I have been waiting to hear back from the radialogist about Nixon. We went to get the staples removed from his collision with the porch two weeks ago yesterday and get a chiropractic treatment. Nixon had a lot of reads but we expected that after a high speed collision with a stationary object and his head. He still easily moves at 15.to 20 mph and he was moving fast.

When he was adjusted next to his remaining shoulder blade he snapped his teeth at the vet to tell him to quit it. This was an automatic reaction. With further probing of the area, Nixon continued to let us know it hurt. The two reasons that dogs show pain during activator chiropractic adjustments are fractures abd tumors. Soft tissue injuries, rarely. We went back for xrays and my vet says he has no idea what it is bit he saw a spot in the area that Nixon had pain. He was not sure if it was new because although we have a year and a half of xrays, we were not focused in on that spot. So we sent them all off to a radiologist to review. It did not look like a lesion, there is no bone loss, but it is a concern and we will do follow up xrays in 3 weeks. The radiologist report should be back in a couple of days.

Nixon is fine. He is playing with toys, roaching on his back, demanding car rides, and flying into the kitchen every time he hears me in the pantry to beg for treats. I am trying so hard to not worry and just Be More Dog with him. We had discussed going back to NC State for scans but I promised Nixon I would not take him back. He hates being there and it causes him tremendous anxiety. Putting an 11 year old dog under anesthesia who has already been through so much just seemed to be for me, not for him.

Just so people know Nixon's history, he lived at NC State in ICU for a week in 2010 after he had a serious spinal cord injury and was paralyzed for 3 days. We were allowed to bring him home once bladder function returned. He then did 4 months of physical therapy at Arbor Creek in Holly Springs, NC and made an almost complete recovery.

In April of 2013, he spent another 4 days there for his amputation.

We then started physical therapy at State and Nixon was son anxious that he could not relax and stood for 8 hours straight just a week after amputation. I had told them I was just 10 minutes away and if he had any problems to just call me. I don't understand how a vet and physical therapist could think that standing for 8 hours straight was normal for a greyhound or even healthy for a recent amputee. Nixon strained his neck and was screaming in pain when I went to pick him up. The vet in charge of the physical therapy department got defensive and refused to acknowledge they did anything wrong. They told me his cancer had returned in his neck and he needed to head to radiology immediately to see how bad it was. There would be a 4 to 6 hour wait till we could be seen. We did not wait. I took him home, got my vet to do xrays, there was nothing. He had an obvious soft tissue injury. This delayed him starting chemo and was extremely painful. Nixon screamed every time he stood up for a week.

We had about 5 more visits to the vet hospital and I promised him at the last one, we would never go back.