The Tripawd Times of Nova the Great Dane

Today Mom and I were feeling in the Christmas spirit, so she helped me into my cozy new fleece jacket and we headed into Fenton in the snow for the “Jinglefest”. The big attraction for us Mom and me was that a Fenton-area vet was offering an opportunity for pets to get their pictures taken with Santa. How exciting!

This was my first big trip out since I became a Tripawd (other than my many, many trips to the vet), so it was lots of fun to get back in the business of being fawned over and petted by all sorts of people. It was a really snowy day, and as we slid down the streets of downtown Fenton, I heard Mom grumbling something about how she wished we qualified for handicapped parking (with me being a Tripawd and all). I think she was worried I would have trouble getting up the snow piled up along the curb.

Wouldn’t you know, a spot opened up just 3 cars down from Santa’s tent, so Mom swiped it in no time (I am pretty sure she was NOT supposed to do a u-turn like that.) We got out and I could tell Mom was tense and worried that I would slip on the slick roads. Nope! I just jumped out and hopped right to the sidewalk. I even scaled the piled up snow on the curb, piece of cake! I was going really fast, I really wanted to get to Santa. Across the street there was a big chili-cookoff going on in front of the Firehouse, and all these people were pointing at me and looking at me. On the short walk to the tent we got stopped 5 times by people who wanted to pet me and to find out where my leg went. I gave everyone all the snuggles they wanted, but I just wanted to get it done so I could go see Santa.

A local vet was offering pictures with Santa for a $10 donation to Leader Dog for the Blind. Plus, they will send Mom a disk of all the pictures they take, print out one nice one for Mom, and then let Mom take as many pictures as she wanted to with her own camera. What a good deal, Mom always loves to help Leader Dogs for the Blind. Everyone paid a ton of attention to me, and again, everyone was asking for details about my leg. I was definitely stopping traffic, cars were slowing down as they passed. Hey, I am used to getting gawked at, but it was as if these people had never seen a Tripawd before.



Mom spent a lot of time talking to people about amputations, cancer, etc. Then I saw a familiar face, it was Mrs. Skinner, one of the other moms from Cross Country who would always pet me at the meets. At first she didn’t realize I was now a Tripawd, she reached over to pet me and I think was shocked to see I only had 3 legs. Last time she saw me in October, I had 4. Of course Mom had to tell her the whole dang story (it’s getting old) which made Mrs. Skinner start to tell a story about HER dog that died last year. HEY, let’s not talk about dying, okay, right now I am LIVING!

Santa was soon ready for me and it took a little time to get comfortable. There were lots of cords everywhere and I got my foot stuck in a few while I was trying to get close to Santa. Plus, I was nervous. It’s always exciting to go see Santa, but when you get there, sometimes you get nervous, you know? Santa asked me to sit, and I looked at him like he was crazy. Mom explained to him that I really don’t sit much, that I am kind of like a horse. I either stand up, or lay down. The nice lady taking pictures couldn’t stop snuggling with me and saying nice things to me.

Santa was friendly too and I finally got comfortable enough to get up next to him. Mom kept jumping around like a crazy lady with her camera, along with the camera lady, ooohhhhhing and ahhhhing about how cute I was. Mom forgot to have me put on my reindeer antlers, but that was okay with me. I do like wearing them, so Mom said she would take more pictures of me with them on later closer to Christmas. She says I am the only dog she has ever had who will willingly keep on a pair of reindeer antlers.







“And what would YOU like for Christmas, young lady?” Santa said.

“Uhhhhhhhh…… I dunno…. I’m still thinking, Santa…..”

Of course I was too nervous to remember what to ask Santa for, just like Ralphie in the Christmas Story movie. There wasn’t really that much I could think of to ask for, since Mom always tells him all the good stuff to get me anyway. Plus, I already have the greatest gift I could have, and that is the gift to KEEP ON LIVIN’!

GO TRIPAWDS…. ROCK ON!!!

