On Saturday, April 11, 2020, Akeela and I had a Memorial for her missing limb 🙂 We never got a chance to have a proper goodbye, so we decided to have a little ceremony while she was in good spirits.

For Akeela’s Long Lost Leg

This memorial is in honor of Akeela’s long white leg, rest in peace.

For 13 years it carried her along trails, over mountains, through rivers, and besides her mom.

On March 18, 2020 Lady-Right-Forefront-Paw was taken from us, due to unforeseen circumstances.

The tragedy happened quickly and we had little time to grieve.

Life will be harder without you, and you will be missed by many.

Go now peacefully, as we will be reunited with you on the other side.

@tripawdakeela

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…..

April 9th, 2020

Yesterday marked our third week since surgery. This week has been a bit odd for us, but we did have a lot of big accomplishments!

Earlier this week I assisted Akeela out onto our patio, so that she could watch the geese and our neighbor dogs. By the second day she was able to make it in and outside completely by herself! There is an 8 inch step where the heater runs, so it takes some effort for her to get over it. I went to grab something from the other room one day and I heard a little thump. When I came back into the room she was standing inside. Guess she didn’t want to be left alone!

Instead of a quick out-and-in potty break, we now take 15-20 minute slow sniff walks around the complex. We do these about 3 times a day – in addition to about 2 normal quick breaks. We have stairs outside our unit, so every time we are heading back in we do our run through the following rehab moves: front ups, front ups with weight shifting, and cookie stretchers. The other rehab moves are a little more challenging for her and she gets frustrated pretty quickly, so we only do them once a day. Those would be sit-to-stands, backing up, circling, and leg hurdles.

She has always been an *incredibly* picky eater. Her ‘regular’ diet consists of 1 cup of American Journey dog kibble, 1 cup of Dr Marty’s raw dehydrated food, 1/2 cup of canned pumpkin, 1-2 cups of boiled chicken (one of the worse smells imaginable), 1 TB beef liver powder, and a scoop of her powdered multi-vitamin. She has eaten this combination for about 5 years now, though I occasionally have to mix in some random variations to keep her interested – like salt free canned tuna. Since surgery I have had to hand feed her every meal, otherwise she won’t eat. Nothing quite like getting a sloppy handful of boiled chicken and beef liver! Well, today marked the first day since surgery that she willingly ate her dinner out of the bowl. It’s the little wins 🙂

She has always been an alpha and will lift a back leg to mark her territory. She has attempted to do this a couple of times now since surgery. She had her right front leg amputated (still such a difficult word for me to say and write), which makes it a quite challenging – and a little comical – to watch when she tries to lift her back right leg to pee as well. Turns out dogs don’t have such good balance when standing only on one back and front leg of the same side…..

Although she has been getting back to her more energized and sassy self, we have had a couple of unfortunate hiccups along the way. When she is moving she doesn’t seem to be in any discomfort or pain, but she will act very uncomfortable when she tries to lay down. She will be dead asleep and all of a sudden jump up out of nowhere. She will look around confused and startled and will sometimes even bolt across the room. Occasionally she will even let out a little yelp 🙁 Night time seems to be the worst and most noticeable, because she will pace around the bedroom and pant heavily.

It’s difficult, because we are seeing so much progress in other aspects, but then she has these obvious bouts of pain. After speaking with her new oncologist, we are back on Gabapentin. I was a little resistant to get her back on it only because the 300 mg pills completely knock her out – I routinely have to check her breathing throughout the day to make sure she’s still alive! We dropped her down to 200 mg, which seems to be helping a little more. She is back to sleeping most of the day, but she is still able to get up and go outside for extended walks. It was difficult to even get her out of bed when she was taking the 300 mg dose.

She is still getting Carprofen (anti-inflamatory) 2x’s per day, in addition to CBD oil and the Dasaquin joint supplement. I am hoping that this magic combination will help her feel better and recover comfortably. Fortunately we have not seen any negative side effects of the chemotherapy, so I am very fortunate for that.

Chemo and rehab visit #2 next Wednesday, so we’ll have another update then!

Akeela and Sabreezle, enjoying our spring views <3

April 2, 2020

Yesterday was a big day for Akeela! She had her stitches removed, was given her first dose of chemotherapy, and had a rehab therapy consultation. I could barely get her out of the car by the time I got home. In fact, we had to carry her up the stairs!

Today will be her last day of pain medication. She stopped taking her Gabapentin (nerve pain) yesterday and will be having her last Carprofen (anti-inflamatory) this evening.

Akeela will be receiving a drug called Carboplatin 4 times every 3 weeks. They start at a published dosing and then fine tune it depending on how the patient reacts. The main side effects the oncologist said to look out for are diarrhea, vomiting, and an incredibly weakened immune system (flu like symptoms). They sent me home with an anti nausea and anti diarrhea medication just in case. If she does experience flu like symptoms, then I will need to bring her back to the emergency vet ASAP, as she will need to be monitored over night. Here’s to manifesting a complication-free  first round of chemotherapy!

She has slept most of today, as I think she is still completely exhausted from her vigorous day on the town yesterday. I attempted to go through some of our rehab activities today, but was only able to get through about half of them. She kept trying to lay down in her bed, which I finally had to pick up. I could tell she was getting frustrated with me by the end. One of the things I am supposed to do with her is massage her over compensating back muscles – surprisingly, she wasn’t a fan of this either.

Up until now, Akeela has only slept on her left side. This puts her scar side facing up. Today she actually slept on her ‘bad’ side, which was shocking for me. The rehab therapist did say it was important for her to get comfortable sleeping and laying on both sides. It definitely did not look comfortable for her (image below) and watching her try to get herself upright was pretty upsetting and difficult to watch. I’m hoping that with time she will feel good enough to maneuver between both sides.

Our next chemotherapy and rehab session are scheduled for mid April. I hope I don’t have anything too remarkable to report before then!

Every day gets a little easier for the both of us. Aside from my emotional conversation with the Oncologist yesterday, the last time I cried was 3 days ago. Whoo!

Tripawds.com offers an incredibly generous scholarship opportunity for individuals who take their dog to rehab therapy. Below is part of my essay that I submitted for this grant –

April 1, 2020