Tripawds Get Sick, Too. They Also Get Better.

On Neko’s third ampuversary, I posted a picture of her happily emerging from a giant snowbank to the Tripawds facebook wall. One of the replies I got was from a woman who was very concerned about her tripawd, who had some very scary symptoms going on. She wanted to know if Neko had ever had any symptoms like her dog was having in her time as a tripawd.

Dogs get sick. It’s just a fact. Tripawds are no exception. But for those of us whose dogs lost their leg to cancer, any kind of sickness, any situation with your dog being not quite themselves, can easily jar us back into the cancer state of mind and make us assume the worst. It’s terrifying. I’ve been making myself anxious even thinking about it enough to write this. But dogs usually get better. Tripawds are no exception here, either.

If you don’t want to read details about my dog being seriously ill (but then recovering fully!) I don’t blame you, but you might not want to keep reading.

Neko’s had two really serious illnesses in her time as a tripawd. The first was very close to her second ampuversary. I came home from work one day to find her out in the yard, which was not unusual. My sister, whom I lived with at the time, often let Neko out when she got home from work, a few hours before I got home. But never had Neko not bounced up to greet me when she was out when I got home. Instead, she remained lying by the big flowerpot at the bottom of the stairs. As I walked up she took great pains to stand up and take a few hobbled steps towards me. As I went up the stairs to the door, it became clear that she couldn’t make it up on her own, which had never been a problem, not even the day she came home from her amputation. It was doubly puzzling because she had seemed fine that morning before I left. I carried her up and plopped her in her spot on the couch. She was shivering, which is usually the only way I can tell she’s really in pain. It reminded me so vividly of when she had been sick before her leg came off, though more acute in many ways. She started to move some later, though still with great effort. She ate, though I had to bring her bowl to her on the couch. The next morning, she seemed a little more alert, but still wasn’t moving well. I brought her outside to take care of business but she just lay down on the frozen grass and sniffed the air. I lay next to her on the ground while I waited for a call back from the vet on call that Sunday. Illustrating why I’ve stayed with this vet’s office despite the hour’s drive from where I live now, the vet said she’d meet me in at the office in an hour and a half. I called my parents, who live closer to the vet and asked them to meet me there. I was more than halfway convinced that I was going to get fatally bad news there or that it could even be Neko’s last ride right then, and didn’t want to get that news alone like I did two years earlier, when I was blindsided with the suggestion that her limp could be due to cancer.

I suspect Neko is not alone in her preternatural understanding of when she’s going to the vet. On the way there, Neko demanded to go out for the first time since I had carried her up the stairs. We stopped at a rest area and she not only hopped around almost like nothing was wrong, but took care of business with stunning speed and professionalism. By the time we got to the vet I was a little less worried. My parents and the vet were there when I arrived. The vet had brought her daughter and my father was reading books with the vet’s daughter on his phone. Neko, of course, was in denial about her symptoms from the last day. “I’m fine,” she wagged and smiled at the vet, “Can I not be at the vet anymore?” As reassuring as it was to see her looking more alive, I left with the same report I had the first time I brought her in with a limp: It could be related to Lyme or an injury (which both Neko and I have had to deal with in the past), let’s give her an antibiotic and some painkillers and see if it clears up.

And guess what? This time, it did. Neko was totally back to being herself days later.

The second time she got sick was scarier in some ways, though less specifically triggering. It was less like when she got sick leading up to her amputation, but was in other ways more acute. She woke me up in the middle of the night to go out, which she rarely does, and then had severe diarrhea. Initially, I didn’t think much of this, as this is not always cause for severe alarm. Often, a 12-24 hour fast followed by bland food clears it up. Neko was disappointed when I wouldn’t give her breakfast in the morning and dejectedly licked the bottom of her empty water bowl. That evening, I gave her a little dilute chicken broth. It came back up about an hour and a half later. I called the vet to see what she thought. The vet said that if she started vomiting or pooping blood to take her into the emergency vet, but that otherwise she’d see us in the morning. Neko continued to retch periodically throughout the night, producing little, but no blood. I couldn’t sleep, listening for her, and so I decided if no one was going to sleep on this, I might as well just take her to the emergency vet, deal with it, and avoid having to arrange coverage for the first few hours of the day at work. The emergency vet gave her a diagnosis of hemorrhaging gastroenteritis, kind of a catch-all term for severe inflammation of the GI tract, and admitted her for observation and treatment. There were some even scarier bits in there involving bloody diarrhea, but I will spare the details there. I’m just glad that happened when we were already at the vet. The thing about hemorrhaging gastroenteritis is that as horrifying as it is, it’s typically entirely treatable. Neko had to stay overnight to get some IV fluids and get a jump on treatment, but turned around very fast.

These are horror stories with happy endings. As scary as these situations were for a few days, neither was the big C back to claim Neko for good. Instead, Neko is curled up next to me on the couch, wondering when we’re finally going for a walk so she can run around, bury her face in snow and smell everything at least twice, or if we’re going to visit my friend’s new baby, whom she’s fallen in love with. Or maybe she’s just wondering if it’s time for dinner yet. We, as tripawd companions, are painfully aware of the statistics about cancer coming back. Many of us have made our peace with the idea of living with our friends on blessed and borrowed time. But just like any other dog, tripawds sometimes just get sick. It’s scary and it sucks, but they usually get better.