The Tripawd Times of Nova the Great Dane

Dang, there is so much depressing stuff going on in the lives of some of our Tripawd friends and their families lately. Today Mom is really bummed out about the latest news from Kim (Tika and Caya’s mom). It reminds her so much of back in the summer when after months of me being the sick one, my sister Emmy got very very ill and Mom thought she might lose her.  But here we are 6 months later and while my sister still has a parathyroid tumor, things are under control and her medications are helping.

Anyway, I wanted to bring a smile to everyone’s face today.  Remember the “Obamicons” Mom made of me last year?  Well I helped her create a new one with my new motto:

Let's Sing It All Together Now....

For those of you who missed my two “Obamicons” last year, here they are, for your enjoyment:

We're Doing All We Can to Beat the Awful Cancer Beast!

And of course:

It Just Doesn't Get More Beautiful Than This!

Hey, guess what? The people who did my trading cards sent us a rush order and they got here on Saturday!  They look great!  So I just wanted to let those who asked for a card (Chuy, Codie Rae, Cemil, Shilo and Max) that Mom will get them out in the mail to you tomorrow.  Looks like I’ve got some loyal fans on the West Coast. Mom and I want to know where all the Midwest and East Coast Tripawds are. We would love to send one to ANY of our Tripawd friends, just ask. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have one to share for your Tripawd. Hey, gotta share the love, you know?

I hope my Obamicon made you wag your tail today, people.  Now get out there today and create some big time memories with your Tripawd!

Sloppy Dane Kisses from HRH Queen Nova of Tripawds

A few weeks ago my Mom noticed that some of my Tripawd buddies on the site were getting Tripawd trading cards made for themselves.  What a fun idea! Mom was thinking at some point of just doing them on the computer, but got lazy about it and decided that this place would probably do a better job.  Plus, being Queen and all I didn’t want to miss out on something that my subjects had.  I would imagine that all of my loyal subjects will want one when they see it.  Here’s what they are gonna look like:

Tripawd Trading Cards... Collect Them All!

On the back side of the card are some fun facts about me:

Fun Facts About Your Queen

So if you would like to add to your collection, or start building a collection of all your Tripawd buddies, just send a private message to my Mom (Dane Mom) on Tripawds and she will put you on the list.  There are lots to go around, since Mom got grumpy with the company because my order got lost in the shuffle, they are sending her some extras.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t have one to share. I am a benevolent Queen and would love to share these with anyone who asks.

HRH Queen Nova of Tripawds

Wow!  I knew my 1-year ampuversary was a special holiday, but I had no idea it was a NATIONAL holiday today.  I sure am lucky!  Mom says even all the banks and post offices are closed today.  Could it be in my honor? I know, wishful thinking, but seriously, I am honored to share this special day with all the awesome Veterans of our country.

You all already know that I am a spoiled princess, but today Mom has crowned me “Queen Nova of Tripawds”. 

Her Royal Highness Queen Nova of Tripawds

As Queen I would first like to decree that all Tripawds and their pawrents take the time today to fondly remember all of our fallen Tripawd heroes who fought their battles so valiantly. You pups are so pawesome and will never, ever be forgotten.

Paws for a Moment to Remember Our Fallen Tripawd Heroes

I also declare that all Tripawds should give their pawrents a big sloppy Great Dane-style kiss today, as thanks for all that they have done to keep us free from pain, hoppy, and healthy.

Who Could Resist Such Beauty and Grace?

And then I declare that all Tripawds shall say a big THANKS to Jim and Rene, Jerry and Wyatt Ray, for all their loving support with this site. They are truly the best, and there is no way my Mom and I would have made it through the year without them. Oh wait, one more declaration, and this is that all pawrents shall shower their Tripawds today with lots of tasty treats, in honor of my Ampuversary.

It's Not Easy Being Queen

Mom went out of her way today to make my Ampuversary a very special day.  I woke to breakfast served to me in bed, as befitting a Queen. It was a tasty platter of sausage links and cheese slices. 

