Hug Your Pug

This week is not turning out quite as happy as I had hoped. Michael and Natalie have started kindergarten, and that is going well, and the subject for a post in and of itself. No, this post is about the other child, not the youngest one who is allergic to everything, but my very first allergic child,

Buster our pug.

Buster is about 9 years old, and has gone from sleeping on our bed when we had no children, to sleeping under our bed once the three young ones arrived. He has put up with countless ear tugs, tail pulls, pokes and prods from three little children, all with a wag of his tail and a snort of happiness.

Buster also was my first experience with anaphalyxis and allergies. I brought him home after one of his first rounds of shots from the vet. I looked down at him a few minutes later to discover his face was swelling up at an alarming rate. If you have never seen a pug's face swell up, it is a very interesting site. Their faces are already flat and sort of smooshed, and when it swells up like a cantaloupe it becomes even more sort of flat and smooshed. I threw Buster in the car and ran over to the vet who was thankfully just up the street, and showed them my swollen pug. They immediately grabbed him from me, took him to the back and gave him some medicine (I never thought to ask at the time). He ended up being just fine, and we always pre-treated him before shots afterwards, but it was my first experience with anaphalyxis.

So, we noticed a lump on Buster's chest last week, and I took him to the vet yesterday. There is only one local vet in town, and this one is great, but loves their cats. This is great if you have cats, but not so great if your youngest child is severely allergic to them. There were three cats in the waiting room walking around coming in and out an open window. In the exam room all the seating looked as though it doubled for cat scratching posts. I was completely afraid to sit down and just stood in the middle of the room trying not to touch anything. I am sure the vet thought I was either very nervous, or a bit odd, but who knows. Anyways, after a biopsy we discovered that Buster has a mast cell tumor that is cancer and scheduled for surgery on Friday. Hopefully removing the tumor will be enough, but we won't know until they send it off to pathology to get the reports.

So now Buster has to be on benedryl and prevacid until Friday. Some fun comments from our trip.

"Are you ok if you see a needle? I don't want to see you end up on the floor." (When she was about to do the biopsy)

In all fairness, perhaps she asked since I was standing oddly in the middle of the room trying not to touch anything. But Geeez, I hope not. Wanna see my epi-pen?

"Do you know what benedryl is???"

Uh, yea, I own benedryl in every shape size and form in our house. At our house he has the option of taking if from a pre-filled spoon (he needs 2), a dropper, a pill (dissolvable or chewable), or a dissolving strip.

"If you have trouble giving him the pill you can put it in some peanut butter."

Uh No!!!! Then I will have to see another different kind of needle being stuck into my son.

So, after I got home, changed my clothes and took a shower to get any cat remnants off of me, I had to explain to two 5 year olds and one 4 year old that Busty (as they call him) has a boo boo on his tummy, and they need to be gentle with him.

So, if you want to say a prayer for our Busty, that his cancer has not spread and his tumor is removed successfully, we would really appreciate it. In the meantime Hug your Pug.