The Really Bad News

SUMMARY: The technical cancer details. But wonderful vets.

Backfill: Most from Facebook June 17; posted here July 3

My regular vet, a wonderful human, took my phone inside to take photos of Chip's x-rays for me. (All appointments are outside for the humans; dogs go in.) And then he sat with me in the parking lot to explain them, AND he brought out a book with sample x-rays from a German Shepherd (appropriate, given his DNA test earlier this year) to compare and let me photograph them, too.

Four x-rays: What his looked like yesterday and what it should look like. Cancer nodules in lungs and other places (?), chest filled with fluid.

Chip's x-ray--fogginess around center is
fluid in his lungs/chest.
Also when zoomed in, you can see
lots of small dots, circles, whatever.
Lots of them. 

What it should look like. Clear. 

Again, fogging is fluid in his chest cavity.
And fuzzy dots/ovals/circles also visible in many places.

What it should look like.

The next vet, Dr. Maria Kuty, who helped me with Boost at the end 5 years ago, came this morning with less than 24 hours notice to ease Chip carefully and comfortably into a deep sleep and then out of his misery completely. One couldn't ask for a better mobile vet for this crushing event.**  She talked and listened and loved Chip. She delivers him to the crematorium and will bring his box back when it's ready.

http://www.drkutyhousecallvet.com/dr-kuty/

** Note: In my mind and heart, it is the cancer that is killing Chip. If I weren't able to give the gift of relief, I'd have had to watch him slowly die over the next day or two, or worse, even a few days longer.  It has been painful to see him the past 4 days get worse and worse and worse. It is Chip dying that hurts so much, not the actions that I requested from the vet.

Knee Status 6 Weeks Out

SUMMARY: The new one is very good. But the technology isn't perfect.

From a Facebook post March 9.

!!! TO DO: UPLOAD PHOTOS !!!

Went in for my 6 1/2 week check-up today (March 9) with the surgery department. I'm happy happy happy with my new knee!

Per them: X-rays look perfect. Surgery scar looks perfect. Pain is very minor today. 

Side note: About 3 days ago, the knee started into constant low-level pain.
Icing didn't help, even though it always did til now.
(Multiple tries.) Acetaminophen and NSAID didn't help.
After a day and a half, finally gave up after bedtime and took
one remaining reserved heavy-duty pain pill. Knee has been pretty good since.
That has been the first time in all these weeks that I've had a problem with pain.

Takeaways:

• Walk as much as I want, let pain be my guide. 
• Don’t expect to ever do much running on it. (As in: dog agility..., hmm, we'll see... . Certainly not jogging. But I didn't anyway, so that's OK.)
• Don’t expect to ever be getting down on my knee; maybe briefly if it’s absolutely necessary, but not on a regular basis and not for very long.
  (As in: Gardening. Pulling weeds. Laying brick pathways for which I  have bricks stored up. Getting under desk to where wiring for everything goes. Scrubbing textured kitchen/hallway floors. Cleaning spots on the carpet. Many varieties of household tasks (e.g., I replaced the slide-out drawer in a kitchen cabinet last year. HAD to be on my knees.) Cleaning dog vomit from the back of a large soft crate. So many things I'm used to doing on my knees!)
• Expect that everything should be about as healed and healthy as it’s going to get after a year or so. (A *YEAR* or so?!)

Front of knee. They replaced the ends of my bones with surfaces made of chrome, titanium, and something, cemented in place, then put a pad in between to replace the cartilage that hasn’t been there for a very long time.
Some kind of plasticky stuff.

Side: and, yes, that’s my original patella hanging out at the front of my knee.

And I’m apparently in good hands: Team physicians of the San Jose Sharks? Here at this facility or at a different Kaiser? Those men take a beating, so if they can fix them, they can fix me, is the message.