Daisy

Last Friday we lost one of our friends. Daisy left us.

Daisy lived in Oz with Bella and Roxy. She enjoyed walks and rolling in the grass and wading in any body of water. She really loved hunting for cats.

A little while ago Daisy's peep found a growth in her mouth. The vet said it was the bad kind of growth and he was right. It kept growing and pretty soon it got too big and the options available were all bad ones. So Daisy crossed the bridge.

Over the weekend I noticed that Fudge would stop when he walked by Morgan and sniff her mouth. At first I dismissed it, thinking that he was checking to see if she'd had a treat that he'd missed out on, but yesterday it began to bother me. I went over and opened Morgan's mouth and there was a big nasty looking growth on the inside of her cheek.

I know that I tend to overreact to these sorts of things ever since Samba and Sky died, but with Daisy's illness on my mind, I immediately called Dr B. He had an opening in the afternoon, so Rob and I drove Morgan over to get it checked out.

First he checked out a couple of new bumps that have appeared. One on her shoulder is one of those cysts she gets that fill up, then explode with goop oozing out. It had just exploded, so he cleaned it up and told me to put a compress on it twice a day followed by some medicated ointment.

The next bump was on her belly and felt like a little sac of fluid. He said it was a fatty growth and there was another smaller one close to it. No problem.

Then he looked at her mouth and got 'that look' on his face. He said he had good news and bad news. The good news is that it's benign. The bad news is that it's rubbing on her tooth and won't heal so it needs to come out. This is bad news because Morgan at age 14+ can only have surgery done with a local and operating on her mouth with a local will be very hard to do.

He examined her legs and eyes and ears while he thought about the options. Then we discussed them. We agreed that he would inject a steroid under and behind the growth to try to get rid of the inflammation and shrink it a little so it might heal. Morgan was very good s he injected her. We'll give it a couple weeks to work.

If this doesn't work Morgan will spend the day with Dr B and he'll operate to remove it. He says it may take a long time because he'll only be able to do a little at a time, then give her a chance to relax before doing a little more. It won't be easy and it won't be fun, but he's sure it can be done.

So we all want to thank Daisy for reminding us to pay attention to these little signs and take action before little problems become big ones. We  miss you Daisy.