Surgery

To say it’s been a stressful couple of days would be an understatement. While I know I would actually be an excellent parent to a human, it’s time with Harlow that’s made me wonder if keeping a human alive would actually be alarmingly nerve-wracking for me.

On Tuesday I took Harlow to her oncologist to find out next steps. Some imaging was done to determine the size of the tumor in her bladder and really it’s the best case scenario; since the mass was found by accident it’s very small and the oncologist thinks we may be able to buy her (literally $$$) a year with treatment. In a week or so we will start with chemotherapy in pill form, (Apparently I have to wear gloves when touching it so that’s cool). But for a dog who is already up there in age for her size (eleven years old and 62 pounds), I’ll take what I can get. As long as she seems comfortable and happy to be alive.

She’s been ignoring the lump on her side until about week ago when she discovered it and started licking incessantly. As luck would have it the regular vet had a surgical opening the the next day, which was Wednesday, so I booked it for her.

After picking her up after surgery, she stumbled like a drunkard but looked adorable in the donut I bought to keep her from accessing her stitches. She was drowsy, weak, and completely uninterested in eating at all, which made getting pain meds into her a challenge. I wasn’t too concerned because it’s not my first post-surgery dog rodeo.

On Thursday morning, I carefully forced her to take a Gabapentin for the pain and watched while her coordination slowly got worse and worse. It was really unnerving to see how weak her back legs got, and how epically sedated she was in general.

I set her up to be as safe as possible while I was at work, and went on my way. Dad told me that when he arrived to check on her in the afternoon, she was on the couch, which seemed like a good sign since she managed to get up there.

Basically between then and Friday night I learned some things – her ataxia was extreme as a result of the gabapentin. She shouldn’t have been flopping all over and incapable of walking safely. I also learned that I needed to limit her ability to move around more than I had. I blocked off her access to the stairs and made sure she couldn’t try and get on the couch again. Every time we went out, I used a towel to support her back end to minimize falling on the brick steps on the back stoop.

I worked from home Friday (I can thank the pandemic for making that a thing we can do now) because at that point I was very worried. When I gave her the gaba that morning she began to tremble. Are you cold? In pain? I don’t know! At one point I heard a thud downstairs while I was upstairs and hustled down to find her spread-eagle on the floor in front of the couch. She clearly had tried to get up onto the couch, fell, and couldn’t get herself up again or find a way to get her legs under her. It was very upsetting.

Honestly between that and her stumbling on the stairs outside in the morning when I thought maybe she could manage the stairs, it’s a true miracle she has no injuries. Or rather, I haven’t let her get injured by not protecting her better.

I emailed the vet during the day, sending a video of her scary stumble on the stairs (I was recording initially to simply document her unsteadiness for the vet and ask if this was normal considering she hadn’t had any gaba since the day before). The emailed response was that while the side effects were no totally normal she needs the gaba for pain control and should finish the bottle. Ten to fifteen more days of this? I was not comfortable with it.

I spoke with her vet Friday night, described her side effects, and he agreed that stopping the gabapentin would be smart to do. If needed we could start a much lower dose if she seemed uncomfortable. Our hope was that she could tolerate the discomfort of the stitches without it, since the only other pain management option was an anti-inflammatory and they don’t mix well with the steroid she’s on for her IBD.

I stayed around all day today Saturday and she got better and better as the day progressed. Another issue is that aside from some pretzels, her dental chew, and some pizza crusts a few nights ago (very exciting as she never gets any food aside from her prescribed food!), she really won’t eat. She has three meds that she really does need to take for her IBD, so the not eating is a problem. I can’t get her to take them the normal way (in a ball of wet food).

Today I did manage to put her steroid in some cheese and get her to eat it (even though she shouldn’t have cheese!), but she got the other pills out of the cheese when I tried. Harrumph.

I met a friend for dinner Saturday night and I think that was the best thing – for me to leave the house and stop staring at her trying to figure out if she’s in pain and if so what do I do about it. I’m sure she was sick of me staring at her too when I wasn’t cleaning the house or mowing the lawn.

When I came home from dinner, she was clearly feeling much better. She still refused to eat but was very perky and seeking affection (and buttering me up for her evening dental chew). Thankfully her back legs are improving a lot, though they still have some weakness.

It’s a horrible thing to see such a big strong girl seem so helpless.

Zero out of five stars. Would not watch again.