Lincoln has been our "surgery" dog. We adopted him for the bargain price of $50, but we've spent a good $5,000 on surgeries. Before I had dogs I always said 'those people who go to extreme measures to save their pets are insane. If something is ever seriously wrong with one of my animals I will just put them down'. Yeah big talker. A couple weeks after we brought him home and he broke our vows of "no dogs on the furniture and certainly no dogs in bed with us!" (again big talkers), he broke a blood vessel in his ear and it swelled up. He seemed to be fine with it, but being the over-concerned first-time parents we took him to the vet and paid for his first surgery to drain his ear. What suckers when I think back about it. The vet even told us if we waited it would go down on its own. But we didn't want him to be in pain and Pit Bulls have excessively high pain thresholds. So we couldn't be sure he wasn't in pain. Anyway, that was surgery number one. Surgery number two came when he cut his leg on something out in the woods while frolicking around. That of course was a late night weekend surgery, awesome!. Surgery number three and four were both to remove tumors from his abdomen. Besides the surgeries there have been countless doctor's visits. He's a bit of a daredevil. He jumped out of our bedroom window in Ithaca (about 5 feet above the ground) and when we moved to the farm house, he stepped things up and jumped out of our second story bedroom window, ran around to the front of the house and lay in the shade until Andy got home from work. After that one he limped for a few days and then was fine. So when he started limping a couple days ago we figured maybe he slipped on the ice or something and would recover. But it got worse.
Last night, despite the financial worries over making it through this month until the GI Bill starts up again, I told Andy he needed to take him in. I just got a call a few minutes ago that he is in x-ray right now. They looked at his foot and his leg, but it is definitely his shoulder. They had to muzzle him to probe around.....which for Lincoln means it is bad. He will basically let you lay completely on top of him or drag him around by the tail without complaint. When he ran in the house bleeding from basically severing his achilles he was bouncing around wagging his tail like nothing was wrong. He thought it was an awesome game that mom was trying to tackle him and apply pressure.
According to Andy he might have fractured it, but they also suspect it might be bone cancer. Honestly when he first started limping around, that is what I thought. He has had cancer twice and that is where my brain went. Andy pointed out that the limping did come on pretty fast, it wasn't a slow progression. He thinks bone cancer would be slower and so he's thinking fracture. I am praying for a facture at this point. This is my kid. He has been in our lives for 4 years. I know I swore I'd never be one of those people who confused an animal as a child, but low and behold here I am. Hoping for some way that I don't lose this little guy. I need him. He's my partner-in-crime and I was counting on his snuggles as I recovered from labor. The other two kids could give a crap if I am tired or in pain, they want to jump and sit on mommy. But Lincoln has always been super sensitive to me. He's been my silent witness when I have broken down for any number of girlie emotional reasons.
So I am not sure what is happening today, but someone has it out for me. If that whole theory of bad things come in three is true I guess maybe I should just lock myself in the house for the next couple of weeks. I will let you know as soon as I do about both Lincoln and my dad.
UGH. Terrible day. I'm hoping that you've gotten your news on both fronts and neither is as bad as it could be. xo
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