The3leggedNoel

Noel is continuing to do well. Her incision looks great. I am amazed by how quickly it is healing. Thank goodness we have had no complications there. She goes for her incision check tomorrow. She is handling the stairs so well that I am letting her up and down them as long as I am standing close by. She goes up like she has 4 legs..going down is a little more of a balance trick. She tried to chase a rabbit across the yard this morning! I had to hold her back. Impressive right? She is still just laying down most of the day. She is getting up to greet most visitors and even joined the kids during circle time one day this week. Even though things are going well her energy is nowhere near her normal self, which I am sure is to be expected only a week and a half later.

She has started whimpering like a crying baby. She didn’t really do this much at all right after the surgery. I wake up in the middle night to her crying. She is not really moving or anything just lying there. She does lay on her incision sometimes and she even curls up like she used to, which seems like it would be painful on the incision site. I try to readjust her, but she generally moves back to the way she wants. Maybe this is causing the whimpering? Is this possibly the phantom pain I have read about? I should note that before her amputation, she would whine/cry if she wanted something like food or to go outside or love. She does not bark much, she almost talks to us instead. But this whining is different because she does it when she is not even moving and in the middle of the night usually.

So Noel is continuing to do well. The swelling on her belly is improving and the redness is also starting to go away. The incision still looks clean. She is still moving about and seems happy. She has pooped twice! She is trying to jump on me and give me her front paw like she always has, too! I try to stop her from doing this just yet..at least until she heals. She wags her tail and gets up to see Dad when he comes in. I have been sleeping next to her in my bed and Dad is sleeping with our son. He is not thrilled about that. I just feel bad because she is in her crate a large portion of the day because I can’t have her out with the children all here. Plus, my daycare is in my basement and I cannot carry Noel up and down the steps to go outside to use the bathroom. So she stays upstairs by herself all day..so I don’t want her to be alone at night too!

Question..the vet said give her the pain medication if she is in pain. Well, I mean obviously if she is whimpering or whining she is in pain. Noel is pretty tough..she has not whined but once, which is when she was having trouble adjusting her position. So how do you know if your dog is in pain?? They cannot tell us! I just think if we had something amputated with the wound still so fresh there would be pain, right? I have been giving her the pain medication as much as she can get it for now. Is that wrong to do so? I started stretching the time between doses out a bit today. My view is, the medicine is not hurting her stomach because she is eating, drinking and now pooping just fine. So it seems like if I can ease any pain while her wound heals than that would be the nice thing to do. I would do that for a person..right?

So..on to my regrets..questions..She is doing wonderful..again considering. But, I need to emphasize the activity my Noel endured on a daily basis. Every waking moment was energy and go go go go…to the point that I was pulling my hair out some days to manage her and all the children I watch. My poor kids were about to grow up not knowing what a ball was because she couldn’t let them touch a ball. She popped every one or had to play fetch. No soccer for the kids..its Noel’s ball. So it breaks my heart to think I have taken that from her. I think what if it would have been better to avoid the surgery and let her live a shorter life the way she enjoyed living it. Then I think what if the cancer is in her body somewhere and she ends up getting sick and dying in the near future anyway…now I made her last months or year on 3 legs when it could have been on 4! Obviously, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it now. But if I knew before surgery that she would only have a year I don’t think I would do it..but if they said she will live another 5 years or so it does seem worth it. There was no easy way to know that though. It is hard because Noel’s activity was completely unaffected by the tumor. It was about the size of a golf ball on her front paw, but you would never know it. She didn’t know it.

I know I just need to accept that I was trying to help her and this is how the situation has ended for now. I also tell myself she will be digging holes with one front leg because that is the kind of dog she is. Even though I really hate it when she digs holes all over my yard! : )

So Noel continues to do well…at least she is moving around pretty well. She is interested in getting up and eating, drinking and going to the bathroom. So those are all good signs. The vet called today to check in on my girl. I did have concerns that her chest/abdomen area are really red, like blood under the surface. The incision looks great..no weeping or extreme swelling. The vet didn’t seemed concerned about the redness because of her appetite. She seems to be swelling around the incision though. The area below her right leg even looks like a big fatty flap. She is lean and muscular so its definitely swelling. Its scary though because its in pockets along her abdomen. It is not just one big swollen area, but sections. I read about seromas. Does this seem like it could be that? If so, I read the body often reabsorbs the fluid. So, at what point is it a problem and in need of being drained?

Sorry so brief, but its been a long few days with little spare time. Going to go snuggle next to my 3 legged baby.

So, Noel is doing really well..considering. Hubby is even proud of the fight in her. She is moving about pretty darn well. She is not whimpering in pain at this point. We are giving her the pain medication and antibiotics. She is getting down our deck steps out back just fine! She even tried to jump up on me. I have to hold her back from being active. She is sleeping a lot and resting, but her will to move is astounding. Its like she is already used to being a tripawd. I can see she will have no trouble adapting once she heals.

