So sorry I haven't given an update in a few days!  It's been a stressful week-end.  I went to see Maggie Friday afternoon and she wasn't in as bad shape as I had feared.  She definitely was struggling to move and she hadn't peed so the hospital used a cathedar to empty her bladder.  But she was happy to see us and definitely had no interest in staying any longer.  After a short visit, I decided I needed to bring her home.  So, home we went.  Getting her settled in at home was a little traumatic, especially for my boys, but they were glad to see her too.  I slept on the couch near her and not surprisingly it was a difficult night.  On Saturday we were hosting a Christmas party.  I was exhausted and worried but it couldn't be rescheduled so we soldiered on.  I took her outside and she continued to refuse to pee.  When we came back in I tried to steer her to the back hall and her bed so she could rest but she plopped herself right in the middle of the kitchen so she could keep an eye on all of our company.  By the time everyone left, she still had not peed so I called our neighbor who trains dogs for a living.  She came over and brought a different kind of sling.  After about 30 minutes in the backyard, Maggie finally peed!  We were so relieved!  Saturday night I slept on the couch again and I noticed that Maggie moved around a little during the night.  During the day, she jumped up a few times on her own, sometimes because she heard a dog bark or because I left the room.  By the evening she seemed to be leaning less on the sling.  She refuses to use the ramp to go outside - not sure why she would prefer the steps.  She peed and pooped after dinner and settled herself on the carpet in our family room.  I was cleaning up and getting ready for today and at one point I went to the basement to put something away and when I came back, Maggie was standing at the top of the stairs!  She had walked across the room all by herself!  After lots of hugs and love, she apparently decided it was time for bed so she walked down the hall to her bed and laid down.  She seems have recovered some of her spunk, though it comes and goes.  It's still hard but getting a little better every day.  The two biggest challenges we have now are keeping the t-shirt over the staples so she can't lick them (it shifts around a lot when she moves) and figuring out how to turn.  She seems to have gotten the hang of walking forward and backward and sitting and laying down, but turning is still giving her trouble.  I assume she'll figure it out eventually?

Thank you all so much for the support and encouragement!  I'm not sure I would have felt ready to take her home on Friday if I hadn't read all of your stories and been strengthened by your wise advice.  I'm sure we still have a long way to go on the road to recovery, but we're taking it one day at a time.

Apparently we've hit our first bump in the road already.  Ugh.  When we came in from outside this morning, I noticed Maggie's paw seems swollen. I put in a call to the surgeon but who knows when he'll get back to me...I wonder if I should try to ice it?

Well, apparently the bad news keeps coming today.  And it started out so well!  The surgeon called to let me know the tumor was a grade 3 with metastasis in the lymph node.  He wants us to make an appointment with the oncologist to talk about chemo.  Even though I knew in my heart, based on the size of the tumor and how fast it grew, it was likely an aggressive form of cancer it was still hard to hear him say it out loud.  I am taking her to my vet this afternoon (the hospital where she had the surgery is far away) to see if he can figure out why her paw is swelling.  She has been behaving strange all day - shivering and whining with a runny nose.  It's been almost a week since her surgery.  I expected some strange behavior because of the meds from this site but it seemed like she was finally a little better this morning.  One step forward, three steps backwards.