lucky, october

i've got some catching up to do...

week 19
If anyone is still checking this blog I owe you an apology, I haven't updated in a dogs age!

Let's see where did I leave off? Ah yes, the new vet and the ear mites... Well, an appointment was set for Lucky to get her pins out shortly thereafter. If my memory serves me right it was on the 19th of September. Unfortunately the vet forgot to tell me he was going on vacation and the appointment had to be moved to the 26th. We went up to my parents house in Breck (that's where the vet is) a couple days early. On the 25th me and Marc went out to lunch and left the dogs with my parents. We were on the way home when the cell phone rang. Marc answered it and said "no, your kidding" I immediately thought one of them had been hit by a car. Marc hung up the phone and said "don't worry, Lucky just pulled her pins out." WHAT, WHAT, WHAT? Yes, it's true my big lucky dog rushed for the door and got the apparatus caught on the bottom lock on my parents front door. The pins apparently came right out and ricocheted back into the dining room landing squarely at my brother's feet. My mom grabbed lucky, afraid that she would run away and didn't know the pins had come out until my brother yelled "MOM THE PINS!" Lucky didn't seem to be phased but they got her into the car and took her straight to the vet. In case you missed it this is one day before she was scheduled to get them out!! We met my mom and brother at the vet and we were all laughing in disbelief. Not only did she seem to be perfectly fine but I'm pretty sure she saved me some serious bucks. The vet took x-rays and sure enough she was perfectly fine. The only thing he said was that she should be kept calm because it still was not completely healed. He said to come back in 4 weeks for a final x-ray. Keeping a fetch-loving black lab calm is not an easy task. I'll admit after the first couple weeks I let her run and chase the ball, but I think it helped her heal faster. Four weeks came and went and I had to change the appointment to one week later. Finally on the 29th of September, Lucky was pronounced "all better". Her leg was about 90% healed. The vet said considering her break it had healed nicely, her leg turns out to the side just a touch now, but I think it makes her look like a ballerina...

nice to have you home

new vet

So, we went and met the new vet about a week ago. Unfortunately, he had not received the x-rays yet from our old vet, so the appointment seemed a little pointless. By now 2 of the pins have poked all the way through her skin and two others are poking through but just enough to bug her. The vet said it all looked okay from the outside. Then he checked her ears and asked me, "Does she shake her head a lot?" Surprisingly enough she had been shaking her head for the past couple of days. "Yes", I said. "Well, she has ear mites" he said. Excellent...
I made and appointment to get the pins out on the 19th. Or at least take an x-ray and go from there. A couple days later I got a phone call saying that my new vet was going on vacation and we would have to re-schedule the surgery for the next week. So, her appointment is on the 26th.
It's been 10 weeks now, It'll be 12 by the time she (hopefully) gets the pins out. That's 4 months! Just the other day she chewed the bandage off that covers the fixture and she started gnawing on the fixture itself! It must really be starting to bug her.
Two more weeks...

hey i know you...

Here is the super fast summary of where we've been.
Left Iowa drove to Colorado. Drove from Colorado to Utah, Utah to Idaho. Did a 4 day antique show in Ketchum. Truck broke on the way to Whitefish, MT. Spent a day and a night in Missoula. Arrived in Whitefish and the hotel had canceled our reservation for the night. Stayed somewhere else. Moved to the original hotel the next day. Did a very slow 3 day show in Whitefish. Left town quickly. Drove to Missoula to see m's sister and boyfriend. Stayed for a luxurious 10 days. Lost the only key to our car the day before we were supposed to leave. Got a new key made and drove 15 hours to Colorado. Reserved a storage unit, rented a truck, and drove back to Iowa. Me and mom in our car and m and dad in the truck. The truck broke down near the Nebraska border and cell phone service was so poor we couldn't talk. The temperature was over 100 degrees. Mom and me made it to Iowa. The boys stayed in Kearny, NE. The next day the truck broke again so the boys stopped in Grand Island but they didn't have all the right parts so they drove to Lincoln and waited. The temperature is still over 100 degrees. This is now Saturday. And on this lovely Saturday I picked up my Lucky dog. She was such a sight to be seen. She has lost 20 lbs. and her coat is shiny and beautiful. Her leg is healing nicely although it is still not healed enough to take the pins out. The vet and all the staff were so kind as usual. If Michelle ever finds this blog, "Thank you for loving my dog while I was away". The boys arrived that afternoon. We packed the truck early the next morning. It was a very weird experience. The tenants, soon to be our-home-owners have moved in, in all senses of the word. We left quickly, and sadly I didn't even get to show my mom and dad all of the remodeling we had done. We headed back to Colorado. Outside of (insert small town in Nebraska) the truck broke again. It was towed and we spent the night in Ogallala. Lucky has now been in two different hotel rooms and is probably very confused. We left the next morning. We made it to our storage unit in Longmont, CO just in time for the first thunderstorm in days. After over and hour in the car waiting for the rain to quit we finished loading the unit. Took the truck back to Denver and drove to my mom and dad's in Breckenridge. The next day we drove to m's mom's in Estes Park to pick up our other pup. We spent the night there. Lucky has now been to 4 different places. Finally we drove to Lyons. Our new resting place. We've been here for a week and everyone is happy and healthy. I think Lucky really likes Colorado. On Thursday it will be 10 weeks since her surgery. On Friday we are going to meet the new vet who will probably be the one to take the pins out of her leg.
It's been a very long month.

