One Long Day

Yesterday turned out to be a pretty long day.  It was the sort of day that feels like it will never end.  I don't suppose it helped any that we were up at Oh Dark Thirty, either.  For once I woke up before the alarm clock went off and Lilac wasn't barking, nor was Morgan doing stealth patrol.  I almost felt a little guilty waking them up.  Okay, I admit it, I didn't, it was nice to see them on the recieving end for a change.  Bunny was stretched out, enjoying an early morning birthday tummy rub and then I crawled out of bed to start getting ready, since we had to get moving earlier than usual to get Blueberry to the vet.

Mr. Taleteller took Blueberry to the vet.  I could handle things all day if I didn't have to be the one to leave her there.  I gave her a hug and kissed her lumpy head and off they went, her travel bed along so she'd have somewhere comfortable to rest while she was waiting for her surgery to start.  I put food down for the rest of the group and I thought Morgan might actually weep tears of relief.  Waking up early and then not putting food out nearly threw her into panic overload.  Fortunately, the food went out in the nick of time before the sky actually fell. 

So, I went to work and tried to keep busy and not worry over her.  Within ten minutes of getting into the classroom with the kids after bus duty, someone had peed on me.  For those who don't know, I teach PreK, so life at work can be interesting.  The day went downhill from there.  By lunchtime, I still hadn't heard from the vet's office and I was getting anxious.  So, after lunch when the kids went down to sleep, I called.  Imagine my surprise when I heard that Blueberry hadn't gone in for sugery yet.  There had been an emergency that came in and she was still waiting.

One of the reasons I like our vet is that if you have an emergency, they get right to you.  However, it's hard to be really appreciative of that fact when you got up at the butt crack of dawn to get your dog in so that she could have her surgery done early and be ready to go home when you get off work.  I called again after school was out and found out that she was currently in surgery.  They thought I'd be able to take her home at 5:30, which was a two hour wait.  I reasoned that I could at least go by the dog bakery and get a birthday cake for Bunny since I wasn't going to have time to bake one. 

Finally, it was time to get Blue and I was at the vet's office.  I went in to talk with the vet about how things went and things that we need to do for her after she goes home.  She's got some new food to try and some mouthwash, both of which are to help keep her teeth clean.  The vet was optimistic about the lump.  He said there was only one blood vessel going into it, so it wasn't getting fed a lot and that it was a good thing.  The lump will be tested and we'll know more about what it was in a week, but the vet seemed to feel like there was a good chance that we've gotten it before it can be anything that needs more treatment. 

Blueberry did have a hard time coming out of the anesthesia, and she was thrashing around quite a bit from what they said.  She has some red spots across her chest, belly and the insides of her legs which we're watching closely.  They think it's most likely petechial hemorrhaging, but it could be her blood not clotting.  As a final indignity, they gave her a bath.   She was still really shaky and needed some help to get outside, but she made it.  I guess she wasn't staying anyplace where they force a bath on you after cleaning your teeth.

We got home and Mr. Taleteller carried her inside.  There was a crate set up for her in case she wanted it, but her first priority was drinking a lot of water.  She also wanted to eat, so I gave her some of the new food.  Mr. Taleteller left to go to class with Morgan, since we figured keeping her busy would be better for Blueberry than having her sniffterogating her about where she'd been all day.  She laid down in the crate, but then decided she wanted to lay on the couch.  Of course I picked her up and she promptly made herself comfortable in my spot.  Normally, I'd make them move from there if I wanted to sit down, but I didn't have the heart.  She laid her had against my pillow and closed her eyes, finally resting comfortably.

So, that's as much as we know at the moment.  It was a huge relief to sit on the couch between Bunny and Blueberry and listen to Lilac barking at Blueberry's new bag of food.  Sometimes I guess we all need a little reminder about how good it is to be home.  Bunny's planning on enjoying her day tomorrow with cake and attention while we're all home together.  She seemed happy enough with having Blueberry home for the night, although I noticed she seemed even more happy when she saw that there was new food to investigate.  We will share more news when we get it.  Thank you to everyone who offered us support, well wishes, and good humor here on the blog, on forums we visit, through e-mail and on Facebook.  It has helped us more than we can say!  Now I'm off to see if I can grow that money tree in the back yard.

A Bump On The Head

I was hoping that today's post was going to be about how Blueberry had a little bump on her head and I fretted and worried and went to the vet and found out that I am a hopeless worrywart when it comes to my dogs.  Well, that's not news because I am.  I've had a weird little itchy spot on my elbow for two months now that I haven't had looked at, but when something comes up with one of the dogs, we go right in.

If you follow us on Facebook, you may already know some of what's going on.  Wednesday morning, Blueberry was fine.  At lunch, Mr. Taleteller was home and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary with Blueberry or any of the other dogs.  When I got home and took them out in the afternoon, it looked like she had a mosquito bite on the top of her head.  I pressed it and looked at it carefully and she didn't flinch or act like it hurt.  I couldn't see any marks where she might have scraped it or bumped it on something, and her fur wasn't messed up at all.  Thursday I thought it seemed larger, and it was hard.  I decided she needed to go in to see the vet so we could dismiss it as a fatty lump and be done with it.

Yesterday morning, she went in to the vet.  I knew when the vet did the needle aspiration that I wasn't going to hear that I'd been worrying over nothing.  It wasn't fluid that came out, it was blood.  After looking at the cells they removed from the lump, the vet said that the cells looked suspicious.  It wasn't the news I wanted to hear, but I guess that's how it goes for all of us at times.  Blood was drawn to do pre-surgery bloodwork and we decided to have the lump removed this coming Wednesday, since Mr. Taleteller and I will both be off work Thursday with her.  She'll also get her teeth cleaned while she's off in dreamland.  Mr. Taleteller most likely will be able to take Friday off to stay home and be at her beck and call, too.  We will have the lump biopsied and hopefully find out more about it after the surgery.

Of course, after our vet visit was over, we had a stop at the dog bakery.  In true Blue fashion, she charmed the customers in the store, acting as if nothing is wrong. She picked out some Texas toothpicks to soothe the sting of the needle pokes and we went home where she took a long rest.  In some ways, it seemed not to bother her at all, but after it was all over, she seemed really exhausted and drained.  Of course, I was, too, so maybe it wasn't any bigger of a deal to her than it ever is.  She did give me plenty of stinkeye to let me know she didn't appreciate me forgetting to bring the travel bed along for her to rest on while we were waiting.  I'll be sure to rectify that situation on future visits!

I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't very worried about all this.  I also apologize, because I realize that this post isn't particularly uplifting or humorous.  We will try to address this with our usual humor as we go through the process, but I did want to be forthright about what we are facing and what we are dealing with.  I'll just hope that Blueberry doesn't get the idea through all this that we're going to be catering to her every whim after it's all over.  I know that we will be as she recovers, though!   She's been the easygoing girl through so many things, rarely demanding much attention from us, but she certainly has our full attention right now.  Bunny will keep updating the blog with her adventures that were already planned for the weekend and when we know more about what's happening with Blueberry, we will update about that, too.  There will also be a lot more time set aside at our house for Blueberry time for the next couple of weeks.

We're also participating in this Saturday's Pet Blog Hop, hosting by Life With Dogs, Two Little Cavaliers and Confessions of the Plume.  If you'd like to participate, please follow the rules and follow your three hosts, add your blog to the Linky and copy and paste the html code into your html editor.  Thanks again to our hosts for putting on the hop!