Welcome Sierra and family,

What a beautiful girl Sierra is. I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this but glad you stumbled across our little family. Please don't hesitate to ask question regardless of their nature. I look forward to hearing more about your sweet Sierra. Sending lots of positive healing thoughts your way.

Fortis'Dad

I know what you mean about taking a moment to think things through.  It was hugely overwhelming for me at the beginning.  I was thinking that somehow they had made a mistake.  Then, 3 days after a specialist confirmed the diagnosis from my vet, my boy's leg fractured.  He was in horrible, awful, unimaginable pain.

He spent 3 days in the hospital because his surgery wasn't scheduled until the following monday.  That cinched it for me, seeing him suffer so much, I started to believe, it became real.

Now, he is happy and healthy, and doing so very well.  I get a lot of people who don't even notice that he is missing a leg. 

Welcome Sierra and family, I hope this helps.  We will be here for you for any questions you may have, or just a shoulder to lean on, in case you feel the need.  Others, amazing people who I am truly grateful for, were here for me, so it is my turn now to pass it on.

Elizabeth and Sammy

I'm sorry you needed to find this site, but I know you've found a great source of comfort, empathy and advice.

2 weeks ago our springer Fern had her front leg amputated and it felt that much of Fern went with it, but 2 weeks on we have our old Fern back, she's running upstairs and down, chasing balls etc and playing outside in the snow.

I am so glad we opted for the amputation, the last 2 weeks were tough, but the future without Fern would have been tougher.

I'm glad you found us, best wishes.

We have talked with the owner of the vet hospital who Sierra was scheduled for surgery with.  This vet hospital and doctor were highly recommended to me by normal vet.  I have seen this doctor several times trying to sort out food allergy issues over the past year or so.  I tried to talk to her over the past week or two as this diagnosis was coming in but ended up talking to a referral nurse who scheduled me with a surgeon last week which resulted in us scheduling the surgery for tomorrow.

Well, the owner calls me today and asks me several questions given her knowledge of Sierra to see if anyone has done an abdominal utlrasound or tested for a fungal infection.  Through the chaos of talking with her, the scheduling nurse, and doing research this afternoon, I just had this uneasy feeling about sticking with the appointment for tomorrow so have decided to postpone it.  Don't get me wrong, I fully expect the worse but could not bring myself to drop her off tomorrow morning without a full understanding of how things were going to play out given there were a couple of loose ends that needed to be tied up before amputation.  The last paper work I signed was for the surgery and was a little troubled that I would be dropping off Sierra in the morning with the expectation that there would be a couple of additional tests run and be consulted on the results, either way, before moving forward with the amputation. 

Sierra is still bearing weight on both legs and not showing strong signs of pain so we felt we could call a time out and regroup for a minute to give ourselves the assurance that we could exhaust all other options first.  Again, not expecting things to change in the end but we were presented new information today that made us question the rush.  Perhaps there is cancer originating in the stomach and mestatizing in the leg which amputation may do nothing for.  Perhaps there is a fungal infection since biopsies are not always definitive in detecting fungus.  We still expect the worse but have to ask these questions don't we? 

It is funny how the mind works in these situations.  We don't know how common these procedures are and whether or not our surgeon has ever done one (should have asked him that when we met with him) but began to wonder if he saw this as an opportunity to gain experience from a cold call?  He seemed like a very capable professional but we just had more questions today.

Am I nuts to think this way?  We have confidence in this hospital and that the staff can do the job but want to make sure we get to the end on the right path rather than just sprinting to the finish line.  While I don't have any false expectations that we are going to be the one in a million, it is the right thing to exhaust all options first isn't it? 

I totally get the overload part, think we reached critical overload yesterday afternoon and needed to take a breath and just love on the dog.  The sun still rose this morning and Sierra still climbed in my lap this morning to say 'feed me already, will ya'.