It’s amazing what a week can do. In the past week, Sophie has made leaps and bounds – literally. She is out walking with me for 5-10 minutes twice a day. Her amputation site looks clean and is healing well. Super yay!
After I brought Sophie home I was able to spend three days with here – two days on a weekend and one day working from home. As the medications worked / she got further from the surgery she improved quite a bit, but was still lethargic. On the third day my neighbor stopped by and delivered a step stool he made for her. It’s in this picture, on the day he dropped it off:
I call it the Taj-Ma-Stool. It had non-skid bottoms on the legs, is covered in carpet, and is heavy enough that I can stand on it. It’s very nice. The first time I tried to get her to use it, though, (six days post-surgery) she ignored it and jumped right up on the bed! It was pretty cool. As you can see in the picture, the bruising was going down pretty well.
A few days later, I looked at her when she was laying on the floor and I saw this sight:
She was laying on her wound site! Yay! And only eight days after surgery! She’s laying on the futon mattress we were still sleeping on in the living room, but it would be our last night on the floor. That day was also the first time she wanted to play – she was getting her “Sophie” back. It was a good day. By this time I was living in the moment and no longer letting myself be sad. I was doing what I could to improve her diet (we’re moving to grain free, but still eating dry food with wet food “topping”) and researching supplements. The hospital called to confirm the diagnosis of osteosarcoma – no surprise there.
The above picture is nine days post surgery, and right before we went for our check up with the vet. The vet and all the techs were very impressed with her progress and saw no issues. The only thing we’re really struggling with is trying to get Sophie to eat the Wholly Immune the vet swears by – has anyone had any luck?
In the last few days we have begun doing twice-daily walks and I have even thrown the ball for her a (very) few times. One time she tried to turn too fast and did a little flip/roll over her back but it didn’t seem to faze her. I am continually amazed by what she can do. I’m a little nervous about leaving her in the care of a dog sitter for a week for Thanksgiving, but I’m sure she’ll be fine. Two thumbs up! Happy Thanksgiving, all!
getting her ‘Sophie’ back…just love that!!! thanks for sharing her story, it’s great that she’s doing so well. it will be a long week at thanksgiving, but the reunion will be sweet.
charon & gayle
It’s hard to not worry when you have to be away from your tripawd, but, yes, it will be great when you get back together. She will probably even have more of her ‘Sophie’ back by then!
Happy thanksgiving! keep up the good work Sophie!
Jackie, Abby’s mom
We love recovery stories like this! Thank you so much for sharing. No, we haven’t heard of Wholly Immune but I see it’s made for humans. Looks like it has good stuff in it though, but I wonder how it would be dosed for canines?
The only thing like this that I tried was when I was in an oncology study with K9 Immunity, so I can only share my experience about that.
Keep up the great work Sophie, you are kickin’ butt!