Walking this Life with Sambuca

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Yay!!  Trying not to jinx it, but Sambuca is finally eating!  Woohoo!  Still on the light side, but at least she is regularly putting something in her stomach.  She wouldn’t go for the Honest Kitchen food (not sure why…I actually thought it smelled pretty good…looked gross though).  But someone recommended Natural Balance dog food rolls and those seemed to have done the trick.  At least for the time being.  Eating, pooping, drinking…it is the little things that make mama happy.  This is really reminding me of when my kids were babies….when all of life centered around when did they last eat, poo and drink.  Anyway, she wagged her tail for the neighbors today, so she must be feeling slightly better.  Seems like a long time since she has wagged.  Warmed my heart just to see it.

Amazing sight this morning.  Buca was laying in the front yard enjoying the sun.  I peeked out the window  to check on her and saw a bunny also enjoying the sun in the front yard.  The bunny was less than 5 feet from Buca…right in front of her.  Buca just sat there looking at the bunny, the bunny just sat there looking at Buca.  I ran to get the camera, but the bunny hopped away when I opened the front door.  Before all of this, Buca would have been bouncing over to meet her new friend (and subsequently scare her new friend away).  Now, I guess Buca is all about the cum-bi-ya moments with her bunny friends.   Let’s all enjoy the morning sun together, shall we?

I guess I’ll have to rely on Harley, the cat, to keep critters out of my yard…

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Sambuca came home this morning.  She is still not feeling great, labored breathing and tired.  She is eating yummy treats from me though…which is good for her and for my heart!  Only some of them are disguising medicine  

It is so good to have her back in the house, even if she isn’t back to her normal patterns quite yet.   Just to have her home brings peace to this place.  Her gentle spirit fills every room and every heart. 

I’m off to figure out how one goes about serving chicken livers (to the dog…kids won’t come within 100 feet of anything like a liver dinner!)

Sweet Buca-dog is back in the hospital   She has pneumonia and a scarily high fever.  Heavy sigh…

My heart just breaks for her.  She has been through so much.  They have her on fluids and antibiotics.  Vet thinks she will need to stay for at least 72 hours. 

The ups and downs of this process are killing me.  I just want to scoop her up (which I can just about do now that she has lost so much weight…) and make everything ok again.  I want to see her chase the cat, dig up my backyard, and lay her sweet head on my bed in the morning to wake me up.

Here are a few pictures of my girl.  We were orginally going to get a Mastiff.  My daughter and I fell in love with a Pyrenees puppy we saw one day…it was all over after that.    As you can see, the Mastiff did eventually come along (just recently actually).  There is nothing like laying down to cuddle with Sambuca, though.  Just don’t wear black…or stop caring if you are covered with long white fur.  I’ve stopped caring.

How could I not bring this sweet girl home?!

Protecting my food...

Taking a break from playing in the snow.

Beautiful Buca-dog!

Never imagined I’d be sad to say we didn’t “get” to have chemo.   The oncologist did not want to start Sambuca on chemo when she was eating so poorly already.  We were sent home after taking out her stitches with appetite stimulants (thanks for the suggestion!) and directions to get her eating before bringing her back.  Not much luck so far…still just boiled chicken and not much of that.  I’m worried the delay in chemo is putting her at more risk of the cancer spreading.  This process seems to cause constant worrying, doesn’t it?  I am so very thankful for finding this site though!  Truly a blessing!!    ps I will post pictures as soon as my kids help me figure out how to do that! 

We are off to Sambuca’s first dose of chemo this morning.  Hoping everything goes well and that the chemo doesn’t make her appetite even worse than it already is.  For the moment, my sweet girl is laying  out front in the sun, surveying her kingdom (queendom?).  Maybe I’ll go join her for a few minutes….these are the moments that make it all worth it.  A beautiful day, a beautiful dog, and a bond.  Priceless.

Sambuca is a 5 1/2 year old Great Pyrenees.  She is a sweet, fluffy, ball of love and she is mama’s girl.  As with most dog owners, I love my baby girl more than I ever thought I could.  Her tripawd story goes like this:

One night in mid-May, I noticed that Sambuca was limping slightly after a playdate with her friend, Axel (an English Mastiff puppy).  Sambuca went to the doctor the next morning, as the limping had gotten worse overnight.  Doctors thought she might have an injury to her left elbow, but couldn’t see anything on the x-rays.  They mentioned that cancer was a potential diagnosis, but her presentation was a little abnormal.  Sadly, I had a bad feeling that this wasn’t just an injury. 

After trying pain meds and rest with no improvement, we went back to the doctor.  Sambuca had arthroscopy and they removed some damaged cartilage and took a sample of the joint capsule for testing.  We hoped the cartilage was the problem.  We were not so lucky.  The tissue sample showed cancer.  She has a soft tissue cancer, rather than bone cancer.  I don’t really know if that is better or worse, at this point.  None of it was good news. 

On June 8th, she had her leg amputated.  She is doing really well adjusting to 3 legs, just as everyone told me she would.  She isn’t eating well, however.  I am really worried about that.  She has always been a picky eater, but this is getting ridiculous.  Plain chicken is all she will eat right now. ..and not very much of that.  I look forward to trying some of the recipes on this website and I hope she likes some of them so she gets some variety in her diet.

We are two weeks out from surgery.  The trauma of it all has subsided, but she is not yet herself.  She is pretty sullen, which is so hard to see.  I pray that my sweet, happy girl comes back to us.