I took Nova to her regular vet yesterday for the follow-up CBC for last week’s Carboplatin. Her white count was within normal ranges, so that was very, very good. Actually everything was within normal ranges, except that she was a little dehydrated. So I am trying to get more vigilant about getting her to drink. I have actually noticed her drinking a few times in the past day or so, so I was really relieved about that.

They also had a preliminary report there from Colorado State, which I hadn’t seen yet. The Cancer Center had said they were waiting for the detailed report to go over with me next week or when we go for our next round of Carboplatin. Anyway, it was nice to actually read something. The diagnosis was fibroblastic osteosarcoma. Apparently this type of osteosarcoma is known to have a slightly better prognosis. Yay! Hey, I will take whatever positive news I can get. Also, there was a reactive lymph node, but there was no evidence of metastasis to the lymph node.

Histopathology report was as follows: “Section of lymph node is reactice with prominenct lymphoid follicles. There is a clear distincition between cortex and medulla. Section of the leg after further fixation and decalcification reveals tumor. The tumor consists of spindle cells forming swirls and whirls and a small amount of tumor bone matrix. Nuclei are moderately pleomorphic, oval, and have large nucleoli. Mitoses are moderate in number. There is extensive bone destructions and some reactive bone formation.”

I am so glad we got this nasty thing off of her! It breaks my heart that she was walking around on a broken leg for who knows how long.

The best part is that she is so dang happy all the time. The tail is going constantly, even while napping, she greets me at the door when I come up, and is back to all her typical “leaning” she does when she wants a snuggle.

One day at a time!

Just a quick update on a great weekend. I am so happy that Nova did not appear to experience any severe side effects from the carboplatin treatment the other day, aside from a tiny bit of diarrhea. They said side effects might occur within 3-5 days after the treatment (that was last Wednesday). That time has passed, and Nova appears to be doing great. She’s usually pretty lethargic anyway, so it was hard to tell if she was more tired than usual. If anything, she seems to have a little MORE energy than usual. We had a few visitors to the house over the last few days, and she has been her typical nosy self, getting up and walking around, and also leaning on people. Her appetite seemed a little off during the day, but she is still eating her meals.

Here Alex is feeding her sliced turkey and ice cubes during one of the afternoons where she didn’t seem to feel like eating. She will eat sliced turkey no matter what.

I don’t know why, but I don’t ever notice her at the water dish and she won’t take water when I get it. Perhaps I should remind her again of that card Annie sent about drinking plenty of fluids! So I have still been hand feeding her ice cubes and watching to make sure her pee isn’t too dark. She’s even gone out to hop around in the snow for a few minutes.

The next event is Wednesday, where I will take her to her regular vet for a CBC blood test. I really don’t know exactly what it is for, but I think it will give some indication how the chemo is affecting her.

Well, today is Thanksgiving, my first official holiday as a Tripawd. This time last year, I was running the Turkey Trot 5K in Ann Arbor with Mom. I sure wish I could have gone this year. Mom and Alex got up early this morning to go down to Ann Arbor to do the race. I wish Mom would have taken Emmy to the race and given her a chance to run this year, but Mom said she was feeling all bummed that I was running last Thanksgiving, so it didn’t occur to her to let Emmy try. (I am a much better runner than Emmy). Mom hopes that I can come to the race next year. I might not be able to run/hop a whole 5K, but she is hoping that I can at least cross the finish line with her next year. I can’t wait!

I stayed home with Dad this morning. We were couch potatoes. Dad is still sore from the Ironman, so we have a lot in common. He says his legs are “toast”. I know the feeling! Dad let me try on his medal from the race and said that I should receive a medal too for being such a good girl and for learning to get around as a Tripawd so fast. He told me I was a hero, and said what I have done must be even harder than an Ironman, since he had months of training, and I had no training at all.

When Mom got home we had a few Thanksgiving Day traditions. First, we watched the Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV:

Next, we kept up yet another Michigan tradition of watching the Detroit Lions lose. My brother Alex says that was the Lions’ 100th loss, I guess that means it’s a special occasion or something.