Sausage a la Jimmy Dean and Fromage Americaine

Delicious! A breakfast fit for a Queen!

Breakfast in Bed

A little bit later, as a mid-morning snack, I received a most thoughtful gift of a delectable Beef Trachea. 

"Roasted to Perfection" - Only the Best for the Queen

“Let them ALL eat Beef Trachea!”  I declared to my subjects as I munched down my tasty treat.

I Hereby Declare... A Beef Trachea for Every Tripawd!

I tell ya, nothing says “I Love You” like a crunchy Beef Trachea, you should really consider them for those holiday gift baskets.  Sure they make our pawrents say “ewwwww” but they just don’t know what they are missing.

I Have No Clue Why My People Find This Unappetizing... Go Figure!

I was feeling so generous I even shared my 2-pack with my sissy Emmy.

Lucky Dog

Just before lunch, I opened a huge present, an adorable, giant-sized Bernese Mountain Dog stuffy, truly a gift befitting a Queen! 

My New Baby

I just love stuffies that are life-size! 

Big Girls Need Big Toys!

I loved spending a few hours in the living room grooming and snuggling with my new baby today.

Everybody Needs Some Stuffy to Love!

Mom told me she wanted to get me a Barney so I could join the Blog of Killbarney, but she couldn’t find any Barneys at the store that were befitting a Queen. They were all too small. I do have a minimum size requirement for my stuffies you know. Plus, my brother threatened that, if a singing Barney entered the house, he would tear it up himself before I would be able to get my jaws on it.  Oh well, maybe for Christmas.

Lunch was a delightful platter of rolled-up deli turkey.

Deli Turkey... YUM! This is one of the few things I would eat when I was recovering last year.

The turkey slices were hand-fed to me bon-bon style on my brother’s bunk bed.

Mmmmmm..... Turkey!

This is living!  I was hoping for some tripe too, but Mom said she just couldn’t do it, the smell of tripe makes her want to hurl and she didn’t want ruin my pawty by hurling.

I spent the afternoon lazing around napping in the sun, and hopping around outside to enjoy the beautiful fall day.  I even played a little with Mom.

Wanna Play? I Love to Bring Mom Love Offerings of Stuffies

Dinner was a formal affair (tiaras required), where I was served a delectable flat-iron steak, rare of course, sprinkled in cheddar cheese.

Ampuversary Steak and Cheese

Happy Ampuversary to Meeeeeeeeeeeee…………

1 Year! Wow!

Geesh… you’d think I’d died and gone to Heaven.  Wow, all the Spirit and Angel Tripawds are lucky, they get to eat like this every day.

Good Eatin'

 My bedtime snack was a spectacular beef rib to gnaw on, a perfect way to end my day of the royal treatment.

Beef Rib

Mmmm….. I am stuffed!

Stuffed!

Of course I shared all of my wonderful treats with my sissy because I AM a fair and generous Queen.

Now Emmy and I are expressing our appreciation for all the wonderful Ampuversary treats as only dogs can… by farting up a storm.  Excuse me, but even a Queen has to let one rip every now and then. Who can blame me with all this rich food?

Sloppy Dane Kisses, table-clearing tail wags, and a Dane Lean to all my loyal subjects…

HRH Queen Nova of Tripawds

Kicking Cancer’s Butt for 1 YEAR and counting!

Well… this time tomorrow (Wednesday) will be my 1-year ampuversary!  I know Mom has some great stuff up her sleeve because I sniffed the groceries when she brought them in yesterday.  I can’t wait to see what was in that bag!

Mom took this picture of me to show everyone how beautiful I am one year after my amputation.  It isn’t often that she gets pictures of me sitting like this.  Don’t you love how you can’t even see my incision anymore, and how all my hair has grown back?

Nova Sitting Pretty

Now you will find out how Mom managed to get a picture of me sitting… my brother Bobby was just about to give me the rest of his delicious buffalo burger!  YUM! I love being a Tripawd, it always means special treats!

