Bevd

Glad you're feeling a little better Flashy

I'm so sorry We'll be thinking of you all this weekend

Darcy is back from visiting the vet-knee-hairy-one. We may have to re-name it the vet-knee-baldy-one though because Darcy is likely to loose...erm...all her hair Apart from maybe the hair on her head That'll be an intereting look won't it Hair, shmair. Who cares if she goes bald. I can always knit her a coat. Anyway The important news is that the vet is pleased with her and she doesn't have to go back till next Wednesday - yayyyyy. Unless of course she stops eating or drinking, or unless she has any bleeding in her loo stuff or from her gums etc. Her platelettes are quite low (thats to do with clotting, in case anyone's wondering) but they will come back up, once the chemo drug is finally out of her system. Her temp is still a little higher than normal but again, with time, it will go back to normal. She's still got a few more days of antibiotics to take. Food wise, we just continue as we are (deep joy - haha) and just get her to eat what she'll eat. He said I could feed her baby food but when I went to look at it in the supermarket, I decided that its easier for me to just make meat and veg with some pasta or rice and blend it, so I'll do that (combined with her normal food and her probiotic yohgurt and goodness knows what else). Darcy has coughed a couple of times (a loose type of cough) and I talked to the vet about this again. I am always hysterical concerned whenever she makes any coughing sound, in case it's indicative of a spread of you know what to you know where. But he said he really doesn't think this is the case (he used the words "highly unlikely") and said that she's most likely to have ingested some food/water whilst she's been laying prone across the couch We were talking about Darcy's insurance and he asked when her renewal was due. I said it was the end of August and we chatted about some insurance stuff and then I piped up (in a meek voice) with "do you think that Darcy will be here for her renewal" and then I held my breath. He said "yes, I think there's a very good chance that she will". Nothing is a certainty but you may now insert large beaming smile - much bigger than this one Thank you all for all your good wishes.

We think of you every day

Dinner - one and a half tins of precription diet, with one slice of corned beef crumbled into it, plus a third of a small pot of pro biotic natural yoghurt

Hello (again) For lunch, Darcy had 7 slices of wafer thin ham She'd have eaten more but I didn't want to push my luck. DH and I went out food shopping (makes a nice change from going to the vets) and when we came back, it was snack time again. She looked very cute when I was making her snack Her snack was 2 slices of corned beef (it was the stuff you buy in a pack rather than in a tin) and she ate that and seemed to be prepared to eat more so I mixed half a tin of food with the last of Marcs Philadelphia (snort) and she ate all that too (omg - tentative yippeeeeee thingy) And then (prepare selves) when I was sitting on the couch next to her, eating my mini pizza, she....prodded me for a peice She didn't eat it in the end but who cares - she prodded me for some pizza and I wailed (tentative leaping around on chair taking place, with added eye dabbing)

Morning. Darcy has had about a tin and a quarter of the food plus a blob of Philadelphia for breaky. It was off a spoon again but as long as she eats, that'll do me Marc has gone to the garage which is near the vets so I've phoned them to say that he'll be coming in to pick up 4 more tins as we're not due to go there again till tomorrow afternoon. She's got some pressure sores from a combination of laying in hospital for 5 days and the nappy and they're not nice at all. They're clean but they are open wounds so we've clipped her hair off (well, Marc has) and we've started applying Colloidal Silver drops and we'll do that twice a day till they've healed. The other thing I've not mentioned is that she's lost a LOT of hair. I'm not sure if you'll be able to tell from a photograph (maybe you will if I post an older one for comparison) but really, it's a lot of hair loss. Never mind. Hair doesn't maketh a dog (or a person!).

It sounds (and looks) like he's doing great

Xan! I forgot to say!! Thank you for your Xmas card - it arrived last week It made me come over all festive and seasonal, all over again!

