Then again, maybe not.

This was not what we (I) bargained for when picking Moe up from the surgeon. He had a partial cystectomy--about 1/3 of his urinary bladder removed. Incontinence and blood are not the most pleasant of mixes, but we got by with plenty of Simple Green and paper towels. We were intially worried that he would remain this way forever, but now that it's been two weeks or so, he's back to being Moe, with the one exception that he no longer has his famous "camel bladder," and about every other night, wakes me up to go outside sometime around 3 a.m. This is a small price for me to pay for not having to wash the bedsheets and blankets daily, which was what was happening, for awhile. And before you say to me very slowly and clearly, so that I, as an obvious retarded person can understand, "Then why did you let him sleep on the bed, Stef?", I'll tell you why. One, he gets fretful if we're on the bed, and he's not, and two, he had diapers. Yes, diapers. Specially made for dogs with issues, complete with tail hole. And while those diapers did keep the majority of the urine off the bed, it wasn't always 100% effective. Plus, I really like the feeling of bedsheets fresh out of the wash, all tucked in tightly and smoothly, so I didn't mind too much. And he couldn't help it. Poor guy had a staple IN HIS WINKIE.

As a matter of propriety, I have blurred out said winkie in the photograph below. It might be hard to see very well, but he has a scar running from the bottom of his ribcage down to the side of his penis. It doesn't look too shocking now--I should have taken the photo before the staples were taken out.

Anyway, the most important part of this whole thing is that after we paid an obscene amount of money for this, his second surgery and hospitalization, bought dog diapers and pee-pee pads to put all over the house, and waded up to our ankles in urine and blood, the pathology report came back and . . . let the suspense build for a moment. . . he hadn't had a relapse of the cancer. What they saw on the ultrasound was inflammation, after all. Yeah. Thank Gawd and yippee for Moe, and #%*&! for the checkbook. This all comes from veterinary medicine not having access to all the equipment that human medicine does. Had Moe been human, he would have had a cystoscopy, where they would snake a scope into his bladder to see what was going on. They could have also biopsied a sample while in there, and sent THAT to pathology, instead of 1/3 of his bladder. The oncologist mentioned a cystoscopy, but said that he didn't actually know of anyplace doing them on systems this small. We were thinking of calling A&M, which does cutting edge research since they have a wonderful veterinary school, but he doubted they had it, either. Personally, I prefer dogs to many, many people, and firmly believe they should have access to the same technologies we have. But I am also a borderline Crazy Dog Lady.

So Moe is doing well, and is his old self, and I am so very glad of that. Another good thing is that Capital Area Veterinary Specialists, the office where he sees his oncologist and surgeon, is probably going to take me on as an intern. So, yay me, also. I'm very excited about the prospect, but haven't got all the details just yet. What's nice is that it is about two exits off of the freeway beyond Zoe's school, so I could drop her off, go to work, and then pick her up afterward very neatly.

So ends the continuing Saga of the Bladder. I am glad it is over, and happy to say that Moe is right now sleeping on the floor next to me. Good doggie.