Buffalo Burger Treat

I am still the same ol’ couch potato though.  I found a great new place to lounge, in my little brother Skyler’s bunk bed.  Mom caught me in there this morning:

Lounging in the Bunk Bed

I am so busted!

Busted

I think this is what you people call a “Bed Head”.  Betcha didn’t know that even dogs get bedheads too!

Bedhead Nova

Ok, stay tuned for the big day tomorrow.  I can’t wait to tell everyone about all my ampuversary treats. Think I’ll get any presents too?  I am definitely putting on my tiara and pink feather boa, that’s for sure.

See you tomorrow!

Nova

Well now that my Blog is moved over here to Tripawds, it’s time for an update. Mom has many excuses for not updating everyone on the status of my health since JUNE. But the bottom line is, I AM DOING GREAT.  We were supposed to go in for updated chest x-rays in September and something came up so Mom cancelled the appointment.  Things kept coming up, so Mom decided to hold off on getting new chest x-rays for awhile.  It’s pretty much a financial decision, although I think she is scared to get bad news (it’s been a bad year for Mom).  The most important thing is I feel healthy, and life is great.  So I am totally ok with waiting.  I don’t think there is any point in going to the Doctor until I feel sick.  After so many visits early last year I am glad to not have to go and be poked and prodded, although I do miss the car rides!

Next week on the 11th will be my 1-year ampuversary.  I am so excited.  My oncologist told Mom that the prognosis is excellent for dogs who make it through the first year of an amputation. SWEEET! Dr. O told her that if I survive 1 year cancer-free, there is an 85% chance that I will still be cancer-free in 2 years.  WHOOO HOOOO! Beyond that the odds are even better!

Hey everybody!  My Mom finally got off her butt and converted my Blogger blog to a Tripawds blog (I don’t know what took her so long).  Hopefully all my previous posts and pictures made it over, if not, I know she will be trying to figure it out quick.  I have been a Tripawd for almost a year now and have a great story that I am sure will inspire all you new Tripawds.  I promise to start writing more too.  We’ll check back in soon, Mom needs the computer now to check and make sure all my blog entries posted ok.

Tail-Waggin’ Nova

Uh, oh. I smell trouble.

No, it’s not me. MY health has been AWESOME this past month, however, my big sister Emmy has had a lot of problems that have really scared Mom… and me too. So this past month, Emmy has been getting a lot of attention from Mom, and has been on many, many car rides where I was left behind. POOOOR MEEEE! Gosh, I HATE being left here alone. Every time they leave I do my best drama queen wail, but it doesn’t get them to turn back.

Mom! Mom! PLEEEEEEASE come back and snuggle with MEEEEE!

It’s scary to think of Emmy being sick, maybe even sicker than me. I can’t imagine my life with out my sissy.

So here’s the story. A few weeks ago, when Emmy was napping on her back with all four legs straight up in the air (my brothers call it the “Dead Dog” pose), Mom noticed big dark red splotches all over her belly. She thought it was probably just a skin condition, since Emmy has had those in the past. Well, she took Emmy to the vet and it turned out that they were hemorrhages (bleeding under the skin).

The vet recommended a blood test immediately, and discovered that Emmy’s platelet count was dangerously low. She told Mom that Emmy likely had Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia Purpura or ITP for short (yeah right, like we even knew what THOSE goofy words even meant). Basically, it’s when the platelet count gets so low that blood doesn’t clot normally, and the dog can eventually bleed to death if it isn’t caught in time. Something in there attacks the platelets, kills them off, even though the body keeps producing more and more.

The vet started to worry Mom by telling her she wanted to do another test to check the calcium level in Emmy’s blood. A higher reading might indicate cancer. Well, Emmy’s calcium level WAS high, and Mom was really upset when she heard that C-WORD, that yucky cancer was a possibility. When she got home she was all sad, pounding out updates on her computer to her friends from Tripawds.com, looking for support and reassurance. As usual, the Tripawds gang was wonderful and really gave Mom the boost of positive thinking that she needed. I don’t know what Mom would do without those people.