We're all taking daily walks and naps to unwind.

remember me?

I can't wait. I am going to pick up Lucky from the vet on Friday. The daily posts will resume shortly after. If anyone is still reading this...

wish you were here

I miss my big fat black dog.

upside down

we're cool like that

Well, we did it we actually sold our house. It was on the market for 1 week and 3 days and it was shown almost every day. The dogs have loved it! It gave us a great excuse to go to the park. But now it is officially panic time. We have 3 days to pack the entire house before we leave for a 3 week trip to Colorado, Idaho and Montana. We planned this trip a long time before Lucky was a part of our life so Georgia, our other dog will be staying with my m.'s mom in Colorado and Lucky will be staying at the vet's here in town. I wish they both could come with us but it's not possible. I'll miss her terribly but I keep reminding myself that she is in good hands and will be showered in love. I hope she still remembers me when I get back. I know she will, we're cool like that.

you're not so bad

Yesterday was Lucky's 2 week check up. I found a lump on her broken leg about the size of a key lime and I was pretty worried about it, the words 'malignant tumor' kept popping into my head. But thankfully the vet explained that it is just the result of some serious bruising that we couldn't see before because her leg was so swollen. Whew!

In other news she has lost 3 lbs and is now a svelte 85 lbs. he he he. Other than that things are wonderful. She is such a sweetheart, I love having her around. She snores when she's falling asleep and grumbles when she's trying to get comfy and when she gets really excited she's all wiggles.

Lucky

Lucky Me

please stop peeing in the house

Lucky has now been a part of our lives for 12 days.

At first I thought she was perfectly house trained, of course that was before her leg was fixed and before she was comfortable here, while she was still very sleepy and probably in pain, but I kept thinking "What a good dog!" then she peed on the rug one night after we went to bed and it soaked through the rug to the hardwood floor and sat there all night, bowing the narrow floor boards. Then I realized I forgot to let her out before bed. My fault. The second time was in the same spot, only I caught that one right away. The third time was in the kitchen and I caught that one too. The fourth time was in the sunroom while she was home alone, which ruined two of the grass floor squares, luckily I had more. The fifth time was in the dining room while I was in the basement I think she tried to tell me about that one but I misread her signs and the sixth time was today in a different part of the dining room while we were out to lunch. (If anyone affiliated with the company that makes Nature's Miracle is reading this, "Thank You" This product is amazing and a life saver.)

Did I mention we are trying to sell our house?

So I bought a baby gate today. She already sleeps and hangs out in her room, which is the tiled entryway, only now she won't be able to get out when we can't watch her. I really hope she doesn't try to get out and accidentally hurt her leg. I'm sure I am being a weenie about it, she has 6 pins and they are all the way through the bones at contrary angles and she's still pretty timid when it comes to trying new things. Anyway, she's giving it a test run right now while we're here in the room watching tv and after a brief "What is this?" moment she is now happily snoozing. Wish me luck.

hot to trot

I woke up this morning and Lucky had pulled out the cotton and gauze around her pins. I thought this might be bad and called the vet. While waiting for the vet to call me back she started making a funny sound. She sounded like a pig grunting and like she was trying to clear her throat. I didn't think anything of it because she would quit as soon as she was no longer excited. By the time we went to the vet she was doing it almost constantly so the vet took her temperature and it was 104.5 degrees! (a dog's normal body temp is more like 101 degrees) The crazy thing is that it wasn't a really hot day or anything!

