Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Jane

Jane is our dog! Our first baby! She's a full bread black lab, she came with papers and all! Over the course of her life, Jane's pushed the limits several times.

When she was just a wee pup, she got into her little doggie brain that it might be fun to chew the molding around the windows and the doorway of the dinning room. That had to ALL be replaced before we could sell that house.

Then there was the time that she ate an entire dish of Valentine's candy - most of which was chocolate. Needless to say, that was a cold, stinky mess to clean up (and David was out of town for that incident!). Poor thing was sick for like a whole 24 hours. YUCK!

Also, there was the time she chewed the top off an empty soda bottle, but I guess she didn't chew the cap small enough and it got stuck in her intestines! So after a night in the emergency animal hospital, being sent home with canned dog food and a huge bill, we thought she'd be fine. She wasn't. Off to the regular vet where he said they had to do surgery to remove whatever was stuck in there. So we did. She recovered well!

Of course there has always been the daily "regular" life stuff of having a lab. She, from the very beginning, was an active and fun filled dog! She loves people and loves to be around people. Some times too much. Jane's forms of affection can sometimes be over powering. She doesn't know when to back off, or just sit and let someone pet her. She likes to be all up on you and in your face and loving all over you. But she's always been good with the kids, and she didn't have any adjustment troubles when we brought Luke or Avery home from the hospital. She's always been very tolerant of both kids and they both love her a ton!

She likes to follow me around during the day. If I'm in the kitchen, she likes to lay where I need to walk. If I'm in the bedroom, she's laying in there. Wherever I am, she likes to be also. And it's funny when the kids and I are in different rooms, because she has a hard time deciding where she should be. Sometimes she'll move from one room to the other and back again, and then sometimes she picks a spot in between the rooms to lay, so she can see all of us! She's a good dog like that!

All this brings me to poor Jane. Something is wrong - very wrong, with her foot. It started as just a limping. She was sort of favoring her front foot. I didn't think too much of it, until it seemed to be something that bothered her all the time. So I took her to the vet. After examining her foot, the vet didn't see anything (which I hadn't seen anything either) she sent us home with some pain meds, thinking it might be that she stepped on a rock or branch or something.

Jane's foot didn't get any better. It got worse actually. So I took her back in. This time they wanted to take x-rays. So they sedated her and took them. When they sedated her the vet could see that she had a growth or something that looked to be making her toe swell up. The x-ray showed nothing on her bone - good news! But now, they weren't sure what was going on - bad news! So this time we came home with antibiotics and more pain meds.

Unfortunately, neither medication seemed to make one bit of difference in Jane's toe. And she still was favoring her foot and seemed unlike herself.

So back to the vet. This time they took 2 biopsy samples from the spot on her toe. And we're in a holding pattern to hear back from the report on that. They sedated her again, took the samples, wrapped up her foot and sent us home with more antibiotics and stronger pain medication. Now, Jane doesn't seem to want to eat very much - which isn't like her! And she's not wanting to use the bathroom very much either. Which the vet said could be due to the pain medicine making her not want to eat as much, therefor she doesn't need to use the bathroom as often.

So, we're in this holding pattern to wait and see what the outcome is. Best case, it's a really bad infection and she'll take stronger antibiotics and it'll go away. Next - it's some sort of tumor and she'll have to have her toe amputated. Worst, it's some sort of cancerous growth! From there we'll have to decide what to do. That's not a good place to be. It's a sad place actually. It's hard to think we might have to make some sort of decision about what to do if she has cancer. I'm just hoping it's something simple and we can take care of it pretty easily!

**** Since writing the beginning of this post, I spoke with the vet*****

The biopsy results came back inconclusive! Yes, inconclusive! Can you believe that?? But, they think it might just be a bad infection, or even an allergic reaction to something. So for now (rather than doing a deeper and another biopsy) we'll give her more antibiotics and some Benadryl to see if that helps. She left the bandage on until Monday evening and after she took it off, her toe seemes less swollen. It still seems to bother her some, but it doesn't look as bad as it did. So maybe it is an infection... I guess we'll keep waiting and seeing!

2 comments:

Heather said...

Sending prayers Jane's way! I know how integral the pups are to a family. I hope she feels better soon!

Holly said...

Thank you Heather! She does seem to be doing better today! I'm thinking it may have been an infection and needed more time/antibiotic! We're thankful for that and for your prayers!