Henry Blue Eyes

This morning I went into the living room to find that Henry had a poo accident on the carpet. When I looked around, he was a couple of feet away, laying on the carpet panting. I went to get some things to clean up the mess, and he tried to drag himself across the carpet with his one front leg. He could not stand. My husband had me call the vet, and we took him in right away. The vet said he was hypothermic (very low body temp) and that she felt a mass in his abdomen. With his history she said she felt that it was a tumor from the sarcoma, and that it had burst and he was now bleeding internally. She said he was not a good candidate for surgery, and that she would have to remove most of his intestines if we wanted to try it. We did the only thing we could and let him have some peace. I just keep thinking about how great he has been doing these past two months. He was fine last night, and now he is gone. I was so unprepared for this outcome. It honestly never crossed my mind that the cancer would come back and take him. For our family, it is truly Black Friday.

I thank you all for the support you gave us both, and my thoughts are still with all of you who still have fighting left to do.

Dawn

So, today I left my plate on a TV tray after having a piece of cake. Apparently the frosting smell was just to much for Henry to resist. I firmly told him he was a naughty boy, after I laughed and took  pictures.

It has been a month since the amputation, and Henry and I would like to give a big Thank You to everyone on Tripawds.com for being so welcoming and supportive. Henry is positivly blushing from all the nice words & complements he’s been getting. Now if he can just get his big head through the door…

Dawn & Henry

So, it has been 28 days since Henry’s amputation. He is doing great! In fact, today he was full of vim & vinegar! Here’s a photo of Henry relaxing this afternoon.

28 days after amputation

Also, I thought I would share a comparison picture of his incision site. The top is the day after the surgery, and the bottom was taken this afternoon  (28 days after surgery).

Day 1 and Day 28

Well, it’s been 16 days since Henry’s amputation and yesterday he got his staples out. He was so good about it. Based on the last time he had stiches out, they were prepared to have to sedate him. However, it wasn’t necessary. Here is a picture of Henry staple free.

Day 16 and staple free

Before losing his front leg, Henry used to love to sit on my husbands lap and knead his (my husbands) chest/tummy. It was one of the things I knew that he would no longer be able to do. This morning he proved me wrong! If you watch you see his foot do a characteristic kneading motion, then he does a little hop. I took a short video of it, because I was just so tickled by it.

http://youtu.be/_qREgFSaIuw

Henry’s been chillaxing on the loveseat all morning 🙂

Chillaxing on day 5

Well, this morning was the last of Henry’s pain medication. He would have usually gotten the second dose at 7:00 tonight, but he seems to be good. In fact, here are a few pictures of him relaxing on his daddy’s lap. I also included a Day 4 picture of his incision site.

Incision Site Day 4

Good Morning Day Three

I am currently in school studying to work in a medical laboratory. Why the lab; why not, say nursing? There are two main reasons for this. First, I tend to be an introvert, and touching people did not sound like something I wanted to do. Second, I have a very low “ick” meter, and gasping at a sick/injured person while saying ” oh my gosh, that’s nasty!” tends to be frowned upon in the medical field.

Now, knowing my low tolerance for icky, I was terrified to see Henry’s incision site. Here’s the funny thing. It’s nowhere near as bad as I thought. I’m wondering if this is along the same lines as the whole, your own baby’s poop doesn’t smell as bad to you as someone else’s baby’s poop does?

When I got home tonight Henry met me at the door with his customary “mew”. I am continually amazed by him.