Franken-Maggie

WARNING: Graphic, post surgery pics below.  (just in case you are squeamish!)

Maggie is back home. The vet wanted to keep her last night, but I couldn't figure out a way to manage to get into the city to pick her up, get her home, then back to the city for an 8 hour + day of agility, obedience, then hanging out with the Junior Girls Basketball team at their tournament. I'm supervising the tournament this evening. So, I asked if I could please try bringing her home and was told that as long as Mags is on complete crate rest for the next while, I could. And, I have strict orders to bring her back if anything looks bad or worsesome.

Maggie was incredibly tired and droopy in the car but by the time we arrived at my house, she was already perking up. She hobbled up the stairs, plopped herself in her crate and loudly demanded some dinner. :)  She MUST be feeling ok if she wants to eat, right?!?

Anyway, she cried most of the night, in a low, pathetic moaning kind of way- as if to say, "I'm lonely and I don't feel good! Cuddle with me please!!"  This morning, she just barks. She's decided that she is ready to go and should be allowed to get back to normal.

Sadly though, she can't.  They removed a big chunk of skin, on both tumour sites- one goes up into her armpit and the other is her neck.  Because of the incision in her side/armpit, she can't put full weight on that paw until the skin begins to heal/regenerate.  It pulls on her stitches too much and hurts. But, she still manages to do stairs and limp along bravely, tail wagging, happy to be up and moving. And, crate rest?!? Yeah, she's not too big on that!

Anyway, Maggie is showing big signs that she is going to be just fine! Her prognosis is GREAT! They got it all and have clean margins on all sites. There was no sign of regrowth at the time of her second surgery. So, in a couple weeks the stitches will come out and Maggie will be deemed completely healthy. And, once her fur grows back, you'll never know she had surgery to have cancer removed. And, she'll be back to her playful, happy go lucky self, making me think that all is right in the world again, at least for a moment. She is easily the most resilient dog I have ever seen and she's teaching me loads about grinning and bearing it, and just getting on. Well done Maggie, that's a huge life lesson for me!

Anyway, here's the photo of her neck... it looks awful this morning!

Isn't that awful?!?  Poor Maggie!  Luckily though, she has been a strict diet the last weeks and she had loads of extra skin to make up for the huge patches they took off. So, it looks much, much worse than it is!

I had a hard time getting Maggie to stand still for this, but here's a photo of her side. That's part of her incision only; it continues up into her armput. It looks pretty sore this morning.

You can't see much here, but the yellowing you see is the start of bruising. This was two hours ago, and now it's incredibly bruised- the whole shaved area basically looks like a big, ugly bruise. I was warned that would happen.

Ah well, keep sending the well wishes- Maggie loves hearing that people are rooting for her!!