Dog Days of November

What a 10-days it's been! First Bogey ate a rock and had to have emergency intenstinal surgery to remove it from his intestine (see third pix - if your stomach's up to it). Then came Thanksgiving (which was great, see previous post) and Steve's birthday.

And finally, my birthday. Which went like this: Get up at 6:30 a.m. to have Sable to the veterinary surgeon by 7:30 for her TPLO. Drop her off, pay 1/2 of the $2500 charge (!) and head for the cancer center for Steve's new round of chemo.

The oncologist said they were going to keep the dosage at the same levels. We had thought they were going to dial it back some based on his reactions to round 1. But because Steve had three involved lymph nodes, he wanted to make sure they were as agressive as possible. He thinks that Steve is stronger now (I agree) in starting this round than he was starting Round 1, which was only a month or so after surgery. They also seem to think that we waited too long through the bad stuff before calling and getting fluids and better medications. This time we'll know better and if the diarrhea and everything start up, we'll act more quickly.

The first round of chemo was uneventful and Steve feels fine. Yesterday, he felt so good, he did a lot of yardwork - raked and bagged leaves, cut back bushes, etc. In the process, however, he lost his wedding ring! He only discovered that about 7 p.m. and we started retracing his steps - the stores he had been in, what he had done, when was the last time he was absolutely certain he had it on.

We went to bed pretty bummed and worried and planned to retrace his steps today. So after we got Sable home from the vet and settled in (a very EARLY saturday morning, especially for me!), we went outside and started opening up the bags of leaves and dumping them on the driveway. We sifted through one bag and were halfway through the second when we found it. Amazing. I was 90 percent certain (and 100 percent hoping!) that he lost it in the leaves, but nonetheless i was pretty amazed that he found it. We were just lucky yesterday wasn't garbage day!

Our rings have a storied history and they have more stories than most. So sable goes to the vet next friday to get her staples out and then were on a four-month track to recovery. I've set up a page on my website to track her recovery. If you're into it, check it out at http://www.lauraharrigan.com/pages/sablesurgery.htm.

More to come on everyone's health and recovery next week!