Don’t look too close, lots of gory stitches. But, again she was a trooper. Defying our barricades to stay in the kitchen and enough healing in a week to the point where we thought it was safe to take her to Maine with us on vacation. I didn’t keep her in the cone more than the first day, she couldn’t reach most of the stitches with her tongue anyway, so I made her a tee- shirt.

She liked it better than the cone, but not much. She went though 3 of these tee shirts, she kept managing to stick her good front leg through the neck hole and stretching it out to the point where it would creep down her body and chaff against the stitches. I preferred the cotton chaffing to the hard plastic collar. In Maine she killed a mouse, which thrilled my dad greatly, and showed every sign of returning to normality. There was a moment where Paul and I removed her stitches on the appointed day on the picnic table and swabbed her down with iodine, but she was otherwise very happy.

These days all her fur has grown back and she looks very healthy. I hesitated on writing this post for a long time because I was hopeful that she would make a full recovery, but it seems that pin in her shoulder had been doing quite a lot for her. She walks with a very pronounced limp these days, when you feel her shoulder it feels like there are all kinds of extra pieces moving that shouldn’t be. But I don’t know that there is a way to fix it. She has had 3 major surgeries after all, it isn’t much of a surprise that there are some after effects. So we give her a little extra love and hope that the 3rd time is the charm…

Four years ago she got shot by some jerk with a b-b gun which shattered her shoulder the long repair left her with pins and wires and 10 inches of metal in her front right leg. She recovered fine, you would never know she was bionic.

Then came the tumor on her right hip 2 years ago , it was, as the vet said “huge” and probably a sarcoma related to vaccinations. It was fairly slow growing, not attached to a bone and perfectly round. They got it out, but when it came out, so did 2 leg muscles. She had 50 stitches this time. But again, recovered fine. She can kill birds, chase the dog, jump on the bed. Practically 100%. I realized some of these pictures she looks a little mean, but she isn’t!

But I think her ticket is up this time. I noticed this morning a large lump on her shoulder. Really large, I can’t imagine it has been there very long (I feel like she is on the couch next to me at least 3 nights a week) and it is already the size of a golf ball. Paul noticed it on Sunday but when I said, “she’s always had a bump there, it’s the pins from her broken shoulder” he let it go. I thought he meant the size of a pea, not this huge thing. Anyway. We hurried to the vet this morning where all signs turned to bad. We got an x-ray just to make sure it isn’t the pins in her shoulder, but no such luck. It is big, fast, irregular and attached to her collar bone, surgery would only extend her life months before another one popped up. Her chances of another sarcoma were 85% within a year, she made it almost 2 years so she beat the odds. She is in no pain and she killed a bird just a few days ago so she is functioning fine. We will keep her home until she becomes uncomfortable….

But still. We love her. And goodbyes suck.