I can breathe now

My sincerest gratitude to all who kept Cartman in your thoughts. I appreciate your comments both on this blog and on ravelry. I am so thankful for the friends I have found in each of you. I can't tell you how much this means to us and this little guy.
I dropped Cartman off at 6:30 this morning for surgery prep. From that point on I was a ball of nervous energy until noon. I honestly ended up cleaning instead of knitting because I have discovered a have a tendency to make a train wreck of what I am working on when I am that nervous.

So by noon, I called over to the vet and as planned, he was in recovery. The tumor was removed and he has about a 3 inch incision behind his left front leg. The mast cell tumor was at least a large marble from swelling with fluid following the aspiration to do the biopsy slides last week. A chest X-ray was performed and was unremarkable. So if we have no mets than that means no systemic disease which is what I wanted to hear. Hopefully, this was an isolated tumor. I suppose we'll know once we get the results of the post-op bloodwork.

So we were permitted to pick him up at 5:30 tonight. They said he had a very difficult recovery becoming very ill from the anesthesia, which isn't a surprise. He came out groggily and I guess when he focused, he could see us kneeling on the floor waiting for him. That big 'ol piece o' bologna for a tongue was out and completely slimed us in mere seconds. I was actually quite thankful for the sloppy bulldog sliming.

Poor Cartman was like the walking drunk all night. He walked out of the door and slammed his big noggin into the blood sample deposit boxes on the porch of the office. Poor thing. So from that point on, all 55 lbs of solid muscle was scooped up and carried to the truck. Thank God this dog has a hard head people. I almost wanted to make him a padded suit. So it took hours to settle him. We were allowed to give him ice chips but no food which broke my heart. I could tell how hungry he was at that moment. It was so pitiful.

So he's resting and I suppose we'll see what tomorrow will bring. For now, I can go to bed and be thankful for a good prognosis and all of you. God Bless.

-Sharon