I'm very sorry to hear this sad news

Sending very best wishes for Chase and for you

We're back from our second home the vets. He seems to be quite pleased ( ) with her progress ( ). Her temperature was 103.3 which is a degree down on yesterday so he said that was OK. He said she's still fighting the infection, hence why her temp is still raised. He tried to tempt her with a liver treat that she normally loves (refused) and then a treat she's not had before (sniffed and refused) and then a bowl of tuna which seemed to appear out of the middle of nowhere (shoved in gob, spat out and refused). She's had another jab of Marbocyl (anti biotic) and has it in tablet form to start tomorrow. And she has an appointment to be seen again at 3.30pm on Weds. I do hope we can go that long and not end up phoning for an earlier appointment I said "so....do you think she's on the road to recovery then?" and he said "oh yes" so either he's plain nuts or we just have to have faith (and keep offering bizarre foods in the hope that she'll eat some). I picked up a few tins of prescription diet as she ate some of that last night and I've been to Tesco's and got some rice pudding, some vile looking liver sausage in a tube type thing and a big thing of wafer thin ham plus some garlic and herb soft cheese (garlic and herb on the advice of the vet as its a bit more smelly than plain soft cheese). For her dinner, I mixed half a tin of prescription diet with a dollop of Philadelphia (soft cheese) and she ate it all of a spoon So I ran to the kitchen and made up the other half of the tin with another dollop of Philadelphoa and she ate about two thirds of that second batch (off a spoon). It's such a small quantity, bearing in mind that for her weight, she should probably eat about 8 of those tins per day but, it's a baby step in the right direction. And then, about an hour or so later.... I've just eaten my dinner - or not as the case may be because it was steak and dumplings and I didn't like the meat so I fished the meat out (with accompanying carrots and gravy) and mixed it with the leftover tinned food/Philadelphia of earlier and she ate it off a spoon I think that'll do for tonight

Sleep tight now Vinnie I'm very sorry Vince

Her temp went down last night but it seems to be on the way up again today She's still drinking OK but not eating well at all. We have an appointment for 6pm.

I'm really sorry to hear this news I think you have to do whatever is best for the dog and only you know what that is. I'm just wondering what a biopsy would offer though. Thinking lots of good thoughts for you both

It means that it all seems to be going wrong. Darcy had a high temperature this morning so I phoned and made an appointment to take her in. Her temperature was 104.3 by the time we got to the vets (Normal temp is about 101.something). He took some blood and her white blood count is fine. Her platelettes were low (but they were at this time after the previous dose of Doxarubacin) and her other levels were all pretty decent. It seems that the problems of last week with the gut region have spread some nasty bugs to the blood so thats basically septicemia. Nice. She's had a big dose of a different antibiotic and an appointment for 6pm tomorrow. I'm not going to offer her anything other than water with glucose, until tonight because if she's got a raging temp, she's just not going to feel like eating, just as a human wouldn't.

She had a couple of spoons of Muller Rice late on last night. And for breakfst, half a cheese slice. Her temperature is up though this morning (39.3) so I'm going to have to call and speak to the vet when they open at 11.30am : (This all seems to be going pear-shaped)

The thing we've tried and had great success with is colloidal silver. We got it from our vet but you can also get it from health food shops etc. We got a liquid which came with a dropper (like rescue remedy does) and we had to drop a few drops onto the wound every day. The wound healed within about 5 days. (It was a fair sized wound from hip surgery on one of our mutts and he kept taking the stitches out)

Welcome home Dempsey! (I bet he'll be on that couch in less than 24 hours)

D'you know Hannah, I'm not sure she'd even go for that at the mo (But please thank Holly for her kind offer)

I'm very sorry to hear this news Speaking personally, if they already say it's bone cancer, I'd not bother with a biopsy. I don't think there's anything to be gained from it and if you are thinking of amputation, its a week to ten days lost whilst you wait for the biopsy results. If you do go for an amp, you can get a sample sent off for analysis at that point. If it turns out to be osteo, you may choose to go ahead with chemo and if it's fibrosarcoma, maybe you'd choose not to do chemo (as fibro spreads in less than 20% of cases, unlike osteo which is approx 98%). Whatever you do, I wish you and Harley all the very best

Hi all Darcy had a decent night and went outside this morning and produced something 'reasonable' rather than something overly loose, so thats a bit of progress However, her food intake is still awful. I've tried sitting next to her to eat my tasty food and casually handing over a small bite but she refused it (it was bacon). Actually, I've done that twice - the other time was last night with the steak. She refused breakfast but then at lunchtime, I got out the packet of wafer thin ham and she ate four slices (they're not big things but it's more than she ate last night when she just had a few bits of it). I've no idea what I'm going to offer tonight yet. She also wet her bed at some point during this morning (after her early garden visit). I just think she's a very bad patient (not bad as in horrid, obviously) and she feels quite anxious again, as she did just after her surgery. I suppose it's going to be another case of dealing with her one day a time and waiting for her to feel more happy/secure/less anxious in her own time : She is drinking well by the way and we are adding powdered glucose to her water.

Surprise surprise. Not. Chicken refused 5 bites of ham eaten Will try her again a little later.

I am now cooking the chicken...

I can't advise about specific companies as I'm in the UK but one of your questions was about how much things can run to for amputation and chemo. On our policy for Darcy Deerhound, she has £4000 a year to spend on vet fees (per policy year) so thats approx $8000 and we are currently up to approx $7000 because she's had a front right amputation and a course of chemo, plus all the other associated tests such as x-rays, regular blood tests, various medications and this past week, an out of hours vet visit and 5 days as an inpatient. I can't recommend pet insurance highly enough.