Thursday, January 27, 2011
On Tuesday, Luna had her purple stitches removed from her ear and her elbow. She did such a good job sitting still while they removed her stitches. She really is a very good girl at the vet.
It looks like everything healed up nicely. The area on her ear, where they scraped one of the tumors out, is a big scab, but they said that is to be expected and it is looking good.
The only bad news of the visit for Luna is that she is now allowed to get wet again! She was really liking that 14 day bath embargo due to her stitches.
Monday, January 24, 2011
I think it doesn't matter how good of a weekend you had or how much sleep you got on Sunday night or what you have to look forward to in the upcoming week, Monday mornings tend to make everyone a little grumpy.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Yesterday, we received the results of Luna's pathology tests. Unfortunately, all 3 tumors were cancerous. The bright side is that our vet got clean margins on all 3 tumor removals. The two tumors removed from Luna's ear came back as a Grade I's. The lowest grad you can get. The tumor on Luna's elbow came back as a Grade II.
Since the vet got clean margins, no further treatment is recommended. We just have to be very diligent about checking for any new bumps and getting them tested right away.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
When we took Luna in for her surgery on Tuesday, it was happenstance that we marked all her spots in purple washable marker. We thought purple would show up the best on her fur and we really wanted the spots we marked to stick out. On a side note, coloring on a dog isn't really that easy. But, it did make me feel like a mischievous toddler.
When we picked Luna up from the vet, she had purple stitches and the vet let us know that they picked purple to specifically match her spots.
There has been a lot of purple power this week and I hope it is a sign the Baltimore Ravens are going to win their next playoff game. I know they do purple Fridays in Baltimore, but Luna took it one step further and got purple stitches to support the team.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
First, I want to start off by thanking everyone for the well wishes and positive thoughts. It means a lot and is very helpful when trying to get through stressful days like yesterday.
Luna has been doing very well since coming home yesterday evening. As soon as she got some dinner she was ready to snooze. She was happy to snuggle on the couch with us, but when we went to bed, she got super excited. She couldn't wait to get up on the big bed and do some serious snoozing. About 1 minute after I put her on the bed she was sawing logs.
I haven't had a chance to get pictures of her stitches. I know she has 6 stitches in her ear, but I'm not sure how many she has on her elbow. When I normally pet Luna, I usually give her a scratch behind her ear, so I have to be really careful not to fall into old habits and pet her stitched up ear.
She doesn't seem to be in much pain, although she is on a pain med for the next few days. Today, she seems very content to sleep, so that is what we are going to let her do.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Update 6:30PM:
Luna is home and all things considered is doing very well. She has about 6 stitches in her ear and a few more on her elbow. So far, the elbow incision seems to be giving her the most trouble. She was very happy to get some dinner a few minutes ago. She is still a bit drowsy. We are going to curl up on the sofa and just relax. More updates coming tomorrow. Thanks for all the good wishes. Luna is back home and on the road to recovery.
Update 1:30PM:
Luna is out of surgery and doing well. In total, they removed 3 mast cell tumors. Two on her ear, one on the inside, one on the outside and one tumor from her shoulder. All 3 have been sent out for testing and hopefully we will have the results soon. The good news for today is that Luna is waking up and will be ready to go home this evening.
We dropped a purple spotted Luna off at the vet this morning for her tumor removal and a dental cleaning. We marked all the little bumps that we could find last night and I am hoping that none of those come back as mast cell tumors.
Unfortunately, the only thing we can really do now is wait. I should hopefully hear something by 1PM (Eastern Time). As soon as I know something, I will give you an update.
Monday, January 10, 2011
On Thursday night, we were watching TV and Luna was on my lap. I was petting her when I noticed a bump on her ear. I moved her fur and found a bump that looked eerily similar to the bump that Benjamin had on his chest a while back. Knowing that Benjamin's bump was bad news, I call the vet first thing Friday morning and made an appointment for Friday afternoon.
The vet was optimistic at first because the lump seemed very superficial, but he still did an aspiration and took a look at the fluid he extracted under the microscope. After he took a look at the cells, he confirmed our suspicions that the bump was a mast cell tumor.
So, Luna goes in for surgery on Tuesday to have the lump removed. After the tumor is removed it will be sent to be biopsied and we will get the grade of the tumor. If we are really lucky it will come back a grade 1. But grade 2 would be OK too, as long as there are clean margins.
The only good thing about this situation is that we have a pretty good understanding of the process having been through the same thing with Benjamin.
Luna has a few other bumps on her that we don't think are trouble, but we are going to have the vet take a look at all of them since she is going to be under. With her skin issues, Luna does tend to get a lot of little bumps that come and go. Our vet's advice was to mark her up with lipstick so that he could find them all easily. They will do their own search as well, but that way he will be able to easily spot all the bumps that we know about. So, we will be taking Luna the leopard in for her surgery on Tuesday. Luna is taking it all in stride, but I just can't wait until we have her back home on Tuesday night.
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