Well, we took Lucy to the vet on Monday and had her re-xrayed to see if the stuff in her lungs has changed at all. Well, the good news is that there was no change in the xrays!
So the vet is fairly certain that, instead of cancer, she has calcification of the lungs. They said that if it were cancer, even a slow growing type, that there would be some change. And there was no change at all.
When I left the vet it was like a weight off my chest. A weight I didn’t even know I’d been carrying around for some months. I am so excited! Yay! Lucy is okay!
Of course she is still 9 years old, so we watch her health pretty closely. But this is great news! And she is acting the same as she has been for months. So we are very happy for sweet Goosey Lucy!
Now I need to get more blogging done, using our used cisco that we got off ebay!
February 25, 2008 – 7:20 pm
I took Lucy in to Dr Hennemen today. I just love Dr. Hennemen. I feel very good energy from her, and she really knows what she is talking about. We are so lucky to have her in our little part of the country.
So anyway Lucy does have a lot of striations (I hope that is the right word) in her lungs. More so than spots. It reminded me of Mars and all the alleged canals that people used to think were up there. But Dr. Hennemen was not convinced it’s cancer. But we are going to treat her like it’s cancer. She did say that it might be calcification. She also said it looked like one of Lucy’s ribs had been broken a long time ago. Goodness… dogs. Man, they can hide pain so well. I wonder if it was when we had our rollover all those years ago in the snow. That’s the only thing I can figure, since she’s never been on her own really, except the week we went to Maine and put her in boarding with Levi and Angel. Hrm.
Anyway Lucy has lots of calcification on her bones in her rib cage, too. Now I’m just saying what i remember, and my memory isn’t all that great. I like it when my husband comes because he remembers better. But anyway…
So we are going to strengthen Lucy’s immune system, Vitamin C and E. Antioxidants too. And I’m going to give her more whole foods in her diet that are seasonally appropriate. And some cooling foods, too, like Celery and Duck. I wrote more things down and they are in my purse. But we are basically gonna see about getting her as healthy as we can. And then, in a couple months, get new x-rays and see if there is any more growth of this stuff in her lungs.
So we have some hope. Oh.. and while I was gone, our regular vet called and my husband answered. They said they had someone look at Lucy’s x-rays as well and he said it looked, to him, more like calcification than cancer… so, I am a bit excited. However, still worried. Lucy’s energy level is still very low and she’s being cranky. But Dr Hennemen also said her lymph nodes are swollen and we have to keep a close eye on her.
So that’s the scoop so far.
February 23, 2008 – 1:01 pm
Just a quick update on Lucy. She is doing okay. She is pretty low energy, and I do think she is lower energy than she has been before. And the swelling in her legs comes and goes. I hope it doesn’t hurt her or make her uncomfortable.
She and I have been talking a lot.. before bed, or in the mornings. She likes to come and lay on me and we have a nice chat, ear rubs, and ear licks. I do the chatting, she does the licking, and I do the rubbing. She is such a good girl I want her to be happy and healthy for as long as possible. She is slowing down, but she still seems pretty happy for now. Let’s hope it stays that way.
One of the things I fear most is regrets. I have regrets about Kip my shepherd mix… I wanted to give him more, spend more time with him, and I feel bad that I dragged him with me from bad relationship to bad relationship. But he was always there for me. And I feel bad that I made him go lay down too much instead of snuggling with him. He panted so much, it was an annoying habit of his.. but I loved him, pant and all.
So I am afraid of having regrets with my current dogs after they die. I think I just have to have confidence that all my dogs have had good lives, and they are loved and they have given me more than I can even have hoped to give them. I love them all. I love Lucy, she is my heart girl, and she will always have a big piece of my heart.
February 20, 2008 – 8:20 pm
Lucy is our beautiful smooth collie girl. She does seem to be slowing down… with her cancer diagnosis and all. But she got to chew on a Kong a lot today, and carry it around and guard it, and guarding is one of her favorite things. Though she doesn’t like it quite as much as Levi does.