The following Monday, the Vet did a “Malignancy Profile” on Emmy, and sent it to Michigan State for analysis. This was supposed to tell Mom what type of cancer or tumor Emmy might have. In the meantime, the Vet had prescribed prednisone to treat the low platelets. The medication was working, as Emmy’s platelets were up a bit by then. But the medicine caused a problem that was just driving Mom bananas. Emmy was so thirsty she did not want to stop drinking. She drank out of the TOILETS, can you believe that? Someone told me that a lot of dogs do that, but neither Emmy nor I never thought to do that before. We really are more like people than dogs!

It really grossed out Mom, because since I have 3 brothers, they are all lazy butts who occasionally “forget” to flush. EWWWW, not really something you want to think about, right? I thought Mom would have a meltdown. Emmy was SO thirsty she would seek out ANY source of water she could find. The spigot on the water cooler, knocking over Mom’s plants to drink the water in the pans underneath, drinking the bird bath, rain water, dew off of the grass, begging to go out at 4:30 am when the sprinklers were on, just to put her mouth over the sprinkler. And to top it off, she ripped the downspout off the side of the house so that she could drink what was in there. Yep, she was big time thirsty.

And to make matters worse, this meant that Emmy had to pee so much that she wasn’t able to make it outside. She would pee on the carpet, the throw rugs, even on the hardwood floors, and the puddles were often discovered by unsuspecting people walking through them and yelling AAARRRGGGHHHH. This stuff made Mom want to constantly turn on that awful carpet cleaning vacuum thing, that scares the crap out of me every time she turns it on. I tried to tell Emmy to stop the silly puppy behavior, it’s the only way we are going to stop Mom from turning on the monster pee-sucking vacuum. But she just looked at me and said she couldn’t help it, the medicine was doing weird things to her that she couldn’t control. I could tell she felt bad every time it happened, and luckily Mom did not yell at her, she would just put her outside and give her a piece of cheese when she would pee where she was supposed to.

The following weekend the test came back from Michigan State and said that Emmy had a Parathyroid Tumor. The Vet told Mom to take the test results and Emmy’s x-rays (which were all clear, just like mine!) to my cancer doctor, Dr. Obradovich for her opinion. So last week, Mom took Emmy there for an evaluation. Before they went, Mom looked up Parathyroid Tumors on the computer and found that they were very treatable and usually not cancerous.

What a relief! As you can see, I have always been VERY close to my big sissy, she’s always been there for me ever since I was a puppy!

Dr. O said that yes, Emmy did appear to have a “Parathyroid Adenoma” which was very, very likely NOT cancerous, and could be removed with surgery. Trouble is, Emmy can’t have surgery if her blood is not clotting normally, it would be way too dangerous. They still can’t figure out the cause of the ITP. Dr. O was worried about a lymphoma in the spleen or bone marrow neoplasia, which are types of cancers. She did an ultrasound of Emmy’s liver and spleen, and that looked normal. She also did a test for a tick-borne virus that could cause ITP, but that was normal too. So right now Mom has to continue Emmy on a lower dose of prednisone to get the platelets stable, and then think about surgery. But the cause of the ITP remains unknown.

Surgery on a Parathyroid Tumor is apparently much more difficult than an amputation, if you can believe it. You’d think that taking something out that is the size of a lima bean (or thereabouts) would be much easier then removing an entire leg. Mom was very surprised to hear that even though the incision would only be a few inches and the tumor was small, it would probably cost as much as my amputation surgery, maybe even more! The reason is that there are a lot of things that can go wrong in the first few days that the surgeon needs to control, so Emmy will have to stay in the hospital and be monitored for a few days. Geeze, with my amputation I was hopping out to the car the next day!

How scary! I don’t want to be left at home without my sissy!

