Friday, April 06, 2012

Ranger is Home

We picked Ranger up this morning.  We're really glad to have her home.  She is definitely an injured girl, though.

Here she is the night before I took her in, resting on Anthony's leg.


Here she is this morning, cuddling with Davan.


Here's a close up of the incision.


Our poor girl.

She was happy to see us, but wasn't as demonstrative as she is when we pick her up from doggie day care on the occasions she's gone or when we come home from hours away.  Because she is in pain?  Because she's drugged up with narcotics?  Because the environment made her too nervous?  I'm not sure.

She's needing some special loving.  We have to keep her from pawing her face or rubbing it on things, but she won't keep a collar on.  They tried to put one on her last night at the vet's, but she got out of it right quick.  This job will only get tougher in the next few days, as that's when it'll start itching big time.

She can only go for short leashed walks for a couple of weeks.  No running with me, which means a big time schedule change for me.

She has regular drugs to take.

All this we'll do and make work to the best of our abilities.  There will be times we have to leave her unattended, the first of which will happen Monday afternoon.  I'm not sure what to do about that regarding the scratching/rubbing situation.  I'll have to think on it.

The grand total of vet's bills for these last couple of weeks?  Just under $3000.  I hate to say it, as much as I love her, but I have to wonder if we made the right choice here.  She's been living with this bump for a while now...how much longer a life have we bought her?  We just simply can't afford to have more removed and we've been told it's likely more will grow.  This already wiped us out.  I wonder if we should have just let her be, fed her the best food we could (because I do think cancer has a diet component) and hoped for the best.

Done is done, though, and we'll just have to go forward from here with the choices we've made.

2 comments:

  1. Holly Cow that is much bigger than I expected. Yes the costs can add up on it, and then there is the ones they don't even tell you about till they come up!! Poor kid. You do not want her to rip out her stitches for sure.

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  2. We talked about this topic yesterday when Lyssa and I were on our way to work. I told her that as much as we loved Maggie, there was no way that we'd have spent more than about 200 bucks on her for any given thing, as we simply could not. I would not take food from our table or be unable to pay the mortgage for a dog. (not suggesting you did... just talking about our situation.)

    She was shocked, as she hadn't thought about dog care in such a pragmatic way.

    I'm sorry it ended up being so expensive. I hope she lives another 15 years or so to help the investment pay off. :)

    And glad she's home. Hope she recovers quickly and easily.

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