Riley's blog

In what is surely a cruel twist of fate, is seems that Riley has beaten cancer, only to have her liver fail.  We had her back at the oncologist a week and a half ago, as she was experiencing abdominal swelling.  Her harness, which was always loose in the belly strap, was suddenly snug.  Her weight had ballooned to 52 pounds.  An ultrasound showed no tumors, but lots of fluid.  Her liver was small and cirrhotic.  There is nothing that can be done to fix it.  If necessary, the fluid can be suctioned off, but will return.  Four days later, we had her at the internist, and she was a slim 44 pounds again.

Riley struggles with mobility at the best of times.  With eight extra pounds, she injured her back leg, which is separate issue.

She was back at the internist last week, and her weight had crept back to 48 pounds.  When we weighed her at home this morning, she was a whopping 56.2.  Her belly is as tight as a drum.  We are going to give it another couple of days, and see if the swelling resolves itself this time.  If not, it is time for her to leave our care.  We are heartbroken.

Our dear Riley turned 14 today!  She is quite a senior girl.  She is now just about a year and a half past her amputation, and doing great.  Her last ultrasound at the oncologist showed no signs of metastasis, and she is as bright and engaged as ever.  The prognosis for her histiocytic synovial sarcoma was pretty grim, and she has already outlived all expectations.  In fact, when we went to the oncologist at the one year mark, the doc was pleasantly surprised that Riley was still around.  Several different vets have told me to keep doing whatever we’re doing.  And that is quite a lot.  Riley (and also my dog with a brain tumor), are on numerous supplements to support their health and to strengthen their immune systems.  They receive green smoothies twice a day for the antioxidants.  I make the smoothies in bulk, and freeze them, to be thawed as needed.  Riley also gets acupuncture to help with her mobility issues.  Swim therapy has been a sometime thing, too.

Riley still struggles with mobility, but we are dealing with it.  The Ruffwear webmaster harness has been invaluable in assisting her as needed.  She only wears it when we know she’ll be needing some help, such as stairs or getting in the vehicle.  We haven’t had as much success with the help-em’-up harness, but maybe more mobile dogs do fine with it.  Riley jumps on the couch by herself, and manages it most of the time.  She’s slid off a few times, but without injury.  If I see her eyeing the comfy couch, I’ll lift her up.  All this spoiling has made her quite the diva.  She is not above asking for what she wants – and she expects a prompt response, please!

I hadn’t realized that nearly six months had gone by without an update.  We have all just been living our lives as normal.  Normal is a nice place to be.  Riley still comes wobbling into the kitchen when she hears the freezer door opening -she has always loved ice.  Her appetite has never waned, despite five rounds of chemo.  She does laps around the kitchen while I’m preparing her food, as she is always eager for mealtime.  So, those things are still the same Riley we know and love.  Her quality of life is very good at present.  If she doesn’t want to play ball (endlessly) like she used to, much of her slowing down is to be expected because of her age.  Riley sleeps very deeply now, and takes lengthy naps during the day.

We cherish the time we have had with this wonderful dog, and are grateful for every day.

Riley was not interested in posing for a picture for her birthday.  She just wanted to chew sticks.

Today marks a year since Riley lost her leg.  What a year it’s been.  She went to the oncologist yesterday for a checkup, and the vet said that Riley looks great.  Blood work came back all normal except for a very slightly high albumin reading.  Chest x-rays had an anomaly, but the radiologist thinks it’s just a fatty mass (Riley has an “old lady bump” on her chest), so it appears that our dear Riley is still in remission.  Woo hoo!

We caught her digging in the yard last week – a bit clumsily- but she was having a good time.  She will occasionally bring a tennis ball to us, but one throw is generally enough.  Riley’s remaining hind leg is not strong enough to get her up a flight of stairs, so we hoist her up with her Webmaster harness at least once a day.  Currently, Riley is receiving acupuncture every few weeks.  We also just started swim therapy, which is allowing her to get good extension on her legs.  She is taking an array of supplements to keep her as healthy as possible.  We are trying a different harness to see if that has anything different to offer.

