April 14, 2020.

Wow. We have had a couple of severely rough days!

About three nights ago Akeela began incessantly pacing around the bedroom. She was whining and panting and would occasionally yelp out suddenly. No amount of consoling would make her calm down. I decided to make an emergency vet trip at 2 am – fortunately our new oncologist is open 24/7.

During the exam they noticed that she is incredibly sore around her neck and back and has slight discomfort around her abdomen. They think it’s likely that she is having muscle spasms and may have some soft tissue damage from her body trying to compensate for the missing limb. She is now on FIVE medications – 300 mg Gabapentin, 50 mg Carprofen, 5 mg Hydrocodone, 500 mg Methocarbamol and 100 mg of Amantadine. Apparently the Amantadine can take a week + to kick in, so the Methocarbamol and Hydrocodone are intended to help with the pain until then.

She is also supposed to be on strict bed rest for the next 4 weeks – no more long walks, no more playing with toys, no more chasing the cat, no more jumping onto the patio, no more stairs 🙁 It’s tough because we have made so much progress within the last week, but I guess it was too much for her body to keep up with! Earlier this week she brought me all of her toys from her toy chest – she hasn’t done this since before the surgery! She was even stomping around the house squeaking them at me. The vet said that she cannot go up and down stairs now, but I have a flight of stairs at my complex. 70 lbs is a bit heavy for me to carry every time (I’m only 110 lb myself), so she is back to using the harness. I try to carry most of her weight now while we go up and down.

They also recommended that we hold off on our in-home rehab moves that we’ve been doing daily until she recovers. They said it is safe for her to continue with her rehab visits with the doctor, however, so we will definitely keep up with those. They said acupuncture specifically will do wonders for her.

I was nervous about mixing all these new medications, because every label says ‘may cause drowsiness.’ She gets knocked out with the 300 mg of Gabapentin alone! I was able to find a method of pacing them out so that she doesn’t take them all at the same time – Gaba and Carp together and then Metho and Hydro together about 4-5 hours later. She is completely knocked out during the day, which is just what the vet wants. She doesn’t wake up easily, but she can still be roused if I pet her or speak to her.

Unfortunately our nights are not so peaceful. I have not slept more than 4 hours in the past 3 nights. I am feeling a little delirious at this point. She wakes me up every time around 2 am with her panting, whining, pacing, yelping episodes. I usually end up giving her the meds about 2 hours early, because she is clearly in so much discomfort (I have alarms set for every 8 hours). I then sit on the floor with her for an hour to an hour and a half giving her entire body a doggy massage – otherwise she will pace around indefinitely. Once she is relaxed and laying down, she is able to fall back asleep.

The oncologist said that she should be on ‘kennel rest’ through this duration, but I don’t actually have a crate or kennel for her. I tried it briefly when she was a puppy, but we never really accomplished ‘crate training.’ She would scream and howl bloody murder for hours and hours – she was relentless. She would also poop in the kennel and then proceed to roll around in it. This happened almost every time. She was a very spiteful pup. So needless to say, I don’t have a kennel – nor do I particularly want to put her in one at this point in her life (she is already so anxious and uncomfortable). Instead, I kind of jurry-rigged a barricade for her out of my bedframe, a stool, and her extra bed (shown below). We’ll see how it works.

I’m really frustrated at this point, because the entire reason we moved forward with amputation was to keep her from being in pain. She is clearly in more pain and discomfort now than she ever was before the surgery. I want to do what’s best for her but it seems like I just don’t know what that is. I think I will forever be tormented by the sound of her yelps 🙁

Naturally the vets are always up front with their worst-case-scenarios, so now I have that looming in my mind. They said if she doesn’t improve within the next week, then they may need to do more testing on her. They said there is the potential that she has a herniated disk OR that the cancer has spread to other bones. I am praying to the Doggy Gods that it’s just sore spasmy muscles that will heal in the next 4 weeks!

We have our next chemo treatment and checkup tomorrow, so hopefully they’ll be able to provide some more insight…..