Month: May 2023

I have no idea what we are going to do moving forward, but the bad news makes me even more determined to enjoy as many moments as I can with my girl. Today we went to a really lovely section of river and just enjoyed it with no expectations.

I won’t repeat myself too much from what I say in the video, but just want to state my amazement in how much it helped. I was able to refocus on what is really important, Ellie. Not Ellie’s potential life expectancy, just Ellie.

Just love this pup so much!

I started writing this to give everyone an update on Ellie- she went in today for her 3rd round of chemotherapy, chest x-rays, and an 8 hour serial blood draw. I was going to tell you guys how well she was doing. How we were enjoying the spring weather and excited for summer swimming. I was going to tell you about the new spring lambs we have and how seeing new life was such a joy. I was going to tell you how grateful I felt for Ellie’s recovery and how I needed to take a video of her running, because she runs identical now as she did with 4 legs. I was having fun writing another kind-of boring post because things were going smooth. But then the vet called.

Anyone going through this already knows what I’m going to say, probably. Ellie’s chest x-rays came back with signs of metastasis in her lungs. The original diagnosis was March 9th, and here we are after doing everything not even 3 months later and it’s already progressed, I’m just in utter disbelief. My one saving grace is she’s still at the vet so I can completely meltdown for a few hours.

I knew this was a possibility, all the vets I spoke with and everyone here it was very clear that the median survival rate was a year… That’s median, I’m not great at math, but I knew that means that some get more and some get less… I was prepared for less, I was not prepared for this much less. and I know it’s not over, I know when I go into the vet in a few hours the vet will go over all the options, but now the decisions are going to be more about what am I willing to have her suffer through. I’ve already made her suffer a lot and am already trying to not blame myself for not knowing the future- I would have never done it had I known we would already be facing this. I, like everyone here, thought I had more time. It’s ironic really, I just posted on the forum to someone else that “regardless of what happens you made the best decision you could with the information you had.” Rationally I know it’s good advice, but I want to go and tell my past self to shut up and leave me alone.

I have no answers, no ideas. All my original plans seem so stupid and naïve now. I’m going to go cry some more and hopefully be able to put on a smile for when I go pick-up Ellie. I’ll leave the video up of the lambs, I had put it in before *the call* and it seems cruel to not let you see it, sorry it’s not in better circumstances.

Tuesday was Ellie’s second treatment of carboplatin, and it was the 1st one where she wasn’t sedated (they did a skin biopsy last time) so it was my first time seeing how just the carboplatin affected her. I did give her 1/2 tablet (80mg) of Cerenia because she was showing signs of diarrhea and didn’t have an appetite, but no appetite issues after Tuesday evening- and even then I just had to put chicken broth on her food and she ate. She had a little diarrhea Tuesday evening, but that has cleared up as well. Maybe she didn’t need the cerenia, but honestly at his point I don’t care; if she’s showing any signs of discomfort I’m giving her something because she’s so stoic that if she shows signs it’s probably a lot more severe than it appears. She’s definitely been lower energy even through this morning. I am planning on going out on a mini hike today (if the weather permits) to see if we just need to get out of our routine a little. One bummer, she is onto me with her medication- she doesn’t want to take it with just peanut butter on it at this time. I know from reading on here I shouldn’t put it in her normal food ever because we don’t want her not trusting that so this morning I wrapped it in some ham and that was successful. Thankfully I’m only needing to give her one pill a day at this point (the study drug vismodegib).

Ellie is currently getting treatment at CSU veterinary hospital- it’s a large hospital and as such they have a large waiting room, they have it split into zones, but if it’s busy it can be a little stressful finding a spot where other dogs aren’t trying to get at yours or vice versa. When I first got in all the open spots were way at the back and I was trying to figure out the best way to maneuver back there with my giant puppers. a gentleman at the very front who was waiting for his dog to come back out ended up standing up and giving me his spot, I accepted graciously and we chatted a little. His dog was also a tripawd though I’m not sure if he had cancer or not. He was loving on Ellie and his wife came over and was loving on her as well and commenting about how good she was looking. Ellie being Ellie laid down and presented her belly in expectation of getting all the belly scritches possible, haha. I could tell they were stressed out, but before we could continue chatting the vet came out and was speaking to them. I didn’t hear the whole conversation mostly that their dog was doing just fine and it seemed the woman was worried about how far they could push him in activity. My heart broke because the woman broke down a couple times about not wanting to hurt him and never knowing how far was too far and feeling like an awful pet parent. Obviously I don’t know their circumstances, but I definitely know feeling like an awful parent, there’s just too many unknowns to not feel that way sometimes. Even though I’ve had a relatively easy go of it thus far(and for that I’m so grateful) any discomfort Ellie feels I wish I could take on myself instead ten fold if it meant her being comfortable, and the fact that I can’t makes me feel really guilty still. With that said- it does no good to berate myself for not being able to do the impossible and I continue to re-center myself and just go day by day focus on the good, balance out the bad and forgive myself/allow myself to only do the best I can on that day. We will get through today and be grateful that we don’t have to go back to the vet for 3 whole weeks (not quite true we do have a PT appointment, but that’s a spa day versus getting poked and prodded). Ellie and I can both relax a little more after going in every single week for the past 6 weeks (since the original vet visit where all this started less than 8 weeks ago we’ve gone to 10 different vet appointments- phew). Also- thank you lord to working a remote job with a flexible boss so I wasn’t haven’t to take PTO every time.

[Insert brilliant segue from heavy emotional talk to cute dog toys]

I impulse bought this mental stimulation toy and I’m kind of in love with it. It takes forever to fill (you have to roll each cloth with dog food/treats probably takes 5-7 minutes). It probably takes Ellie about 20ish minutes to get them all and she seems to really enjoy it! I have nothing more to say about it really except that I really need to stop buying these things, as there’s so many ways to make free ones! I just saw a video on “recycling day foraging boxes” that’ll I’ll have to try where you put food in boxes that will be recycled and then nest the boxes within each other and let your dog at it. I’ll have to try it and share when I do!

There’s my update for Miss Ellie! Hopefully my next few posts will be more about the adventures we are starting to go on vs how vet visits go! I hope everyone reading this has a great day and if you are also going through this with your pet my heart goes out to you and wish you all the healthy vibes!