More barkday stuff and my staples are removed...

Watering the tomato and chilli plants

Here is yet more lovely barkday and get well stuff. I know that lots of you put cards and messages on your blogs about me so I'm really sorry if I've missed anyone out here:

From Rocky, Bear and Angel Lacylulu:

From Koobuss:

From Georgeous:

George very kindly asked if he could buy me a birthday gift, but instead I asked him to make a donation to his favourite charity. Thanks pal, you're a real star!

Here's a jolly good stash from Eric. He prescribed peanut butter and plenty of it, for medicinal purposes, of course! He also sent a purple rubbery squirrel toy not shown in this photo, cos that was what J1 used to distract me while she was taking these pictures.



From my lovely non-blogging wirey pal, Angel and her mum, Sheri:


(Fab card! Why is he dressed like a lumberjack though?)

Pawsome gifts from Agatha & Archie...Can't WAIT to get my teeth into them...

These gifts were in a lovely Disney gift box with a Mickey & Pluto picture but I sort of ripped it up in my enthusiasm to get to the toys...

I went to the vet this morning to have those nasty staples taken out (BTW there were 22 of 'em not 21. J1 can't count). And guess what? They DO use a funny staple remover thing. They all came out quite easily apart from the very last one which was twisted, but I was superbrave and didn't flinch. Just barked afterwards. A lot.

J2 says I look like Sparky in the Tim Burton film, Frankenweenie with all his scars and stuff...

Marginally better than looking like FrankenStanley. I suppose. (Click here to remind yourself of the full horror).

Happy Barkday to Me!

Hey pals, Here I am in all my nekkidness. Yes, I'm sporting a rather strange hairdo at the moment. Can't see it catching on, can you? Those vet nurses seem to have run amok with the clippers. Can you see my staples? I've got 21 of them, yep, count em! J2 refuses to look cos he's a bit squeamish, hehehe, what a wimp!

Now onto the important birthday stuff. I was delighted with the birthday flyover, which I saw from my bedroom window...Thank you Aire Ruby and everyone who flew by...

Photo by Asta

Molly & Taffy, Agatha & Archie and Eric all sent pawsome e-cards which unfortunately I can't show here but believe me, they were all pretty cool.

Noah and the gang sent me this:



From my new pal in Belgium, Snoopy:

Get well and barkday cards from Lenny:

Get well soon and birthday cards from Eric:

Card and pawsome gifts from Maggie & Mitch - at last I've got a snozzle!

Thanks pals, this stuff looks absolutely delish! And they even sent J1 this pawsome gift, handmade by their mum:

Isn't it wonderful? Although I don't really know what J1 has done to deserve it, it's not her birthday is it?

Get well soon and birthday cards from Axel:

Get well soon and birthday cards from Ben, Wang Wang, Twinkle and Hippo

From Blue:

Phew, I had no idea I was so pupular!

A heartfelt thank you to all my pals, new and old who kindly dropped by to wish me well. I'll try and visit you all but it may take a while...

Home at last!

Yea, I'm finally back home! I can't tell you how good it feels to be back in my own bed. I didn't want the pawparazzi taking pix today as I'm a little tired and my hair is a bit askew. Hope you can wait until tomorrow...

Let me start with the science stuff first. I found out today that my tumour was a low grade pulmonary bronchiolo-alveolar adenocarcinoma. That's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it? It's a kinda bad tumour as it's malignant, but the good news is that it doesn't seem to have spread elsewhere and from now on I'm scheduled to have chest x-rays every 3 months to check that it doesn't try and sneak back. They just can't get enough of my handsome old self at that hospital! They also discovered that I have early cataracts in both eyes so I've got to see the ophthalmologist every 6 months to check for inflammation. My eyes are a little bit dry, probably because of the medication I've been taking so the Js are having to add artificial tears to my eyes 6 TIMES A DAY, plus an ointment at night...hope it doesn't mess with my eyebrows too much.

Thank you for all your messages; I'm going to post about my barkday tomorrow and show you my pawsome cards, but for the moment I think it's time for a nap. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Quick Jackson update...

