Re: brain dead

[Gina Heitz <brier@oregonsbest.com>]

All,

Rocky is a bit better today.  I think this time it was his back.  Some of 
you don't know that besides cancer he has a bone spur in his back at
L-6 which is a very critical place for a dog.  We found this out when we 
did the CT scan before his amputation.  Originally when Rocky came up lame 
we (vet and us) thought it was his ACL ligament (knee) even our vet surgeon 
thought it was, but not bad enough to repair.  We crated Rocky for a couple 
of weeks and with rest he did improve but only to start limping again after 
moderate exercise.  After 5 trips to the surgeon with me screaming do 
something we found that besides him being lame on his rt he failed toe tip 
tests on his left.  A milligram and CT scan were run looking for disc 
compression.  They found a bone spur at L-6 and x-rayed his rt leg one more 
time with a larger field than previously and found the leg tumor.  We were 
told because of the bone spur Rocky was doomed and we could not take his rt 
leg.  We got his nerve root problems under control with Rimadyl.  Once 
again explored amputation.  Our regular vet said:  He's doomed if we don't 
take his leg.  If we take it we give him a chance, she was right and we 
thank her every day for that...

  We are glad we gave him that chance even though we know his days are 
numbered as in every day we now count them, and he has bad days here and 
there and the fact that we know the cancer has come back makes those bad 
days sometimes a bit more alarming for us.  This is a very emotional time 
for George and I both and while we (I) don't mean to concern anyone please 
learn from what we are going through with Rocky as life with the fur kids 
is always too short.

We guard and protect Rocky the best we can with out compromising his 
quality of life.  We monitor his activities as best we can but some days he 
just gets away with more than he should I guess. :-)))  That's our Rocky, 
not kicking any bucket today. <smile>

Weather here is perfect, warm nice breeze blowing the dogs have all enjoyed 
some romping today and were now about to settle in for a quiet evening of 
popcorn and a movie.

Gina