Monday, July 29, 2013 View
Last November we learned that Sable, our red Siberian Husky who will be eleven this September, has cancer in her right foreleg. The only treatment was amputation, and that would give us about six more months. Sable is an active dog and she would hate it to have only three legs and be totally dependent on human for everything, and we decided that while the cancer weakened the bone and we couldn’t take her on long walks any longer, we could still go out, and so long as she seemed to be a happy dog we didn’t have any decisions to make. Last week there was further deterioration, and trips to the vet. She pulled a ligament or something on her right hind leg making it even more difficult for her to walk. We had an appointment this morning to take her in for a new set of xrays to see where we are.
Meanwhile, about 2 AM Friday night/Saturday morning, my lack of balance did its thing and I fell flat on my face onto the wood floor. Didn’t see any stars, did not lose consciousness, but I got a good lump on my forehead just above my left eye. It looked awful, but it wasn’t particularly painful. Sunday it looked a little better, but it was still such that people at church asked what had happened, and one fellow parishioner came up to me and said “No more falling, right?” When I looked puzzled he said “You fell, right?. Give that up.” I told him Roberta hit me with a bed slat.
Monday morning we got up to take Sable to the the vet for the xrays, and my left eye was a classic shiner. It looked really awful. The lid was swollen so that it was hard to keep closed or open. So after we left Sable at the Vet we went out to Kaiser where I was looked at in the emergency room. They did a pretty thorough physical exam, lots of blood pressure and EKG, and decided that I didn’t need xrays, and the delayed black eye symptoms were normal. It cost about fifty bucks, but I was fine. This took until about 12:30, and when we got out to the car the lights had been left on and it wouldn’t start. We were on the second story of the parking structure by the main building – one of several parking structures at the Panorama City Kaiser – but the AAA guy had no problem finding us from that description. Aside from the delay and embarrassment there wasn’t a real problem and the car runs just fine now. We came home and had lunch, sort of.
Then we went out to pick up Sable. The vet carefully explained it all to us. The cancer is of course worse, and her leg is more fragile than before, The rear hip problem is minimal and she needs to take it easy for a while, but we won’t have more than a few weeks with her, and probably a lot less than that. It is getting closer to decision time. We brought her home. She’s happy to be home. And my eye looks better. But it hasn’t been a productive day. Apologies.
When I first got Sable I did a lot of pictures of her. You can find them at http://www.jerrypournelle.com/images/photos2002/sable1.html and if you double click on the small picture you will get the full sized picture. There are three web pages of these, with links.
I’ll start catching up tomorrow. It has been a long and hard day. Apologies.
