Cody's Journey

The universe has a cruel sense of humor. No, take that back, the universe has no sense of humor… the universe is just cruel.

First let me preface this blog post by saying that this particular post is about two dogs. Cody and Ziggy, and it’s going to be a long one. Let’s start with Cody since this blog is supposed to be about him anyways right?

Cody, our miracle, our “minority”, our “Wow, you’re so lucky!” dog has literally crushed every osteosarcoma statistic there is. We celebrated his 2 year ampuversary in Feburary and are currently sitting at 2 years and 3 months post amputation, with no chemo, and still hopping strong! Whenever we take him places and explain to people what happened (those who are familiar with the diagnosis) are simply amazed at how great he looks. He’s had a few check ups with the vet and everything looks wonderful. We don’t get chest X-rays for him, but lungs sound good, and he is acting just like himself. We are still working with Dr. Loops for homeopathic remedies and we attribute that along with his diet and a positive home life to be the reason he is still doing so well. Seriously… he just amazes me everyday! He is also super wonderful with his baby sister :). She loves to crawl all over him and of course he doesn’t mind!

Now let’s go back to the beginning of this post… about how this is about two dogs and how the universe is cruel, just cruel. Ziggy started to cough about a week ago, just every now and then, but enough for me to notice. I tried to brush it off and thought, “we’ll call the vet next week, I’m sure it’s nothing”. Then on Friday his appetite decreased… Then on Sunday night he started to have some respiratory changes. I was already up with the baby in the middle of the night and got scared. We took him to the emergency vet near us and they did a chest X-ray… Damnit. Abnormal results. Seriously?! How does this even happen! Now the results were not conclusive, as there were no “large tumors” to be seen. Only a “fluff” that appears to either be cancer, or a fungal infection. So we were referred to a specialist. Of course this happened over the holiday weekend… why not right? So he went to the specialist on Tuesday and they did an abdominal ultra sound to check for other tumors, and some blood testing of cells in his chest/abdomen and a urine sample. Ultrasound, negative. Blood cell tests revealed inflammation (doesn’t give a diagnosis), no cancerous cells (still doesn’t rule it out) and no organisms (still doesn’t rule out a fungus). Basically all still leaving us saying “what is it??” We are still waiting for the urine culture results… these can take several days. If they are positive for a fungus growth, we can treat with antifungals… if they are negative, well then we assume it’s cancer and go from there.  Again I say, seriously?!? We have been preparing for Cody to have some kind of lung issues.. but not Zig, which is why I think it’s so hard. Not to mention with Cody, it was clear cut, yes it’s a bone tumor, yes you need to amputate, yes you can try to beat it.

When I started blogging about Cody, it was all about survival. We knew what it was, we researched how to deal. We took the pain away when we took the leg, we healed the incision and we prayed that it didn’t resurface… but with Zig, it’s a guessing game with no for sure diagnosis, and we may never actually get one. And it’s so hard with Zig because I can see the discomfort, I can hear the breathing change. With cody, we took the bad away, we gave him pain meds. We do have Zig on Prednisone now to help with inflammation in the lungs, hopefully it will take effect soon (the vet said 2-3 doses and we should notice something). I cooked him some chicken and rice tonight and he ate well finally, also drank a bunch afterwards so that’s good. So I write this to not only update everyone on Cody, but also to ask you all to say a little prayer as we await these last test results for Zig. Pray that we get answers, and that he is comfortable while we wait and beyond. It’s a hard thing having pets.. they become part of you, part of your soul and it’s heartbreaking to see them in any other state but their normal selves.

And let’s end on a positive note: here are some fun pictures! Enjoy 🙂

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