four weeks to recovery...and zoomies

Last weekend marked Curzon's second swim session, which he enjoyed with great gusto - the time it took me to change into my bathing suit was far too long for his liking, as he kept barking at me to hurry it up and uncover the pool.  We spent about 25 minutes in the pool, doing "circle swims" where I would toss the ball, he'd go get it, and then I'd grab him when he got back and turn him to do it again.  Once his tongue got curly (indicating he was tiring), we alternated between resting in the pool on the steps and allowing him to get out of the pool and then jump back in once he was rested.  Such a happy boy!

  

Day 25 post surgery.

On Monday night, I was sitting quietly at the dining room table eating my dinner, when all of a sudden Curzon jumped up from the antler he'd been chewing with a crazed look in his eyes.  He then took off down the hall at top speed, nailing the u-turn at the end and racing back into the living room, practically did a boxturn off the sofa, and continued back down the hall.  It's a good thing we have carpet!  Several laps later he looked over at me, patently satisfied with himself, and then laid back down to chew on his antler again.

I emailed his surgeon that night, asking if we could reconsider when he'd be allowed to run again.

Tuesday was a day off for me, as I was fighting a cold and since I had to leave work anyway to take Curzon and Jadzia to our regular vet, I gave up and called out and went back to bed.  When I got up later in the morning, the surgeon had emailed me back to see if I could bring him in for a quick evaluation to see if she could release him to start running!  Additionally, she wanted to take some pictures of him to use as a "model recovery dog" for athletic dogs recovering from surgery.  Of course I said yes, and we arranged a time for me to stop by on my way down to our regular vet.

Curzon happily showed off his stretches, bow, and exercise ball skills for the surgeon, and she just shook her head and said "I don't have any reason to stop him from running now," after examining him.  What happy news!  We're allowed to start running him, starting small and building up while watching him carefully, and that includes flyball practice (although just starting with flat recalls for a week or two).  As soon as we got home from the vet, I took Curzon and Ezri outside to play chuckit in the back yard to celebrate...as soon as I picked up the chuckit in my hand, Curzon's eyes just lit up like stars and he took off running flat-out to the backyard.

Happy dog wants me to throw the ball again!

Our visit to the regular vet went well too, as she was also very impressed with his recovery and even commented that she'd not seen such fast fur regrowth before.  I am choosing to take that as another small sign that we've gotten rid of the cancer - his body wouldn't bother trying to grow fur so fast if it was still fighting a tumor, right?  Curzon got his pulse checked and his artemesinin meds confirmed, as well as some acupuncture in his knees.  Jadzia got her blood drawn for a check now that she's been on the clomapramine for two months, and her bloodwork came back great so we're clear to keep on using it with her (50mg once a day in her breakfast).  She also had the tip of her tail looked at, as I had just noticed last Friday that it appeared dislocated or broken, and it is still attached, getting blood flow, and feeling pain response (though not continued pain from the dislocation), so the vet said she was just fine with it the way it is.  I wonder what happened to make it dislocate, though...

Day 28 post surgery.

Tomorrow and Saturday I will be going to the Sew Expo in Puyallup, including taking three different classes across the time there.  I can't wait to see what awesome and beautiful things are available this year, and I'm very much looking forward to the classes - Biology of Color, Beginner Spinning, and Slash It Up (quilting technique).  More posts this weekend!