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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!
She is beautiful!!! Amd clearly verry, loved!!
I want to come back when I can really catch up on your blog, but I just wanted to throw out a quick observation on this post.
I know it’s hard to be patient and takes things s,only at first.
Your sweet girl is recovering fron MAJOR surgery and dhe is a senior.She just got her stitches out, dhe had chemo, she had acupuncture AND rehab all on the same day! Of course she is exhausted!!
If at all possible, try and avoid stairs for now. At the very least help her with a harness or towel aling. As a senior, she needs to take things a bit slower and at her own pace. If she kept trying to get in her bed today she was trying to tell you it was too much. So stay calm and co fident snd upbeat and do things at HER pace.
And also, many dogs stay on pain meds going into the third week. I feel like she is showing you some paun signs. She may still be in pain and the meds may needed to be given CONSISTENTLY for a few more days before tapeing off. Yeah, not relaxing into a massage means she could still be hurting.
So maybe for now, wait a couple of days and then just do one or two of the “exercises” for just a couple of repetitions, rather than do all at this point.
And definitely feed her anything she will eat right now. Cheeseburgers, scrambled eggs, bacon, chicken…whatever you can get her to eat.
Anyway, gonna come back and read her backstory. Just wanted to make these suggestions as maybe slowing things down a bit and give her more time to recover before doing too much all at once.
She’ll get her sparkle back, slowly but surely!! Hang In there! Your doing a great job.
Oh, one more thing. It took my Hapoy Hannah several weeks before she laid on her surgery side. Some do it sooner. Some take longer. Again, just let her do things at her own pace
And here’s a link on pain management.
Extra higs
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!
Hello,
Thank you for your feedback! I have never been through this before, so I guess I just don’t know what to expect 🙂 I do have stairs at my apartment, but I use a velcro harness with handles (Kurgo brand) to help assist her.
I have been hand-feeding her dinners to her every night while she lays in bed, because she has been too tired to stand on her own! She is a picky eater already, so I’m used to mixing all kinds of odd concoctions for her.
The vet said that I should be cutting her off of her pain meds (we actually just ran out yesterday), but I did find some Carprofen (anti inflamatory) still that I had from her original mis-diagnosis last month. I think I’ll probably keep giving her some of those over the next couple of weeks ….
Thanks again!
Yaaaay for a successful surgery! Akeela going to be back to her usual spunky self in time, don’t worry too much, although I know that’s practically impossible. I just LOVE how you got her into rehab right away, that is our wish for ALL new Tripawds. It’s so much better for the dog and for us. You rock!
I can see that you also keep her at a terrific weight. This is going to be her winning ticket to a happy life on three legs. Keep her lean and the Tripawd life will be so much kinder to her joints.
We are so glad you’re here and started a blog! Thank you so much.
Thanks for having us! 🙂
I knew right away that Akeela was going to have a hard time adjusting to life on 3 legs. She is a very … peculiar? … special? … unusual? animal! Haha. I wanted to get her into rehab as soon as I could, so that we could help get her feeling confident again.
This website has been incredibly useful over the past couple of weeks. Thanks to everyone whose added information!