Road to recovery — Part I

Rio underwent the amputation surgery yesterday, February 8.   I’d been having a really hard time with the idea of her losing her leg, and I wasn’t positive even as we went to our appointment with the surgeon if I was going to go through with it.  I’d been trying to think about it from the angle of “if it was elsewhere on her body, what would I do?”.  If it was on her back or her haunches or some other easily operable spot, the surgery would have been scheduled within hours of the diagnosis, so what was my problem?  The surgery was imperative if she was going to survive this particular tumor. Continue reading

The next step

I have yet again grilled my oncologist and regular veterinarian ad nauseum about the pros and cons of the entire spectrum of treatment routes and their respective prognoses, and have gone ahead and scheduled Rio’s surgery for next Tuesday, Feb. 8.  Now I just have to stay busy and try not think about it too much between now and then…and remember to breathe when I do….

On a separate but related note, does anyone here have any firsthand knowledge of some of the holistic/naturopathic formulas on the market, specifically K9 Immunity, Transfer Factor or other similar?  Are they as effective as the websites they are sold on would have me believe?

Say it ain’t so….

My best girl, Rio (aka, The Woo), is almost 11.  I adopted her from the Humane Society when she was just 6 weeks old.  From the very beginning, we were soulmates, best buddies, inseparable.

We were told she was German Shepherd/Lab mix when we got her, but according to a recent DNA test, Rio is a German Shepherd/Whippet/Harrier/Pug/Mix. Continue reading