and Jetta Saturday morning for a walk.  As always, we started at Starbucks and went from there.  :)

We decided to head out to Fort Macleod for a little romp.  Without her trusty sidekick, Lacey was a little more reserved than usual, but she still had fun.

Unfortunately for the short dogs, photos are few and far between in Fort Macleod - too many plants.  :) Not that the dogs were complaining.

We were out with three dogs (including a lab cross) and not one would go out and fetch a stick in the water.  ;)  They really wanted it though...

With only 3 dogs instead of our usual 4, we were able to carpool.  Lacey wasn't too sure what to think about riding on a seat instead of in a crate, but she figured it out in the end.

Next up in our adventures is a trip to the farm...

Beach Picnic

We went out to one of our favourite places today - St. Mary's Reservoir.

We hadn't been there since the snow and reservoir had melted and it was nice to be back.  Lacey was so excited she just ran random circles for the first few minutes.

We brought two toys today - one for each of them.  A "squeaka squeaka" for Lacey...

And the Lighthouse for Coulee. Unfortunately, some things don't always go as planned...

She did get to play with it.

At least briefly. :)

We are done wallowing and we are getting on with living.

As this might be the last weekend Lacey will have all her bits, we decided to make it a fun one.  I've cancelled any extra work I had coming up - photo sessions, my photography class, etc. as I didn't want to spend the next few weeks working any more than I have to.  Right now, it's all about fun.

So today we did a family walk - just the four of us.

We brought lunch and after walking for a bit, we just sat and enjoyed the day, the weather, the scenery and the company.  I love the photo below of Marlin and Lacey, but I hate that I can see the stupid tumour. Even so, editing it out seemed wrong.

Lacey did her best to convince us to share our cheese.

Coulee did her best to convince us to keep playing.

This is her "hurt and confused" look.  What have you done with the toy???

Tomorrow we have 2 walks planned.  One in the morning and one in the afternoon. Lacey will be yucking it up with a few of her doggy BFF's.  She's going to be exhausted. I'm sure there will be photos.  :)

Coulee will be taking the day off to rest her feet. She hardly stayed calm and mellow today although we did our best to do more swimming than running.

Something So Little

It was Tuesday night and I was sitting in a "Confident Canine" obedience class when I spotted it.  Lacey's toe was swollen.  My first thought was "WTF?  When did that happen?  She must have gotten a sliver or something in there on our walk.  Poor girl.  It must not feel very good."

The next morning I phoned the vet and made an appointment for that afternoon to have it looked at.  It wasn't until later that morning that I even considered it could be something other than a bug bite or an infection of some sort.  I started to look back through pictures on the blog and I think it's been there for a while.  I'm pretty sure it was there at the beginning of March and maybe even into February.  (It is hard to tell because if her feet were in focus, her head probably wasn't, so I would have deleted the pictures.  But you can kind of see a thickening of the one toe if you look closely.)

We had a needle aspiration done yesterday and they called this afternoon with the results...

Mast Cell Tumor - aka Cancer.  I held it together for as long as I could on the phone, but the poor vet had to deal with some blubbering at the end.  When I hung up the phone I just sobbed.  Work this afternoon was not fun.

It has hit me like a brick out of left field.  She's young, she's happy, she's healthy - or so I thought.  There are no symptoms except this tiny little lump between her toes.

How can something so little, be so bad?

We have an appointment with an Oncologist on Monday. She'll help us figure out what stage it is in - Stage I is good.  Stage III is bad. Best case scenario - she'll have a toe amputated and that will solve the problem.  Worst case scenario - it will have already spread and be too late.  I'm trying to not obsess over things and use Dr. Google too much until we know more, but it is hard not to.  I'm trying to comfort myself with knowledge but it isn't really helping.

I've spent all afternoon and evening randomly bursting into tears without notice.  All it takes is a simple thought.  So while I wanted you all to know, I don't want to talk about it.  If you know me in person please no sympathetic glances, or comforting hand squeezes or "I'm sorry's".  I won't be able to take it and I'm going to try and not spend the next 4 days as a blubbering mess - at least not while I'm in public.

Just a Picture

Lacey's been feeling a little neglected on the blog lately so I thought I'd share a picture. We were practicing some "obedience" at the park and it never takes long for her to default to her favourite trick.

Before and After

Before....

And after....