The vet put alcohol on her pads but that wasn't cooling her down, her temperature was actually going up, so they had to give her an IV. The vet said her temperature peaked at 106 degrees. I got to go back and see her on the table with the IV and I felt so bad! I had no idea, like I said it wasn't even that hot out. Now the poor pup has a shaved back leg from the surgery, a shaved stripe down her back where they started to shave for the surgery but changed their minds and a shaved fore-paw where the IV was. M. said she looked like a punk dog. he he he.

The vet wanted to keep her over night to be sure she was ok. She explained that because Lucky is overweight (she weighs 88 pounds and should weigh 60-ish, we'll work on that as soon as her leg is healed) It is already hard for her body to properly cool off. I learned that the most productive way dogs can cool down is by panting, pulling in cool air cools the body, but because she's fat her body needs a lot of cool air to stay cool. So when she couldn't get enough cold air she started to panic and her throat went into spasms, like a kid with asthma, which scared her even more and her body temperature rose as her stress level did. I also learned that at 107 degrees the cells start to die and emit toxic compounds into the body. Yikes! It makes living in the hot and humid Midwest seem stupid.

In the end we went to the vet to check her bandage (which was perfectly fine) and she had an IV with 2 bags of fluid, medicine to keep her kidneys from shutting down, a tranquilizer, antibiotics, and a night in the hospital. I have broke the $1,000 mark. Now she gets to sleep directly in front of a fan, the fan that was in our bedroom...

One week

Check up number one.
All's well on the puppy front. She got the big bandage off and now has a small one that just covers the pins and the rod thing. They used yellow this time and it looks exactly like she has a banana on her leg! I'll try to figure out how to post a picture (can anyone help me?) We thought of a name for our rotund pal. Lucky! I think it's appropriate, besides we don't want to give her some sort of complex calling her Tubby.

the vet

I called the vet first thing in the morning and they said we could come in that afternoon. They did a quick exam, said "yep, it's broken" and then semi-tranquilized her so the vet could feel her leg without hurting her and they took two x-rays.

The vet showed me the x-rays and explained that her tibia and fibula were broken and unfortunately they had punctured the skin on the inside of her leg, so giving her a cast was not an option. He recommended surgery, where pins would be put in each of the bones and then realigned. He guessed that she had been hit by a car and that her leg had already been broken for a couple of days. He suggested I do a heartworm test on her before I decided to spend any more money. I was nervous, it hadn't crossed my mind that she may already be dying or have some terrible sickness. But they did the test and she came back negative. whew!

So the low estimate for the surgery was around $350 the high estimate was over $700. It was such a huge difference and it all hinged on whether the surgery would be difficult, something no one could answer until she was on the table and her leg was cut open. I went home to talk to m. about it. In my heart I knew I had to help her, but it was tough to commit to the responsibility. It wasn't our intention to keep her but I knew that if I spent all this money and time and energy on nursing this dog back to health I was going to get attached and the idea that I may at some point have to give her to a new family was already heartbreaking. I thought about it long and hard and decided that I could only cross one bridge at a time, and I really didn't even know her yet, I may not like her at all! I decided to trust fate and go for it.

She went in at 9:00 am on thursday 6-2-05. I called to check on her that afternoon and they said that it had been a long hard surgery but that she was doing extremely well. I thought "great! long and hard, there goes any hope for the low estimate" but I was glad she did well. I was able to pick her up the next morning and she was like a brand new dog! Her eyes were wide open and alert and she was full of energy. I knew I did the right thing. They sent us home with some free food and a trial of frontline and heartgard which was very nice. For the bill they have a policy that even if a surgery runs over the high estimate amount you will only be charged what they estimated. That was great. They also agreed to let me make payments on her balance. We finally headed home.

