a99kitten's Musings

This morning on our walk, we came to a point where we could turn and go back to the bluffs we did yesterday (where Storm was attacked) or the other way towards the harbor. Storm always wants to go towards the harbor. That’s his routine. Storm is very much a creature of routine. He does not like when the routine is disrupted. He’s quite funny that way :) Plus, whenever he starts out on his walk he is on a mission. He walks with purpose. Go, go and go. Angelus likes to take his time to stop and smell the roses (and pee on them if he can ;) )

Depending on what direction we leave the house, which streets we take, he knows what the walk will be and does not allow deviations without an argument (he stares at me with a HMPH! look.) So the particular way we went this morning left us with really only one option which was the harbor….in Storm’s mind…usually. We crossed Highway 1 and where we could turn right to go to the harbor, Storm takes an immediate left. This would take us right to the bluffs. This is not the way we go when we want to go to the bluffs. In fact, he usually starts pulling/veering right before we’ve even finished crossing the highway to go towards the harbor. That is his routine. Right turn here Mom.

But not this morning. This morning he knew exactly where he wanted to go. He decided he was going back to the bluffs to find that little putz who attacked him yesterday morning. When I said “Storm – this way”. He just stood there and stared at me, tail high in the air like “I’m ready.” He looked over to the bluffs and back to me. Like “Come on Mom. Let’s go find that jerk for some husky payback.” I said “Come on buddy – let’s go to the harbor beach. That little dog is too scared to come back here and meet you guys again.” He looked back a final time and seemed to get that and pranced right over and started his march towards the harbor.

I think he’s doing OK :)

This morning on our walk, the huskies were attacked. We were walking on the bluffs since it was high tide and half of the beach literally had no beach. There was a section near the end that still had some sand and we saw a dog running around down there chasing a stick. We continued walking along the bluff and all of a sudden I hear the lady scream after her dog and the f***** shoots up – he ran straight up the cliff – and attacks Storm. Admittedly, this surprised me and freaked me out a bit. What I should have done was kick the jackass back down the cliff.

Storm’s cancer medicine is working at a cellular level to not allow the cancer cells to grow. But due to this, all cell growth is slowed down, not just cancer cells. So he is not supposed to get injured. Because of this, I don’t take him to dog parks anymore. He is only allowed to play with dogs he already knows and gets along with. Can something out of the ordinary or an accident happen? Of course. But I need to control the environment and situations as much as I can. Of course I wasn’t thinking this little bastard was going to come tearing up the cliff to attack my dogs for no reason whatsoever. This is literally a straight up cliff of rocks and sand.

Both huskies stepped in front of me and the other dog launched at Storm. I dropped both leashes since if they need to defend themselves, they don’t need me holding them back. Once I saw the dog up close, he looked just like a Jack Russel but bigger. He was about 3/4 the size of Storm. But a savage snarling one. I reached in and pulled him off Storm. He was still snarling and trying to bite Storm and me and Angelus just got in his way and engaged him as I checked on Storm who was bleeding and wanting to get back into the brawl.

In this same 2 minutes, to her credit, the lady pulled herself up the cliff to get her dog. So at least she wasn’t one of those helpless people who just stands there. She grabbed her dog away from Angelus who I pulled back over to me now that her dog was under control. She was very sorry, blah blah and the first thing she said was the standard “he has never done anything like that before.” All dogs who attack other dogs have apparently never done it before. Rather amazing.

Now, I know she didn’t expect it to happen anymore than I did, and she was clearly upset as well, but then she adds how she won’t bring him to the beach anymore and stick to the dog park. And I’m thinking, the problem wasn’t that he ran up the cliff. The problem was that he a) didn’t listen to you to not run up the cliff and b) attacked another dog rather viciously. If he is off-leash at the dog park, same difference. That’s the issue you need to work on.

I do not understand how you don’t know your dog’s personality. I know what dogs or situations will set the buds off. And I also know when they can be off-leash or not. Now, I’m sure the lady didn’t expect her dog to scale a cliff, but what if we were just walking on the beach? I find it hard to believe the dog would have reacted any differently. But she was at least mortified and apologetic. I’ve had people get pissy and angry when THEIR dogs run up and attack mine. Wha? You mean you know you are in the wrong so your first reaction is to be a jerk as a defense mechanism and to put people off and frighten them. However, you will just agitate me and I will yell at you. But this woman wasn’t like that at all.

