Maxie's Big Day

Maxie had a big day today.  She started out by not getting to eat breakfast because of her appointment with the cancer specialist today.  She does not like to miss a meal!  Then her groomer, Beverly came to bathe her and cut her.   Beverly has a Groomer on the Go van, and she comes to your house, takes your little one (or big one, whatever the case may be) out to her van and it's all hooked up with a tank and power. She washes them, cuts them, and blow drys them.  Maxie much prefers this than going to a groomer at a shop.  This way they don't have to leave their home and aren't as anxious.  While Beverly was washing Maxie she saw that her vet had left one of her stitches in.  So we made a note to get the vet she was going to later to look at it and remove it.    And still Miss Maxie wasn't in the mood for showing off her haircut.  I guess she's just not been in the picture mood lately.

So Maxie and I left to go pick mom up from work.   We had to be at the vet at 2:15.  We probably got there about 10 minutes early so we go in and sat down.  There wasn't anyone at the reception desk so we waited, and waited, and waited some more.  Finally the girl comes out and is all shocked that we are sitting there.  With them being a satellite office, you have to call the main office in Greenville, SC to set up your appointment.  When I called Monday, the girl there set me up for an appointment in Greenville instead of Asheville.  Greenville is a little over an hour away from us, so we knew we wasn't driving to Greenville for this appointment.  So the girl finally went and talked to the vet and they worked us in.  It would have been a major inconvenience for us to have to reschedule this appointment.  Mom took half a day off and we had to find someone to check in on granny while I was gone.  So after about an hour we get moved into the exam room and the vet finally comes in.  She starts explaining what all the options were for Maxie.   Did you know radiation for a doggie is around $6000?  Yeah we didn't know that either.  That's a grand more than I paid for my car.  Plus it would need to be done in Greenville, so we would have to bring Maxie down on a Monday morning and they would keep her until Friday and we would pick her up and do this routine for a month.  I'm sure the boarding fees would be fairly high as well.  Her second option is chemotherapy.  She could do that in Asheville, and it would take about 2 hours.  They would do it once a week for 4 weeks and then once every other week for 4 more treatments.  It didn't run anywhere close to the price of radiation, but I think I was still in shock over that number that I didn't hear the chemo price.   Of course vet fees and blood work and all that would be extra.  Our third option is a new drug called Palladia.  This would be our cheapest option as well.  The drug is still in the trial phase and so the company is giving the pills out free so that they get to monitor the test results.  We'd end up only paying the extra fees mentioned above.

So after she went over all that, they took Maxie back and did blood work, 3 xrays, a needle aspirate of her lymph nodes, and they checked out 4 other small lumps she has.  All 4 lumps were nothing to worry about, so that's good.  They want to also do a abdominal ultrasound, but the tech wasn't there today who does it.  They told us we could leave while they did all that work and then just come back like an hour later.  So mom and I were both starving and went to McDonalds.  We got back to the office and the vet tech met us outside so we could walk Maxie and she could catch a urine sample, but we told her that since Maxie was pee pad trained, she doesn't squat outside, (but it's more of a case of someone watching Maxie that she wouldn't like either).  So they said that was fine and they'd get the urine test later.  We will find out the results next week of the blood work and the need aspirate.  And we have to set up the appointment for the ultra-sound.  They did show us the xrays and they were impressed how healthy she looked.   They said her heart and lungs both looked good and all her organs looked healthy.  In their discharge papers to us they stated

"Maixe is a very nice dog and was an excellent patient.  Oh physical examination Maxie was very bright and appeared to be feeling well.  Maxie weighed 8.0 Kg (around 17 pounds), which is a good weight for her.  She has a few other lumps that we checked, but they all appear to be benign lesions.  No other abnormalities were noted on Maxie's physical examination."

I think overall we are pretty hopeful feeling about today.  It doesn't seem as bad as what we thought it would be.   We do know that we will probably not go the route of radiation.  I don't think Maxie would really do well being away from us for that long at a time.  She is incredibly spoiled, and that's ok.  We worked really hard for her to be that way.