Mom and Dad and Nick went out for Thanksgiving dinner in the afternoon, since all the boys were gone and they wanted to have a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner rather than sit at home. While they were gone, I got to thinking about some of the things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving:

1) Most of all I am thankful that my parents are not like that jerk at the Doctor yesterday, the one who said they should have let me go to Heaven rather than amputate my leg. I know I will go to Heaven someday, but I am not ready yet! I’ve got lotsa livin’ left to do!

2) I am thankful that the real estate market in Michigan is the worst ever, because Mom doesn’t have to work so much and has lots of extra time to baby me and take me to all my appointments.

3) I am thankful for the wonderful Sack family, who treated me just like a member of their pack while Mom, Dad, and Alex were in Arizona.

4) I am thankful for all the delicious food I get to eat now that Mom has been reading about what dogs really SHOULD be eating. Duck, rabbit, beef, chicken, turkey…. ahhhhhh….. this is the life.

5) I am thankful for those nice warm polarfleece sheets that Mom put on the boys’ beds for Winter. It’s a great warm spot to cuddle up and feels so good on my sore body.

6) I am thankful for Jerry G. Dawg and his pawrents website, Tripawds.com, which has helped Mom and I get through the past few weeks. There are so many nice people on there who have helped Mom and I feel better. Thank you!!

7) I am thankful for the delicious leftovers that Mom and Dad are sure to bring home from me from Thanksgiving dinner (turkey necks, please…. hint… hint).

Okay, time to run (I mean HOP) now. Mom and Dad just came home with the leftovers. Yum! I got some delicious turkey:

And even some roast beef! What a great idea to have both turkey and roast beef on Thanksgiving. What an awesome day this was!

We are back from Arizona now, and I am so relieved to finally see Nova after 5 days away. Apparently she didn’t eat very well while we were gone. I think she was depressed or something. Of course that made me feel like a bad mom. Although, as the day passed I think I realized that maybe she just figured out how to milk it for maximum sympathy! I don’t know, I’ve seen her do things I know she is capable of doing as a Tripawd, and then she will be a big lazy butt and wait for you to cater to her. For example, Tammy mentioned that she hadn’t noticed Nova drinking, so she started to feed her ice cubes by hand (which Nova ate). When Nova got home I noticed she wasn’t drinking here either, so I decided to do the ice cube thing. I put a few down on the floor where she was laying, and she didn’t move a muscle. I opened up a jowl and stuck one in there, and she spit it out. But when I HELD the cube with my fingers, she licked it like crazy, all while not even lifting her head. And as she is doing this, the tail is going thunk-thunk-thunk. Spoiled girl! I know I am being manipulated yet I continue to do it… I am such a sucker.

I am so happy! Mom and Dad got back from their trip last night and early this morning Mom came right to Tammy’s house to take me home! When she walked in I was still laying down, taking my time waking up. Once I saw Mom I was so happy! I couldn’t help it, my tail was going like crazy. I had been kinda feeling sorry for myself this morning, bumming around, not eating or wanting to go outside. But now Mom was here to take me home. Yay!

I do have to say, though, that my stay at the Sack’s house was awesome, so much better than staying at the kennel. They treated me just like a member of their pack, and Tammy took such good care of me, she was just like Mom. She worried about every little thing, just like Mom. She slept by me every night, snuggled with me, gave me my eyedrops, took me outside, kept me warm with blankets, and fed me. The whole family was so friendly and loving with me, and they even had other people come to visit at the house so that they could see me. I loved all the attention.

Like I said, I spent a lot of time the past 5 days feeling blue. I missed my Mom and my family. The entire Sack family did everything they could to make me happy and comfortable during my stay there. I gave Tammy a few things to worry about, I didn’t mean to, but that’s what I do to Mom all the time, and it seemed like Tammy was like Mom for the weekend. I didn’t always eat my food, and I didn’t feel much like drinking either. But she came up with lots of creative ways to get me to drink (feeding me ice cubes) and to eat. Get this…. she even cooked me some ground beef, and I had salami slices and turkey. Wow! She even came up with a new way to feed me my canned food, which they called Turkey Balls. She would wrap up my dog food in a piece of sliced turkey and roll it up in a ball. Even being depressed, it was hard to resist the Turkey Balls.