Storm was bleeding by his right eye. Like – so, so close to his eye that I am very thankful it was not his eyeball as it easily could have been. He seemed fine on the rest of the walk home. He sniffed and peed on stuff like normal. And when we came across his little dog friend Bear, he still wanted to stop and say hi. But I did cut the walk short and brought him straight home instead of a longer beach walk so Angelus got cheesed this morning. But Angelus was a great big brother and charged in and defended him and then came over and checked on him when it was over. He was pretty sweet. And hopefully I can get husband to take him to Maverick’s or somewhere for some beach fun.

Got Stormy home and I cleaned his eye area with some antibiotic wash and it looks like a small hole but doesn’t seem too deep, so hopefully not a big deal. I’ll need to keep an eye on it to make sure it heals normally. He got a cookie and a chicken breast Happy Hip treat when we finished cleaning his eye, so he liked that. The little guy is an amazingly good patient. Such a good boy. He’s resting out on the deck and I’m watching him clean himself, so he seems ok if a little subdued. But he gets his feelings hurt when dogs attack him or are mean to him. It’s kind of funny but you can definitely see how he seems sad after any kind of altercation or even a snarly, leashed dog. He just wants everyone to be friendly. He doesn’t need to be sad or stressed out. He needs happy time.

And I think I need a drink to calm my nerves. 10am on a Sunday seems late enough for that, right?

and then later…

I like the fact that as I posted these to Facebook, I had Buffy playing….some eps with Angel/Angelus in them :)

Today is New Year’s Eve. The day/night before we start the calendar all over again. And when most people swear they will do things differently. Most never do. But hope is always eternal. Personally, this year can be over, done with and gone. Goodbye 2010. See ya. Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out. Good riddance to ya (said with my 25% Irish brogue.)

12/31 was also my Mom’s birthday. She kinda hated that since it was so close to Christmas plus a holiday on its own. But did acknowledge it guaranteed she got a party to go to every year. She passed away a few years back but I always remember her drinking her Bailey’s or Irish Coffee (the only alcohol she would ever drink were those 2 and only around Christmas and New Years/her birthday.) Happy Birthday Mom. I do miss you. But probably best you left first.

Today is also the day we picked up my 2000 Christmas present, Angelus:

me and Angelus :)

I believe I blogged last year about the trip to get him and his first weekend with his new family. I have always kinda-sorta considered this to be like his birthday since it is when he came into my life. His actual birthday is 11/7 and we have celebrated that as his birthday but that is also the day my brother actually left me this year so I think 12/31 will stay Angelus’ birthday for me. He deserves a purely 100% happy day :)

And to celebrate his birthday this year, the weather Dogs (see what I did there?) gave us a lot of snow leading up it and then blessed him with a temperature fit only for huskies! The low this morning was 2. We went out after it had warmed up to 2.8. When I first looked at the temp, I thought it said 28. I thought to myself “wow that’s warm for so early in the morning.” Yeah…

Stormy decided it was too cold for his partial nakedness after a little while so we brought him back and then Angelus and I went back out. He was so happy. He is truly geared to be a cold-weather mountain dog. We found a trail that some snowboarders created and off we went! Mom (that’s me) started to lose a bit of feeling in her toes and fingers so we did go back after an hour. I told him we would go back out when it warmed up to double digits – like 10 degrees or something!

So happy birthday/welcome to my life day to my first-born awesome best black & white pal husky!! Also, more snow is coming tonight, tomorrow and Sunday so he will be stretching this birthday celebration out :)

This was him this morning after we got back from our walk and I left him off-leash once we got to our easement road. He took off to the neighbor’s driveway and ran around in the snow. I missed capturing that fun run since I had my big gloves on and iPhones don’t do well with gloves. He made it clear he wasn’t quite ready to go back inside!

