Maggie is finally home, after almost two weeks in hospital.
She was extremely placid on the way home; she gave herself a bit of a clean before curling up and going to sleep. She barely cried at all… only once or twice.
Poor thing has been in a cage for so long, she’s absolutely relishing being able to stretch right out. She’s also obviously missed having carpet under her feet, and has been a little shit. She stops to have a good scratch on the carpet every now and then. This was all after a good exploration of the house and her housemates.
She’s slowly adjusting to having only one eye. She walks well, but if she needs to shake her head while walking, it puts her off balance. She’s not allowed to jump up or down off anything, so we have to be there to help her. Luckily, you can almost see exactly what’s going through her head when she wants to do that. She’s had me absolutely bounding out of bed a couple of times already. She loves being in bed with me. Her favourite thing to do is cuddle on my chest. I can leave her in there under the covers for hours and she will just sleep. She has a little area just outside my bedroom door with a soft towel, a bed with a blankie, her lizard, and a bowl of water and food. She goes there at night time so we don’t worry about her needing to jump off the couch or anything like that, and she sleeps the whole way through the night.
She eats reasonably well; we feed her small amounts several times a day during the day. She’s pretty bony still, but we’re hoping she will plump up a bit with time. She’s able to eat normal wet food (Dine usually), though she initially enjoyed the food given to us by the specialists, which is urgent care food. She’s not allowed dry food yet, and the wetter and softer, the better. She still gags a bit, but once she composes herself, she gets stuck in again. The gagging seems to be getting better, so hopefully she won’t be doing that for much longer. She’s still drinking plenty of water.
The others haven’t really responded the best to having her back, but they certainly haven’t responded the worst. Rosie had a wee growlie session but I had pushed things a bit far by taking Maggie for a cuddle on my chest while Rosie was right next to me. In all honesty though, that’s not totally abnormal, since Maggie and Rosie have never gotten on well, with Maggie being the big bully. D’arcy has responded the worst out of the two. While Maggie was in hospital, he pined for her. He would cuddle up every day to a towel that she had used for a while. When she came home, there were no growlies or hissies, but he’s been rather depressed. She probably smelt a bit different, but obviously she also looks different. We’re also giving her more attention. We’re not neglecting the other two, but I think it is affecting D’arcy, because he’s a tad quiet, moody, and depressed. We make sure to give him extra loves when we can.
The vet rang us just after we’d picked her up saying that he’d received the results of the biopsy back, and part of the margin is dirty, so he’s likely left a small amount in there. He got all he could, but this means the cancer will likely come back. She’s on chemotherapy at the moment, as well as antidepressants to stimulate her appetite, and some other medication. She’s going to go have her stitches out this coming Thursday.
So far, this has cost us just under $9,000NZD (under ~$6,500USD) with Veterinary Specialist Group in Mt Albert, Auckland, New Zealand. I’m not sure how much her chemo drugs are going to cost, but I will update when I know.
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