Heidi 9

27th April - Celebration?

We saw Barbara today to check Heidi’s thyroid levels are what they should be. Her pulse was a steady 95 (now NORMAL!!), her heart sounded strong, although the murmur is still there & her thyroid levels are just outside what they should be. Hurrah!! Instead of upping the Soloxine we are seeing whether we can illicit a change by adding more kelp to her diet.

On the flip side of this her mammary lump is quite large now & is very tight in the skin. Barbara’s instinct is to remove it as it would be a relatively straightforward operation to do & Heidi is much stronger now & far better able to deal with it. We will wait a few weeks to get her thyroid in the right range & then work on really boosting her up for another op. Some may question why we didn’t remove it when the thyroid was done, but I still believe that she had enough to deal with after that one procedure without adding to her discomfort & trauma. She really is a different dog now.

Is the CV247 working? This is a complete unknown. A thorough check of her thyroid area revealed no lumps, bumps or swellings (i.e. no return of the original cancer) so on this basis something within her regime is working & I ain’t going to change any of it!

While we were waiting for the results we had a lovely game with a little squeaky ducky. Heidi was barking & grinning like she was the happiest dog in the world. I couldn’t help grinning either; when she first came to us her mouth / eye coordination was rubbish (she can’t see much detail) but she was really trying to catch ducky & even incorporated Meg’s technique of using her front legs to funnel the duck into her mouth (sometimes with success). She then showed me that she could fetch too, but made sure I didn’t get it afterwoards by running around me at a rate of knotts tossing a look over her shoulder at me that said “catch me if you can”!

Raise a glass to Heidi & a wonderful veterinary team at Oakwood. Thank you.

R x