5 husky snow adventures today – my legs are sore! (plus Angelus got some time at Squaw Village today.)

2 movies watched – Leap Year and All About Steve (love Sandra no matter what!) Liked them both. Not classics, and pretty sure hated by reviewers, but they were cute movies that made me smile and/or giggle. And that’s what I needed.

And only 3 chores done today!

It snowed all day long today. And the temp has been dropping. It’s currently 11 degrees out. I just took Storm out for a potty break. Holy moley! 11 is dang cold….he sure is lucky he is so cute :)

So all in all, a successful vacation day.

Angelus says it should snow like this every day!!

RAWR!!!!

We just got back from our 1.5 hour snow trek! You could tell our street was plowed earlier but more snow had accumulated. Our easement road and driveway? Well…they did plow during the night but we got a ton more between then and now. Good thing the huskies (or their mom!) don’t mind snow. Even naked-bellied Storm! Although the wind did eventually make him go “OK, time for me to go back.” So Angelus and I dropped Stormy off at home and went back out into the elements. Angelus was pretty darn excited by it :)

Funny how yesterday was clear on our morning walk and we saw no one. But in this morning’s blizzard we saw (and played with!!) 2 Scottish terriers, Meila the giant St Bernard (who we met last winter as a little puppy!) and Travis the spaz brown dog who Angelus LOVED snow wrestling with! :)

The wind was howling (Storm says no *I* howl!) and I got a snowblast facial. Who needs that top layer of skin? People pay good money for that treatment :) Although the giant snow chunks that kept falling off trees from the wind and then whipping all the snow around was a bit sketchy so we did not go into the forest on this trek.

Here’s to more snow dumping today! The local Tahoe weather guru, who has been more accurate than weather.com or any local news weather, says more snow after a brief morning break (currently still snowing though – I wonder if the break was that little bit it didn’t snow on our walk?) and our temps falling due to the very cold front headed our way. Supposedly going below 0 Thursday night. Good times. Modern inventions such as heat and electricity are beyond awesome. :)

They got 32″ of fresh snow last night up on ridge not far from my house. 10-16″ down at lake level!! Wheeeee!!! The Sierras are enjoying an excellent La Nina year. We are crossing fingers and paws it stays strong throughout the entire season.

Planning on going back out in a little while. The 24 degrees it is now sounds balmy and enjoyable compared to the single digits forecast for tonight and tomorrow. And walking through snow in big, heavy snowboots is some crazy good leg exercise! Lazy pants here needs that after a week of Christmas eating :)

Truly a winter (and husky) wonderland here :)

In his element :)

I feel the same way buddy…hate to leave the fresh snow…

We got a foot of fresh overnight/early AM. And it was still snowing when we left. Hopefully we get tons more for Christmas!

So Stormy’s biopsy finally came back from the University of Colorado. Davis already said the tumors were benign but since they were not acting benign, our doctor had them sent to “THE” doggie liver doctor at the University of Colorado. She came back and said it was a well differentiated carcinoma. That’s cancer. But it’s the “better” kind (ridiculous that cancer can have a better kind but ok I’ll take it.) What that means is the edges of the tumor are well defined and it can be removed – which they were. Not only were they removed but 2 of his liver nodes were removed.

I spent over 1.5 hours with the oncologist who did a good job of explaining a lot about Storm’s liver and this type of cancer. I’d prefer to never have to know anything about it, but that’s not the situation. Turns out Storm has actually had more than half of his liver removed over the past 2 surgeries. The doctor (and his surgeon) said his ability to bounce back and his demeanor are amazing and that he is an amazing little guy (he says “HEY! I’m not little!”)

Apparently, in people and animals, you need 10million cancer cells to show up as a tiny tumor. You or I or Storm can have 9million cancer cells somewhere in our body and there is no test in the world that would indicate that we had cancer. So currently, all tests show Storm is clear. The tumors are removed and his ultrasounds and bloodtests are all good. After his first tumor removal, he was all clear and we thought smooth sailing as it was benign. But then 5 weeks later he had 2 more tumors with a high fever and was super sick. So I will be getting him ultrasounds a lot. He’s had 2 since his surgery 3.5 weeks ago. But helps me sleep.