I run a daycare in my home..so I have 3-5 toddlers running around at any given time. They are so used to Noel being with them…she sits with us during circle time, tries to eat their lunch and chases them around the backyard. She greets them with kisses and jumps all over their parents (I won’t miss this part). She is just such an integral part of our day. Our senior boxer, Trixie, was too. She even napped next to the children on their mats. When we lost her due to her old age, it made it so much more emotional to see the impact my dog had on so many children. They asked for her frequently. They talked about her and were sad for her loss. So, today they were all a bit curious and concerned about Noel. I saw the same change in their day as when Trixie was gone. One 3 year old looked sad and said I don’t like her boo boo. They kept walking over and looking at her lying there. It is so sweet to see their compassion. It is also hard to keep them away from her to keep her safe while she heals. They mean well, but they are just clumsy kids. I have kept Noel away from the kids and in her crate as much as I could, but it is tough getting her and out to go to the bathroom with them around. She has had no #2 since we brought her home yesterday. I can also tell its hard to squat to go. She obviously loses her balance there still..she ends up peeing in a circle, so I would imagine #2 is difficult.

I still worry about the pain on her joints, especially in her other front leg. I worry about cancer reoccurring especially since we agreed upon this is the line we can go to treat her. But even with my worries I feel more at ease. Everyone’s support is great and reading other posts, blogs as been really helpful. It’s great to see how many dogs have lived several healthy years beyond their amputations.

This is my dog Noel’s blog. I started this blog as I sit here unable to sleep. After four hours of sleep I woke tossing and turning about the decision I made today, no yesterday, to amputate my dogs front left leg. I figured this is a great way to get support through this time of change for my dog and our family…as well as help others as they face this road as well.

My husband is a hunter, fisherman, man’s man type of guy. Don’t get me wrong. He loves our pets and bawled like a baby when we had to euthanize our senior boxer less than a year ago. We had her for many years and she was our baby before our human babies. She was the sweetest girl anyone has ever met. We are partial because she is our dog, but even my mother, who strongly dislikes many dogs, agrees she was the best dog in the world. So my husband is not heartless to animals, but he is that “its a dog” kind of guy. He is a I could buy three new dogs with that kind of money guy. He is that vet bill is a down payment on a car. I understand the last one..we have real bills that cannot be avoided. Money is a real issue when deciding what to do for your pets. Should we never own pets because we aren’t wealthy? That seems crazy. Who says the wealthy give their dogs a better life? I mean, honestly, Paris Hilton’s parade of chihuahuas in a purse. Enough said.

So when Noel developed a small bump on her foot we thought lets watch it maybe she bumped, bruised it, etc. She is very active and has cut up her legs acting crazy before. The lump grew…okay this is cyst. Boxers are prone to them. My dad’s 7 year old boxer had 6 or so non-cancerous cysts removed last year. The surgery cost roughly $1500. We could not afford it at this point and agreed that we can have the lump removed when we have more available money. Well that was stupid because lets be serious, we are never going to have extra money laying around! We have two kids, a mortgage and ton of student loan debt. The cyst grew and grew and grew. Okay hun, I am taking her to the vet! He cancelled my appointment and said we don’t have $1500. We really didn’t. A few months later Noel’s lump grew. He agreed we are taking her.

I don’t know why cancer never seemed to be an option in my mind. I figured its a large fatty cyst. We’ll cut them off and she is fine. This was obviously naive of me. Maybe it was that she was only one and extremely active and not phased by the mass on her front left paw. Maybe I was in denial. We are not the type of family who can put a dog through chemotherapy. We are not the type of family who can pay for surgery after surgery. So it was clear that this was a one shot deal. Remove the tumor and pray for the best possible recovery.

Well after an hour of surgery, the vet called and stated he could not possibly remove the tumor without taking a toe, and possibly leaving the other 2 toes useless due to tissue decay and nerve damage. It was possible that he took so much tissue that the open wound would not even close on its own without a skin graft. We had two choices take her home and hope it heals and the cancer does not return…if the open wound didn’t heal and the toe ended up dying we would have to have additional surgeries to repair it. This was not an option. One surgery was already a struggle to agree upon. Even I understand I could not put my family of four..soon to be five…in serious financial debt.

My other option…amputate the leg. My dog who jumps the fence to join us in the garden, chases squirrels, digs holes in my yard, jumps up on every visitor to say hello ( I know this is bad manners), but this same dog with only three legs?? It seemed cruel. How would she enjoy life the same way? But the alternative? Bring her home, pray to God she heals and if not I would face the decision of euthanasia because we could never let the dog suffer. Either that or lay out another 3 grand for the amputation I could decide to do today.

I chose the amputation. It seemed it was the only way to guarantee the life of my 20 month old baby Noel. She is so sweet and loving. She is goofy and awkward and even annoying at times. She licks constantly and is overly eager to love everyone. But was I ready to let this baby go? No. So I let her leg go.

As of now, she is still at the animal hospital recovering. I have not even seen her yet. I am up at 5 am Easter morning with anxiety about the new few weeks, months, and the past few months. If only we had taken her to the vet when it was a small bump. Of course, they would have removed it…She would have been fine. Well she would have had her leg. Sure, the cancer had a decent likelihood of returning, but my dog would get up and run like every other dog. I have regrets of past decisions and fears of the consequences of the current decision. I understand its just a dog to many people, but she is a member of our family. She is only a pup. My husband is currently upset about our $3,000 and cannot understand my emotion about our pet. He never connected to her like our past dog. But still, he is sick about the new credit card debt and seems to be angry at me for making this decision. So, we have a tough road ahead of us for several reasons.

I will likely bring Noel home later today. Easter dinner will surely be accompanied by dog. I plan to let you know how her recovery goes and how Noel adapts to the 3 legged life.
Happy Easter.

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