The next day we went back in for a quick check and I got to see the pins in her leg and her x-rays from the surgery. I'm really not the type of person who likes blood, I can't watch plastic surgery shows but for some reason the details of injuries always excite me. Her x-rays were so cool. The bone had actually been crushed at the point of impact so there were lots of little pieces floating around. The vet said her leg was very swollen and that's what made the surgery hard. They put 3 pins in the top piece of bone and 3 pins in the bottom piece of bone then realigned them and connected the pins with a long rod of sorts. It's hard to explain, but it reminds me of the movie Predator or Alien. Actually seeing the pins in her leg and thinking about how they are in her bone still gives me the heebie jeebies but it wasn't at all gross like I thought it might be. He said the bones will heal well and all the little pieces will get re-absorbed into her body. (I was familiar with this idea because I broke my wrist last summer and the same thing happened) She got a new purple bandage and we went home.

beautiful things come in big packages

Day Two
Ok so to finish telling the story... I was ready to go get her the next morning when m. called and said that everyone thought she'd be fine and she didn't need to go to the vet. I was a wreck, I still don't know exactly why I took it so hard. I was pissed that I lived in an area where people didn't care, I mean she had a broken leg that was literally just dangling there! I was upset that I was questioning my own instincts just because a group of farmers thought it was dumb. I was sad because I felt like such an outsider for caring.

I spent the morning bawling and in my mind I was going over all of the horrible things that could happen to her if I didn't help her. What if she got hit by a car again? What if the tractor hit her? What if the other dog picked on her and hurt her more? I decided, whether false or not, that if I didn't help her her leg would never heal properly and it would always hurt her and then she'd get hit by a car or drink antifreeze and die, like every other dog that had found it's way to the farm. That sounds harsh but it's true. In between fits of sobbing m. called me back and told me to do whatever I wanted to do, who cares if no one else thinks it's a good idea. I called my dad who always gives good advice and he told me I had to do what was in my heart. I decided I had to help her.

I called m. and asked him if he could bring her home. He said maybe it would be a good idea to call the vet the next morning and go from there. Honestly, I was crushed, I felt like the only person who I thought would agree with me didn't. I was seriously bummed but sometimes he does know what he's talking about. Five o'clock rolled around and I heard m. pull into the driveway. My heart jumped a little when I imagined him walking through the gate with her by his side. Then my heart seriously skipped a beat, she WAS with him!! He brought her home to me. I hugged him and he said she looked happier already...

lets start at the beginning

Day One
Tubby was her name. She showed up at my in-law's farm weeks ago. My husband would come home from work and tell me about her everyday. "She's so fat she looks like a bear" he said, "She even has fat on her head!" (I should warn you I have an admittedly enormous soft spot for dogs). This one was a black lab, and from the stories I was hearing an extremely cute one. M. told me that she had a mark around her neck like she had worn a collar but she didn't have it on anymore. (Unfortunately, it is very common out here for people to dump their dogs or leave them behind when they don't want them anymore) At first the in-laws wanted to keep her, and then they didn't, and then they did, meanwhile we offered to take her and find her a good home (the farm is not the safest place for domestic animals, or any animals for that matter, but that's another story) But then one morning she was gone! Everyone was sure she had just been passing through.
A few days later I went out to the farm for lunch. I was inside when m. came to the door and told me to look outside. There she was sitting in the driveway. Tubby was a beautiful, big, black lab. She was so overweight she did look like a bear. I walked outside and she limped towards me with an obviously broken leg. I felt terrible. Her right hind leg was hanging limp and swinging side to side. "Looks like she's got a broken leg" someone said. She was covered in ticks and not looking too good. "I bet she got hit by a car and has been laying in a ditch", m. said. Then the most bizarre thing happened, everyone turned around and walked back inside. Everyone except for my wonderful m. He helped pick all of the ticks off of her and I stomped on them (gross). She was the sweetest thing, even with a broken leg she was all wiggles. I knew I had to do something to help her. We left her outside and told her to stick around while we ate lunch. I couldn't stop thinking about how I could help her. Unfortunately I stink at saving money and I didn't have much extra. At one point during lunch I looked out the window and met eyes with her and I knew I had to help her no matter what. We couldn't bring her back to our house that night so I promised to come and get her the next morning...