Jackson is doing well and is now out of intensive care. He will almost certainly be allowed home on Friday afternoon.

We're putting his proper birthday celebrations on hold until he's well enough to enjoy them fully but we do hope you'll drop by his blog on Friday to wish him a Happy Barkday!

The Js

xxx

More Paw Power

Hey pals, Barksdale and Stringer here. Are you ready for some good news? Yes, that's right, Jackson's surgery went well; the surgeon removed the tumour and the back lobe of his left lung. We're not out of the woods yet as he's still in intensive care and the next few hours are critical. But we're sooooooooo relieved that the surgery is over that we are doing a jig here, as our pal Axel would say...

We know how hard you have all been working on sending us positive thoughts. Please don't stop now as we won't be happy until he's back here where he belongs being his usual grumpy self. All being well he'll be allowed home on Friday which is also his birthday!

All power to the paw!

Cat Scan results

Today has been a very difficult day for us all. We have been anxiously waiting for the vet to ring with my CAT Scan results.

The scan showed that the mass is a solitary tumour and it doesn't seem to have affected the nearest lymph nodes, which is good news. This means it is operable so I will go into hospital on Monday and have surgery to remove it on Tuesday morning, all being well.

We are very nervous about the operation but feel this is the only way forward as the prognosis without it is 6 months. Please continue to cross your paws for me and the Js, I think we'll need it to get through the next week.

Now to cheer us all up, here's a photo of me from happier times on the beach with Seamus & Molly...

CAT Scan

Have any of you or your humans had a CAT Scan? I used to think that cats were somehow involved in the process and was quite looking forward to it. My NOMS (Not of my Species) pal, a ginger cat called Miss Peach, even volunteered to do it for me!



Now I realise that the scanner is a big machine which works a bit like an x-ray and takes many pictures from different angles. These are fed into a computer which puts them together to give a series of cross sections. It will show the size of the tumour in my chest and whether it has spread elsewhere in my body.

As you can imagine it's an expensive piece of kit so my specialist veterinary hospital doesn't have one yet (although they do have access to a portable MRI scanner which I've been inside twice!). Instead I had to go to a posh private human hospital to have it done. I wonder what the humans would think if they knew that a small grumpy dog had been inside the same machine as them? Mmm, one to ponder over.

It was about an hours journey from where I live to the human hospital and we drove there in the Pet Ambulance. Talk about travelling in style! This is a pawsome service. You can read about them by clicking here.

I had to starve myself from after my tea on Tuesday night which was VERY DIFFICULT INDEED particularly as my appointment was at 4.00 on Wednesday afternoon. Don't they know that I'm a Substantial WFT and as such need regular snacks to keep my strength up? The scan itself took a few minutes but I had to be sedated in order to persuade me to stay still. Following the scan, the sedation was reversed and after a while we were able to return home. I'm still very sleepy but have managed a light bite of chicken and rice.

The test results are back tomorrow, late afternoon. I'll post as soon as I have anything to report. Thank you once again for all your kind words and comments. All power to the Paw!

Paw power

Ok pals, I'm back and I'm feeling much more like my old self today...

The Js and I would like to thank each and every one of you for all your posts, comments and emails. We've been overwhelmed by the positive responses from old friends and new. All power to the paw, we're going to fight this!

The Js were absolutely delighted to receive a beautiful bunch of sunflowers from our special pals at Dogs with Blogs. That was really kind of you all. Thank you.

Anyway, I think it's about time I got back to normal. This of course means returning to my very important day job of toy tester extraordinaire. Luckily enough my wirey pal Eric sent me a new toy a couple of weeks ago. It's a set of squeaky teeth...

He challenged J1 to get a photo of me wearing them before they need to take a trip to the dentist for emergency repairs. Mmm, not an easy task as you can imagine. Here is the best out of a bad lot...

OK, I know that I've got them in back to front, but they didn't come with fitting instructions!

And here is the obligatory "after" shot...This was taken after about 1 minute when J1 had to wrestle with me to give it up...

All in a day's work.