Lucy is doing okay. I watch her closely now and I think that her low energy is because of her cancer. But my husband says she is still the same. I just wonder. I worry about her every day. Monday I am taking her to the holistic vet to see what she can do, if anything, and get her opinion.
The rest of the dogs are doing well. I took Muffit and Tatum to Sugarhouse Park today for a walk. I haven’t taken Muffit out until now because he was sick. He’s done with his meds now and he is much happier, he is even enticing Tatum to play. He wants to play with Chase, too, but Chase isn’t ready yet. Having yet another new dog in the house has thrown Chase out of whack, but Chase is doing well and he hasn’t instigated any fights, which is nice. And we are helping him and making the other dogs respect his space, which is good and will help Chase adjust.
I’m please to say that Muffit ignored the people we walked by, sniffed everything, and seemed very well adjusted. 
Fortunately we don’t need any eca stack around here to lose weight, but I am cutting down Tony’s food as he is a bit chubby now. And Muffit gets a lot to eat, since he is still too skinny.
February 15, 2008 – 5:07 pm
I guess I’ll be up and down for a while with this diagnosis of Lucy having cancer. I have managed not to think much about it since Wednesday… thinking about it now just makes me cringe.
Wednesday was a bad day. I was really down all day after the vet appointment on Tuesday. Even though it wasn’t too bad… what.. what am I talking about? Any cancer is bad! Ugh. The vet said they had ‘good news’ so we were really hoping to go in and have them say “It’s not cancer!”. But they did not. They just said they could not find a main tumor. I didn’t think that was good news at all.
Anyway, Lucy gets to go to Dr. Kim Hennemen on the 25th so that will be good. I like her a lot. Her limp is doing okay… as is mine. LOL. I need some posture correction, and some ankle and knee therapy, it seems.
I have agility all this weekend, both Saturday and Sunday. I hope it goes well. I’ll try to get and post up some videos. I run Chase and Levi. It’s AKC. I have to really be serious about it… get the Qs! Bah.. just have fun, eh? Yeah, just have fun. And hope I don’t hurt my ankle or my knee anymore.
February 13, 2008 – 3:11 pm
For the last few days I’ve been loading up my dog pictures from my old album backups and into Flickr. Flickr is very convenient and easy to use, and it helps me not use up lots of my server space.
We have helped a lot of dogs. I am proud of what we have done. Some of these dogs are no longer alive, but hopefully we were able to touch their lives and make them better in some way.
We have to take a break from rescue for a while, with Lucy’s cancer and her health a concern, my husband not having a job right now, an us just being overwhelmed. So no more foster dogs. I will try to coordinate collie rescue when I can, but that is hard without any foster homes. *sigh*
Click on the image to see all the sets of our foster dogs. I know one is not there… Alice, she was cute and I can’t find any pictures of her. Bummer.
All these dogs with the exception of Bria are from 2000 and later. Bria was at my old house pre 2000.
February 12, 2008 – 8:24 pm
So we went into the vet today to pick up Lucy. She had an ultrasound to see if they could find a cancer tumor, from where the cancer in her lungs may have originated. Still there is a 15% chance it’s not cancer, it could be something else.
They didn’t find a tumor. All her organs are fine.. her heart, spleen, liver, kidneys… so if it’s cancer, the tumor is too small to find. I saw the xrays, too, and they are very spotty. My husband’s mother died of Melanoma. And he thought Lucy’s xrays looked like his Mother’s xrays when they diagnosed her 15 years ago. She died within 4 months of diagnosis.
Anyway, the vet said that there’s not much we can do at this point. However, I’m going to take her xrays up to a local holistic vet, Kim Hennemen, and see what she has to say about Lucy. It can’t hurt, and I actually prefer holistic doctors, for humans and dogs, to traditional doctors. Unfortunately my husband prefers traditional doctors. So hopefully we can find some middle ground about treating her.