We discussed the different treatments for cancer. Standard chemo was ruled out as the doctor felt it was not beneficial for Storm and the side effects were potentially worse for Storm. There is a new medication that was approved 1.5 years ago specifically for dogs with cancer. The first one actually. All other meds are actually human drugs that are used off-label for dogs. But again, the side effects are stronger. We have to keep Storm’s Cushings in mind with any other treatment.

We decided on what is called metranomic therapy. This is basically using a couple different medications at a very low dosage daily (versus a chemo therapy where you blast the body with the chemicals for a set amount of time.) Basically, cancer cells gather together to create small tumors. As they do this, they use the blood supply from the organ they are on to survive and grow. Then when they get big enough, they need to start growing their blood supply to continue to grow. What this therapy is supposed to do is to kill the cells ability to grow their own blood supply. So in effect it is almost preventative to keep the tumor from ever growing its own blood supply so it can never get big versus trying to attack the tumor once it’s there. It’s obviously not quite that simple because if it was, we’d have a cure for cancer. But it’s hopeful anyway.

The oncologist said she has had some really great results with this therapy. She was quite honest and wanted to stay hopeful but obviously could not promise anything as Storm’s body reacted in a way that they had literally never seen before. And she said that she was very disappointed that the lab in Davis called it benign. And they were still standing by that she said. But she said with 2 top pathologists giving her differing results, she and I had to look at the whole picture – the dog, his symptoms and how his body was reacting – and not just tissue samples. So she felt the diagnosis of cancer was one that we should work with. But she also said that the U of Colorado doctor thought it was a very “good” thing how the tumor was so well defined. So it was treatable in her opinion as well.

In my various visits to this doctor/vet, I have run across dogs in the waiting room who have been receiving chemo treatments for 2 years and are still doing well. So there are reasons for me to be hopeful besides just me wanting to will Storm to be OK.

Storm started his first medication on Friday. It is part of the NSAID family so it’s actually beneficial for his soreness, recovery, etc from his surgery. And ever since he finished his antibiotics on Monday, he has been doing better and better every day. He’s wanted to go on longer walks, he has initiated playing with Angelus again, wanted to go see our neighbor dog and hang out in the snow and just generally looks brighter. I think the 2 rounds of antibiotics were just knocking him out. So these are all great things. He stays on this medication for 10 days, and then assuming all is fine, we add his 2nd medication to the routine. Then he just stays on those. We will do blood tests and ultrasounds regularly to make sure he is staying fine.

I know Storm won’t be with me forever. And I do not want him unhappy or sick or in pain. My husband was/is worried that I would do anything to keep Storm alive, even if his quality of life is not good. I feel over the past few years of my life I have shown that I can make the hard decisions when I do have to. I’ve signed DNRs, I’ve taken the DNR phone call, I’ve let my brother go. But I do feel that Storm has a lot of life and fight in him and no – I do not give up easily. And frankly, he’s doing pretty darn good right now so I think I’ve made the right decisions. He said that the people he recently talked to about it said that we probably shouldn’t have done that 2nd surgery. Well – those people can kiss my ass. I didn’t ask who said that because I don’t want to know as I would probably just not want to talk to them anymore, although I do have my guesses as to who it is. F them. It’s real easy to say things like that when you have no emotional investment or attachment. Or an empathy chip in your body. Or a soul.

So I view every day I have with him is a gift. And there is no reason in the world for me to give up on him. Since I got the diagnosis from the doctor on Monday, it was still November. Monday night was terribly sad for me. November 2010 has been the worst month of my entire life. Hands down. That month ended Tuesday. I met with the oncologist on Tuesday afternoon and Storm started his treatment on Friday – December. So I am putting November behind us. And we are going to finish 2010 on a better note and stay positive into 2011. Storm’s ah-rooooos and dinner dances show me this is the right mindset. Storm deserves a positive and happy Mom as this helps him too. So I am not going to be sad. I am going to be happy that I have the resources to help him and enjoy every single day with him. And can’t forget Angelus! And if I add a few more treats into their days – oh well :)