X-rays and Cabin Fever

Yesterday we had some good news.   Both our regular vet as well as the oncologist we have an appointment with on Monday wanted x-rays of Molly's chest and abdomen, to check for any metastasis of the lymphoma.  I was working and unable to get her to the vet for the x-rays, and it was driving me crazy.   Vince thankfully got done work early and the clinic fit us right in.

And we got some good news: Molly's x-rays show no signs of cancer!   Hopefully this means she is in early stage lymphoma.   It sure feels like a step in the right direction.

The clinic actually e-mailed me the x-rays so of course I have been obsessing over them.   I am an x-ray tech at a hospital so I know "just enough to get me in trouble."   I did notice that Molly has a lot of stool in her abdomen, and she did poop two times after the x-rays!   She is on amoxicillin right now, and I have been feeding her extra so have to blame it on that.   But anything remotely roundish in the bowel patterns has me still worrying, afraid to believe the negative reading on the x-rays.   Worrying, it's who I am!

Frontal Chest 

Lateral (Side View) Abdomen

Lateral Chest

Frontal Abdomen

The vet did want us to try to ice the throat area a little bit more because the area is still swollen.  Molly hates having her throat iced.   The only time she cooperated was when she was still stoned from anesthesia.   Any further attempts have been met with head-ripping-away and if I fail to get the hint she just gets up and moves away from me!  In fairness to her, I have been using a plastic bag filled with ice, or a cooler ice pack wrapped in a towel - not really the best set up.   I am in search of better options.   You can see how saggy her throat is in this photo, and then there is a lot of general throat swelling.   The sagginess has improved overnight, so maybe the small amount of ice-wrestling I was able to accomplish helped.   Stubborn bitch!

Molly is getting restless!   She usually gets at least a few miles walk once or twice a week, or a night out training - with weekends of either trials or hiking.   Lately, there has been none of that.   I plan to do more nosework training with Molly.   Today I pulled out our workout peanut and did a bit of core strengthening with her.   Mostly because she was driving me crazy pesting me and I wanted her to have a little bit of fun.

One day at a time, we will figure out our "new normal."