All in all, I think I was a pretty good guest. That sectional couch in the family room looked so tempting, I really was thinking about sitting on there, but never did. It looked so comfortable.

When Mom got me home I went straight outside to go potty. It’s so great to pee in my own yard again, even in the snow. Then I went inside and gobbled up a can of Duck, which made Mom very happy. Mom cut off my bandage (ahhhhhh!) and I headed for my bed to relax.

Here’s how I look without my bandage. You can see that my incision is still covered. I think the Doctor will be taking it off tomorrow when I go for my chemo treatment.

Mom is going to go pick up my sister at the kennel in a few minutes. I am so excited to see Emmy, and to see the boys when they get home from school today. And Dad, too. Mom said he finished the Ironman, although he had to go very slow during the marathon. (I know how that is!) Hopefully Dad will be in the mood for a nap with me tonight when he gets home from work.

Hmmmmm….. I was just thinking that maybe I should find a way to get Mom to make me some of those Turkey Balls….

Blog updates on Nova are going to slow down a bit until we return from Arizona next Tuesday. We are in Tempe for the Ironman Arizona triathlon, that my husband is doing. We joke that he is going to be less mobile than Nova when we return, so they will definitely be hanging out together over Thanksgiving weekend. It wasn’t easy getting out of town this morning. Tuesday evening we had a power outage that lasted until Wednesday mid-day. That had it’s challenges when it came to Nova’s care. Some things you just don’t think through. We do have a generator, so we were able to keep the house heated during the day, but at night we turned off the generator because it was so dang loud, no one could sleep. Bad move. Nova woke up to pee at about 3 am, and I tried to let her out by candlelight and flashlight and she was not going for it. I could not blame her, she couldn’t see her footing on the step outside, so she wouldn’t go out. Plus I couldn’t light up the yard so she couldn’t find her way around outside. What a dumb move on our part. These are the types of things you don’t think about. I was really upset, and worried about her, I didn’t want her to trip and fall in the dark. So I ended up sleeping out on the couch the rest of the night so I could hear her if she got up. Firing up the generator was not an easy task, actually it had run out of gas so I was planning to go get more gas in the morning. So I put some blankets over her to keep her warm. I am still kicking myself over that dumb move of not leaving the generator on.

Once everyone woke up, we got it going, and all was well with Nova again. Her front leg is still a little jittery when she is laying down and she whines a little now and then, but I think she is just being verbal, because her tail is thunk-thunk-thunking the whole time she whines.

Wednesday night I took Nova over to Tammy’s to drop her off for her stay. Once again, Nova barged in like she lived there and layed right down on her bed right next to Annie’s bed. Annie was being such a good sport about it all. We lugged in all sorts of stuff, food, her bed, her favorite eagle stuffie, all her glaucoma medications, her new harness that just came in the mail an hour before, sling, leashes, etc. I even brought rubber-backed rugs for Tammy to put on her hardwood floors. It was like having a baby all over again! I was a little nervous about the fact that they had a 2-story house, and that the bedrooms were all upstairs. I was worried that Nova might cry if she was left alone on the main floor, just because she is used to being with us when she sleeps. (We have a 1-story house, one thing I am VERY thankful for, it is very tripawd-accessible!) I also worried that Nova might try to go up the stairs. Tammy eased my fears when she said she had no plans to sleep upstairs during the time Nova was there. Awwww…. what a relief. I am so lucky to have someone like her to baby my baby when I can’t be there.

I called Tammy during our layover to check on Nova, and she said she was doing great. What a relief. She said Nova is very fast on 3 legs when she goes outside. Fun! My kids were laughing that Nova is probably ending up with the more relaxing vacation. She is getting fawned over all weekend… lucky dog!

Updates will be brief until she comes home next Tuesday. Wednesday will be her first Chemo treatment, so I know there will be plenty to tell then.