February 10, 2008 – 11:54 am
Well we did some ASCA agility yesterday. I just entered the one day. I’m glad I did. Chase was so tired last night when we got home that he was showing his teeth to everyone, even Lucy and Levi and he doesn’t do that often at all.
Both Levi and Chase did great. Levi got a couple Qs, Chase didn’t get any but I did want to practice with him. And it’s so much fun to run him now. We have come a long way, and we still have a way to go but I’m learning. I’m especially learning lateral distance. Sometimes I think I can be further away from him than I can be. He missed a tunnel entry because of that yesterday. I thought he’d hit the tunnel he’s such a tunnel suck. But nope.. he check in with me instead, which was good!
Levi did awesome, too. I wasn’t in the best frame of mind because of Lucy’s most likely Cancer, but I was happy with the boys. I brought Tatum too, and she’s doing so well there. She goes up to everyone now looking for Livers, which she gets thanks to her Mum. Afterwards we were in the parking lot and I dropped her flexi… suffice it to say, we have to practice her dragging the flexi. Because the Mum can be a dork sometimes and drop them. She was pretty frightened of it dragging behind her.
Today is a rest day, which I need. Muffit is sitting beside me sleeping. He is such a snuggler. He is still snuffling, we might take him back to the vet tomorrow or Tuesday for a checkup.
By 
Cynthia Blue [My Barks!]
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Posted in Agility, Chase, Levi, Muffit, Tatum
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Also tagged Agility, Chase, Levi, Lucy, Muffit, Park, Tatum
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February 8, 2008 – 9:28 pm
I don’t believe in the rainbow bridge. I hope that Kip is out there, somewhere, doing something a heck of a lot more interesting than waiting for me by some bridge. Maybe he’s dancing on the stars, or he’s existing in some alternate reality where he gets to be some other type of entity, something I cannot even imagine. I like to think maybe he looks in on me once in a while… hopefully with fond memories.
My husband and I are going to take Lucy in to the vet next Tuesday and get her an ultrasound. They will put her under and examine her whole body. They didn’t see a tumor in the xrays they took, just spots on her lungs. Lots of them. Even my husband could tell. Of course there is a small chance that it’s just some sort of lung infection… but the vet is pretty sure it’s cancer. Hopefully we’ll get an idea of what the progress of the cancer will be, and how long she will have to live. Gads, what an awful thought.
And so, I am trying to prepare myself. I don’t know how to feel happy about other things in life, while being devastated about Lucy’s cancer. I have tried to appreciate every day I have with all the dogs, because I know too well how short the years are. I have never had anyone close to me die, with the exception of Kip. And I was in a bad place when he went so I didn’t even see his signs of age.
With Lucy, I am in a good place in life which, I hope, will help me to cope with this. I am happy to still have her here. I am thrilled that I got to spend the time with her that I have.. and am. I am happy about the other dogs, my relationship with my husband, my job and my friends… so it’s a parfait of emotions that I’m going to have to learn how to live with.
Not something I ever wanted to experience, but knew, eventually, I would have to.
February 8, 2008 – 3:43 pm
A few days ago my husband and I noticed that Lucy’s legs were swollen. She was acting fine otherwise.. energy level was okay,
My husband took her to the vet… they were puzzled. She was pooping okay, eating fine, drinking fine… energy level was fine. Have I told you, I have always always had a bad feeling about Lucy’s health? Ever since she started limping, and that was three years ago now or so.
Anyway.. she went in for some xrays today, and they found many masses in her lungs. Lots of them. They are 85% to 90% sure it’s cancer.
They are going to do more tests on Tuesday.
Lucy will be 9 years old on February 15, 2008. She is too young. She is so very young. She is my baby girl and I’m just sitting here with tears streaming down my face.
Death Lasts so much Longer than Life… I read that in a book once, and it’s so true. It’s much too true. I love my baby Lucy girl. My Lulu, my boo.
