Kevin's musings

Last night I went up to The Boulder Dinner Theatre with my friend S. It was a lot of fun. Will have to keep my eyes out for when other plays I might like are going to be there. This one was a production of “The King and I”. The cast was overall pretty good. (Both at acting and at serving food). The food was not super outstanding, but it was ok. The wine and company was delightfull.

Also, a brief Twyla update. She’s doing great. Pretty much 100% back to normal. Going up and down all the stairs and having fun.
She’s just as much of a attention hound as always.

Here’s a picture of Twyla from when we were down in Tucson last weekend:

This weekend I need to unpack boxes of stuff I have from the Tucson house, and try and get organized for the movers to show up.
The tracking web site says they should be here on march 7th with a Big Dresser, a fridge, a washer/dryer, bookshelf, about 10 boxes of misc stuff.

A quick weekend recap:
- Friday was driving down to Tucson pretty much all day. Pretty typical 13.5 hour drive.
- Saturday was dividing up all the rest of the stuff in my dads house. Then, I went to go pick up my reserved u-haul trailer,
which they said I could pick up “after 3pm”. I got there at 4:15 and they were closed. Apparently, “after 3pm” also has a
implied “…but before 4pm, when we close”. So, I went with plan B and just hired the movers that were already coming
to get stuff for my brother and one of my sisters.
- Sunday we packed things up and got everything listed and marked down. Then, I headed to Las Cruces.
- Monday was driving back up to Denver. Pretty typical 10 hour drive.
- Tuesday the movers showed up and loaded everything at my dads place. Cleaning was done, and papers were signed.

So, no more trips down to Tucson for me for a while.

The dogs did fine as usual on the trip. Mostly sleeping and lounging around. Kurt got to where he didn’t want to get back in the car
after a while, and I had to lift him up and put him in there, but otherwise they did great.

Catching up on some pictures before heading to bed.

Tomorrow I am heading down to tucson again (Hopefully for the last time for a while). 13 hours of fun driving. Hopefully uneventfull.

here’s a few pictures from the last few days. Kurt and Merlin hanging out in the yard:

Kurt really likes the snow:

Twyla is doing great. Getting around fine. She still knows how to relax:

She’s even figured out some odd positions she can now do since she only has one front leg:

Will try and take some pictures of the trip. Hopefully an easy one.

Oh, I also took a (unfortunately too dark) movie of Twyla coming back in from the yard… (WARNING: it’s 32MB, so if you are on a slow link, you probibly don’t want to click).

Well, monday we went into my local vet here and got Twylas staples removed. Hurray!
There were some of them that had moved around and he had to dig with some forceps, but she just layed there and let him. Nary a sound.
We talked about Chemo options. He had two folks that he could refer me to down here, but I decided to just go back up to CSU.
It’s not really that far and they have all her records and such.

So, tuesday morning bright and early we went up to CSU (yeah, they got me in that fast. They had a cancel slot open). We talked with a very nice oncologist.
He said the first patient he ever had as a oncologist was a greyhound with a amputated front left leg. Twyla of course did lots of leaning and smoozing with all
the folks in the waiting room. We decided to go with a alternating chemo setup. First up is Carboplatin. It’s recently gotten a lot cheaper, because you can get it as a
generic. She got that one today. Next week we need to do some blood tests and make sure she’s doing ok with it. Then in another 2 weeks she goes in for the other
chemo: Doxorubicin. Then two weeks later the cycle starts again with the Carboplatin. Theres going to be a total of 6 doses (3 of each).

She seems to have handled it just fine. She even ate some dinner a bit ago.

Well, the week went by pretty fast. Nice and busy at work.
We got a snowstorm thursday night and friday I went up to boulder. Just one thing I would like to say to all the denver/boulder area drivers:
STOP TAILGATING ME! It’s really anoying to be driving in snowy conditions and have some dork 2′ behind me. No one around here leaves any kind of room for stopping.

