Molly Paw X-rays

I took Molly to our regular vet tonight to have her foot examined again and to have x-rays done.   For my own peace of mind, I really wanted x-rays done so that I could stop worrying about bone cancer or a (stress) fracture.

The story has not changed.   Molly has arthritic changes from her hard driving, rockstar lifestyle and there really isn't much to be done except rest her for a while, manage the pain, and hope for the best.

I feel sad.  

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."

Defanging and X-raying the Moo

I noticed a cracked tooth in Molly's bottom jaw a few weeks ago and groaned.  When Ein had his carnassials broken, they were not like this.   The tooth was slab fractured diagonally as well as a small crack in another direction.  It was also starting to turn grey and I was worried that it would break off and become very painful.  At times the tooth would bleed out of the crack.  

I took Molly for her "pre operative" exam and bloodwork last week, and yesterday was the big day.  I requested hip x-rays for Molly while she was sedated, just because I am curious and it is good to know these things.

Everything went great with the extraction of course.  Molly was discharged to me in an exam room and as soon as she saw me she let out a delusional shriek and then would not stop crying!  She whined, chattered and stared into space.  Molly had a similar recovery from anesthesia several years ago when her mouth was injured with a stick.   Clinginess, crying...total pathetic behavior!

The vet and I went over the x-rays while Molly sang miserable chattering pitbull songs.  Molly is not dysplastic, but she is showing some arthritic changes.  I have had Molly on glucosamine chondroitin for about a year now, but the vet recommended moving to Dasuquin.  Ein takes Dasuquin regularly with wonderful results, so I am happy to do so.   She also recommended some cold laser therapy, another thing that Ein has benefited tremendously from.  I am going to need to make an effort to get Ein and Molly both to somebody for cold laser treatments at least one time per month!  The only other thing was that the vet pointed out a calcification on Molly's left knee, evidence of a past strain.  Molly's knees felt good on manipulation currently, though.

I feel like this was all good information for me to have, even though I'm not really sure how that bad 10,000 mph brindle puppy will be six years old next Friday and has arthritis starting in her hips!   But what can I expect from a hard hitting girl like Molly.  She's in great shape, has amazing muscling in her rear, and will respond well to Dasuquin I'm sure.

Molly is enjoying her vet recommended wet foot diet (so that her gums can heal).   At this point, 24 hours post op, Molly is back to her normal food hound annoying self.  I will cut the Tramadol down to half the dose tomorrow morning and see how she feels with that.   Her mouth looked sore and angry this morning, but this evening it has really calmed down and looks great.  

A Nasty Surprise

I recently learned some pretty rotten news about Ein.  When his limp did not improve after a week of anti inflammatory meds, the vet decided that we should do some x-rays of his legs.  We x-rayed his shoulders and elbows and his hips and knees.  What we discovered shook me to my core.

Ein has terrible, terrible dysplasia in both hips.  He has probably had it his entire life.  The right hip is the worst, it is arthritic and the femoral head is not even sitting in the "joint" (probably because, there is no joint.)  The left hip is agonizingly arthritic and jagged.  I did a Google search for arthritic hip dysplasia.  I had a hard time finding a set of hips worse than Ein's hips.

The top hips are a set of healthy hips.  The bottom x-ray is Ein's x-ray.

How could this be?  He has been like this for a long, long time - and I had no idea.  It is hard not to feel guilty and as though I have been totally clueless and insensitive.  We have hiked literal hundreds of miles together over rocks, up steep mountains, into caves.  He has swam rivers, lakes, creeks.  He has probably clocked just as many hours chasing a ball, hard and fast as many border collies might.  I have always been so proud of his long legs, his reasonably fit little body, his muscles.  He has always kept up with the big dogs, and never batted an eye.  And in the past few years, he has been running agility and doing jumps on Rally-O courses.  He just keeps on going.

So, looking back, when Ein preferred to sleep under the desk instead of going hiking with me?  I can only guess he was in too much pain and just felt like taking a nap instead.  When the girldogs ran into him and hurt his right foreleg two weeks ago, he was out a third leg to support his weight on.  And that is what made me finally notice.  He truly hid the hip pain well.  Just in 2012 he did a total of 50 backpacking miles in two trips without batting an eye.

So where do we go from here?

I scratched his entry in the AKC Agility trial.  I scratched his RAE entry in the Rally-O trial.  He is and has been on strict rest.  I am restarting him on Glucosamine and I am going to be faithful about giving it to him.  Since I am dramatic, and neurotic, I feel like the dog my dog has always been has been taken from me.  Our fun and active life together is now over.  It said Goodbye and I was not listening.  What was the last great hike that we took?  It wasn't great enough to have been our last.

I am taking Ein to a Rehab Vet Hospital tomorrow to have his foreleg evaluated more thoroughly, and to form a plan regarding his hips.  I want to know our Options.  I want to do the best things for him, and I want to possibly see him be able to continue gentle hikes and to play some ball, and to be able to enjoy some of the things that were business as usual when he was younger.  I don't know if he will be able to play agility anymore.  I don't know about Rally-O (Besides Veterans class.)  At this point, I just want his foreleg to get better so that he has at least one set of legs that aren't falling apart (his forelegs have some arthritis, but nothing dramatic.)  I want us to just be able to go for walks together without him being in pain.  But mostly, I just want him to be comfortable and happy.

"Miles to go before I sleep..."