Thanks everyone for the well wishes! Max had a rough ride home last night, but once we got here and I was able to give him some food and his pain meds he slept well.

The pocket of air I spoke about is actually a chronic resolving hemorrhage. The aspirate cytology came back with no evidence of infection or cancer so that is good news. The pain Max is experiencing is still a mystery. A rectal exam and palpation of the amp site revealed a severe pain reaction, so something is wrong, we just dont know what.

For now we are treating it as nerve pain with gabapentin and he is also on Tramadol 2-3 times a day depending on his pain level. He took the chemo well and hopefully he will continue to have minimal side effects from that. We will be having a CBC performed every 7 days to monitor his white blood cell and platelet count and the next chemo is scheduled for the first week in Feb.

He is eating well (the steroids make him want to eat EVERYTHING) and drinking so I am encouraged by that, but he has TERRIBLE gas today. He still wont lay on his beds, only the floor and whines quite a bit. For now we just monitor and keep him comfortable.

Today he is sleeping alot, but I think he is exhausted from yesterday. When we got there I could hear him barking constantly. When the doc finally brought him in to us he gave us each a lick and took off out the open door. The doc went running after him and so did I yelling “Max STOP”, but he just kept on going. HE knew where he was going……..he went straight to the door that they take them out to go potty. He had to pee so bad I think his eyes were turnng yellow. Thats also why he was barking in the crate Im sure! The doc was quite impressed and we were laughing our heads off.

Max is a VERY smart Lab and sometimes takes matters into his own hands!! Thats pretty much it….Max is an unusual case with lots of history behind it, so for those of you reading this and thinking that your journey will be as bad as ours, reconsider.

The vets at UWVMTH class Max as “abnormal” with lots of love behind that. He gets around fine and has no problems with the amp in that respect. Its just that he has some other issues that make it complicated. The fact that he is only 19 mo old makes it a very sad story, but we are committed to doing the right thing for him and if it gets to be too much we are prepared to help him grow his wings and hang out with Spirit Jerry.

For now…its day by day, hour by hour giving him as much love as we can…and he returns it 100 times over.

Paula

A little Max update……I hope Im not jinxing us, but looks like the meds are working! This past weekend Max was out in the snow with me several times for about 15 minutes each time and he acutally came upstairs Sun morning all on his own. He also was laying on his bed when I came down this morning. YAY!!!!! I ended up giving him his anti nausea med on Sat and by night time he was brighter and more active. After the meds Fri nite, Sat and then Sun morning, he was really good on Sun afternoon and we played tug of war (GENTLY!!) out in the snow. He knows when he has had enough and will just pick up his toy, give me a look and head for the door. Now THATS my boy!! Im praying that things stay like this and we have finally gotten to the end of the bad luck! He ate well this morning, but not quite as much as he has been and he is getting up to go to the bathroom twice in the night, but I attribute that to the chemo and the prednisone. No runny stools or vomiting, and Im happy about that! I hate having to come to work and leave him, but he goes to work with my husband (he has run of the entire office and his own bed under my husbands desk, and the office staff all think he is their dog too!) so he is still with family….but nobody is as good as Mom!!!