Can anyone tell me if panting is a tell-tale symptom of lung mets?  Nova just passed her 8 month ampuversary, and seems to be feeling good, but in the past few days I have noticed her panting a lot.  Now, it has been in the 90s here, so perhaps I am just paranoid, she might just be hot, but she seems to still pant even when I have the air running. She does not pant when she is laying down, only when she hops around.

Also, about 2 weeks ago I noticed a swelling in her neck area. When I feel her neck I don't really seem to feel any type of mass inside. But sometimes when she is hopping along I see a silhouette of something there. Like golf ball sized, but I can't feel a mass, the whole area is very soft. If it were swollen lymph nodes, wouldn't they be hard? She has gained some weight, so might it be a pocket of fat?

She is going in on Friday to the oncologist for new chest x-rays and whatever else they do at the follow up.  I of course am very nervous about it, in fact I was supposed to take her in a few weeks ago but chickened out. This has all been complicated with her blindness (she was blinded by glaucoma a few months ago). I might be mistaking glaucoma problems for other problems, who knows? She moves around a lot slower as a blind Tripawd, so of course it seems like she's slowing down, but it might just be because she is trying to not bump into things. (It's so funny, she uses her giant wagging tail as a sort of blind dog "cane" to feel her way around).

No coughing, appetite is great, tail wagging as usual. But I still worry anyway.

Sorry I haven't posted in a long time, or keeping her blog updated, things have been crazy with getting her adapted to blindness, and I have big things going on with my mother (who has Alzheimer's and is in a REALLY tough phase right now). I promise to post more often from now on!

Sue and Nova