I really hope that Emmy starts to feel better soon. She hangs around Mom a lot more now, which I am not used to, so when I hop up to Mom for some love, I usually crash into Emmy, who got there first! She’s been swiping my ice cubes that Mom gives us, and a few times I have had to lash out and speak my mind! Sometimes I drop them and it takes me a few minutes to find them with my sniffer, then WOOSH, I get a mouthful of Emmy’s fur. Bleah.

I do love my sister soooo much though. She has been there for me since I was a puppy and was so small I walked under her legs. Now I am so big she can walk under ME! But she is still my big sister. And even though she steals my ice cubes, water, and hogs Mom all the time, I don’t know what I would do without her as my seeing eye dog. Please join me in thinking pawsitive thoughts that there is no cancer in that big tubby ‘ol body of hers, and that when she has the surgery that she bounces right back and is herself again just like I was after my surgery.

Emmy and Nova… sisters forever!

(Note: Nova puppy pics are from 2004)

It has been over a month since I last posted. It’s mostly been because of all the busy-ness that comes at the end of the school year, and preparing for a family vacation to the Carolinas, which we just now returned from. Nova and Emmy were in the kennel for 10 days (really broke my heart to leave them there). They seemed to do great, although were glad to be home. They went straight for the leather couch.

Nova has adapted incredibly to being a blind dog. She finds her way around the house and outside to her “spot” without any assistance whatsoever. It’s so funny, she appears to use her tail as a blind dog “cane”, wagging it in a wide arc so she can feel the walls. She has really sharpened all of her senses. She can tell if anyone is approaching her when she has her favorite stuffy in front of her, and she will rush to grab it and let out a “watch it” bark. It’s so funny because Nova was always really lax when Emmy would steal her stuff, she’d just give in and back off. Not anymore! Last night, she even stole Emmy’s dinner.

Nova was scheduled to have new chest x-rays at the oncologist early this month. After a lot of waffling, I rescheduled the appointment to later in the month (tomorrow in fact). I had kind of a selfish reason for doing so, but I did it anyway. I was nervous that we might get bad news, and I didn’t want it to ruin our vacation. Plus, if I heard bad news I don’t think I could have left her in the kennel, but I couldn’t find any other options. So I thought it would be best to wait until we got back.

I have no idea what to expect tomorrow. A few days before we left, I noticed a strange swelling in Nova’s neck. It was not something I could feel at all, just something I could see under her skin when she turned her neck a certain way. But every time I think I see it (looks golf ball like), I grab her and feel her neck area all over. But I can’t seem to find any type of mass, and it is all soft, there is nothing hard in there other than bone, that I could find. I thought that they might be swollen lymph nodes, but I thought if that would be the case they would feel hard. I decided that it could wait until the oncologist appointment.

Another strange thing is that since she has come home from the kennel she has been panting a lot. Now, it has been in the 90s this week, so it might be from the heat. And it might be pain from her glaucoma, although I took her to the opthomologist earlier this week and her eye pressures were fine. I am concerned that panting is a sign that the cancer has spread to the lungs. I am trying to remain positive, although I know metastises (sp?) are inevitable. We are going to have to deal with them sooner or later.

She doesn’t pant when she is laying down, only when she gets up to move around. It is quite warm in my house (we don’t like to turn the air on much), but I have tried fans, and turning the air on to see if it makes a difference and it doesn’t seem to. But it is so hot and humid, it’s been uncomfortable for me too. I think if I was a dog I would be panting too.

I want to know, but I don’t want to know. You know? The whole diagnosis, amputation experience, treatments, x-rays, and then all the glaucoma problems with ensuing blindness. It has me just totally drained. Getting the x-rays tomorrow will be a big expense, and if it shows that there are tumors elsewhere, I will probably just lose it. I have done so much to care for this dog, and I don’t want the cancer to win. If I find out it spread it is going to be so hard to know when to say when. I think that’s the part I dread the most. I don’t want her to hurt or suffer.

Oh well, I am trying to remain positive and hoping that the panting is just from the heat. Stay tuned for an update tomorrow.