I don't even know the right place to post this. But I know there are plenty of people in our Tripawd family who have other dogs and might be able to understand this.  For nearly 10 months I have worried over Nova and her amputation, chemo, and recovery. Her "sister", my 6-year old blue Dane Emmy has sat in the background, with seemingly no health problems, calmly accepting that Nova needed special care with all her doctor's visits, medication, blindness, etc. When Nova was struck blind a few months ago, Emmy became her "seeing eye dog", lovingly caring for her, helping her find her way around the house.  The two often nap together side by side in a ying-yang style, they are so close.

Just the other day I was looking at Emmy, and being thankful that she was healthy and I didn't have two sick dogs to deal with. For a brief moment I thought about how horrible it would be if Emmy was sick and died before Nova. I just don't know how Nova would be able to cope without her sister. I chastised myself for even thinking the thought, but it gnawed at me like it was some sort of premonition.

Two days ago, Emmy was napping on the couch in her signature style of all 4 legs splayed out in the air (it's pretty hilarious) and I noticed some red splotches across her belly and on the inside of her legs. I wasn't really alarmed at first, as Emmy has always had little skin issues here and there, and usually gets a few pink spots under there in the summer. Usually all it takes is a round of antibiotics and it's gone. But these spots were dark red and angrier looking and they bothered me.

I woke the next day and let her out and noticed that there were several on her tail (under it where you could see the skin).  I started to inspect her body and found several more splotches that I hadn't noticed before. I grumbled because it was a Friday, and I always seem to have dog dramas play out on Friday afternoons, over the weekend, or at 2 am.  I cancelled some of my plans for the afternoon and headed to the vet so that I could get the antibiotics rolling over the weekend. I even took my 9-year-old stepson along for "fun".

One look and my vet said, "That's not a skin problem, its a blood problem, those are hemorrhages all over her." She looked very concerned and said we needed to do some bloodwork right away to see what we were dealing with.  She said it looked like Thrombocytopenia, which apparently is a decrease in the number of platelets in the blood. Low platelet counts cause the hemorrhages and in more serious cases the dog starts visibly bleeding, and bleeding to death because their blood can't clot normally. This scared me, because I lost a previous Dane to Von Willebrand's Disease years ago and it was devastating. Thrombocytopenia is usually one component of a larger problem, and she set out to figure out what we might be dealing with.  She said that Emmy would likely be on Prednisone for the rest of her life at a minimum, but there was likely an underlying cause. Her platelets were at 37,000, where 200,000-500,000 is considered normal. Argh.

Well she came in shortly after and looked pretty grave. She said she was scared because some level of something in her blood (calcium, I think, my head started to spin by then) indicated the likely possibility of cancer. Possibly something related to her bone marrow, liver, kidneys, who knows. But it all requires much more extensive testing, which of course can't be done at 5 pm on a Friday night.  She said she was going to contact Nova's oncologist to review the findings thus far, and get her opinion. She put her on Prednisone for the weekend and told me to watch and make sure her gums and tongue stayed pink, and if it looked like more spots were developing, to head into emergency.

Emmy is lined up for 8 am Monday at my local vet's office for a bunch of tests, and likely x-rays to see if they can see anything suspect in there. I feel like I have been kicked in the gut.  I was so shocked and upset I was just numb. I didn't cry or anything (which was strange), I just had this feeling like "Oh my god, she has been sick and I haven't noticed, and she is likely sicker than Nova, what is she dies before Nova". I tried to force myself to think positive but I was just so numb I couldn't think at all.  Nova depends on Emmy so much. If Emmy ever leaves the house, Nova will wail the whole time she is gone. Now that Nova is blind, I can sometimes sneak Emmy out, and she will only start to wail once she realizes Emmy is gone, and hops around the house frantically "looking" for her.

I am so worried. About the seriousness of this issue with Emmy, and how it might affect Nova's health and recovery if we lose Emmy first. They say that extreme stress can cause illness, and Nova is so high strung, needy, and dependent on her sister, I am scared to death that her health may deteriorate too.  And of course there's all the usual "why me?", "why now?" stuff that overwhelms me.

Thanks for listening.

Sue and Nova