She still struggles with mobility.  Her remaining knee clicks audibly, and the therapist says there is also some difficulty with the tendon back there.  Riley has some arthritis in her remaining limbs, so that certainly doesn’t help with getting around.  Perhaps it’s because of her age, but since the surgery she has never gotten back to being able move easily.  She can run a bit, if the spirit moves her, but it is a very ungainly gait.  I see many dogs on this website who are able to get around nearly as well as a four-legged dog, but that isn’t the case with Riley.  All Riley’s vets said that we would be surprised at how well she would do with three legs, but none of them said that she would be noticeably disabled.  That being said, we are still glad to have her in our lives.  Our Riley is now 13 1/2.  We are grateful for every day.

 

Riley just had her 9month post-operative check up.  She had chest x-rays and an ultrasound.  No evidence of cancer, which is wonderful news.  She has had an issue with “knuckling under.”  Her left front paw will sometimes roll under.  As you might imagine, this is causing some difficulties with Riley’s ability to get around.  Additionally, sometimes she hold that paw up (while laying down), and it sort of flops around.  It is almost as though she can’t get the paw to work properly, but maybe at the shoulder level.  At the recent check-up, x-rays of her shoulder were taken.  There is some arthritis there, and it has advanced since the last films were taken in October.  Also, Riley has an audible click when she walks.  It is not her harness, as you can hear it when she is not in the harness.  Nor is it toenails, for you can hear it even when she walks on carpet.  We are mystified.

We have had her to three different vets with this issue.  The rehab doctor thought that it was because her posture is poor, and she is wearing herself out just getting around.  He recommended massages, which she likes quite well.  Riley’s regular vet thought that it might have a neurological basis, but we elected to wait to follow up until the oncologist had seen her.  The oncologist thought that a trying gabapentin might be useful, so that is next up.

Is there a possibility that what she is experiencing is a long-term effect from the chemo?  Somebody suggested that to me, but I hadn’t heard anything about it.  We are looking into acupuncture, so that might be another thing to try.  While we are not totally opposed to taking her to a neurologist, we’re not sure what that might accomplish.  The ultrasound didn’t show anything obvious, but it just may be because an MRI is a better tool for finding possible growths on the spine.  Speaking of MRIs, our other pointer had one last month, and it disclosed that he has a brain tumor.  He has been treated (it was in an inoperable part of the brain) with stereotactic radiation, and we are in the wait and see mode.  Lots of vet visits around here lately.

It’s been a while since I posted an update.  We have enjoyed a lovely few months where Riley just got to be a dog.  In the photo above, she was enjoying some outside time, and having fun gnawing on a stick.  For the most part, Riley does many of the things she was accustomed to doing before all our worlds got turned upside down.  She has even tried to wrestle with the other dogs a bit.  While the spirit is willing, she inevitably falls on her butt.  It is great to see her having fun again.  We reworked the dogs’ sandbox (4000 pounds of sand in a 10x 12 area!), and Riley loves to lie in the sand and watch the world go by.  If the spirit moves her, she will dig for a while and tear around the yard.

Stairs are still a problem, but we assist her upstairs each night with her harness.  Although Riley is pretty ungainly, she must be getting stronger, as she has managed to jump on the couch a couple of times.  Usually, she just stands in front of it and whines until her human staff helps her up.  With all the pampering that Riley has had in the last eight months, we find that she has become quite the demanding girl.  We really don’t mind, and are just glad that she can express her wishes.

This week was the three month post-chemo checkup.  The oncologist was very pleased with Riley’s progress.  No recurrence of cancer was visible either on the chest x-ray or the physical exam.  Woo hoo, that is great news.  The oncologist says that it is highly likely that there will be a recurrence at some point, although we might get lucky and Riley could be an outlier.  We continue to give various supplements daily, and Riley gets green smoothies with every meal to provide a large dose of antioxidants.  Daily stroller outings are not as far as before – because she wants to walk!  So we will go a couple of blocks, and then she will walk back on her own.

Earlier this month, we celebrated Riley’s birthday.  In our world, dog birthdays are celebrated with hot dogs all around, so it was a pretty big deal for our girl.  What a chowhound she is!  Through two surgeries and five rounds of chemo, she never missed a meal.  We are fortunate that her appetite has never waned.  For a while there, it didn’t look like there would be another birthday for her, so we are enormously grateful to have her with us.