It’s been a pretty quiet weekend. I went out saturday night and met up with my friend B and his wife at the Steve Crenshaw show. Jammin Joes bar is a true dive bar. The music was quite good though. Steve was in great form. I picked up a cd from him that has on it: “Copy and share with your friends”.

Twyla is doing pretty well. We went out to petsmart the other day. She loved the attention from people there and didn’t have too much trouble walking around.
On the way back she managed to get past me before I could lift her up into the car and jumped right up herself. She was pretty pooped after that thought, so she still needs to get some more strength back. She’s been eating ok, but sometimes missing a meal. Next week we need to get her staples out and schedule her for chemo.

Next weekend is the big “move everything out of my dad’s house” event. Heading down there friday, and back monday. Hopefully Twyla will handle the travel ok, and I won’t have problems hauling a trailer back behind me.

Here’s some pics from today:

Twyla taking it easy in the crate:

Both my girls:

Twyla hopping around the yard:

Kurt in the sun:

Merlin:

We have great dane sign!
(I should have put something next to this for scale. It was litterally the size of a greyhounds leg!)

Time to relax on the couch:

Twyla continues to improve. She’s hopping around pretty well now.
She even (before I could stop her) jumped up the steps from my yard to
my deck this afternoon.

She ate all her breakfast (after I mixed a can of chicken into her kibble).

She finally pooped. She had been holding it since she got back from
surgery.

She did her funny dominance behavior to Merlin today. She goes and stands
over them when they are laying down. She doesn’t do anything, just stands there
very close towering over them.

I have been trying to decrease her pain meds. It’s hard to tell when
she is in pain or not. Pesky stoic greyhounds.

She’s been hanging out on the couches more.

She whined like she was being tortured when I gated her in the bedroom and
took the boy dogs for a walk. She has always been a champion whiner.
In fact I thought at first that she had fallen or otherwise hurt herself,
but she was just mad at being left behind.

She’s been coming over demanding petting and attention more. Not as much
as usual, but increasing over the last few days.

Thanks again for all the well wishes.

To take up the story and update you from yesterday:

I got up to CSU and picked up princess Twyla around 5pm.
She walked out with me, and managed to squat and potty on her own
on the way to the car. She had a lot of trouble trying to figure out
how to lay down on the way back, and just stood up the entire time.

We got home and she zonked right out.

She had a bit of a restless night and got up and walked around
a few times, but more pain meds helped her get back to sleep.

She’s spent today just relaxing as well. She ate a bit of
breakfast, and a bit of her dinner. The pain meds do make her
not very hungry.

On the good side she seems to have no problem walking around
(or perhaps it’s hopping She got up on the couch eariler and
hung out for a while. She was digging in the blankets in her
crate with her one front leg a bit ago.

On the bad side she still has problems figuring out how to
lay down. She was used to circling in a clockwise direction and
then laying down on her left side, but since thats the side
with her incision now, she gets confused about which way to
go and how to lay down. She does figure it out after a while.

Not sure if she will be up for a trip to the park sunday,
but we will see. She is improving more every day.

Well, all the tests came back good tuesday, so she spent the night at CSU
tuesday night and was scheduled for her amputation wed sometime between
11am and 4pm.

The surgery took place toward the end of that window, but everything went
very well. No complications at all. She was pretty zonked out with pain meds
wed night, so I decided not to visit.

Thursday morning she has been up and walking around. She’s been whining
for attention (which is very typical for her, yea!). At my regular vet
when she has gone in for dental or the like, they aways send her home
as soon as she’s up since otherwise she starts whining at the top of
her lungs for someone to come pet her.

I am planning on going up and picking her up between 3-4pm today.

The CSU folks have been really good. They have called with updates lots of
times and answered all my questions. Dr Duerr knows his stuff, and
the students have all been great.

thanks for all the well wishes from everyone. Will keep you posted.