Tripawds Three Legged Dog & Cat Forum Archives

Hi, all -

New here.  My pooch is an approximately 7 yo (rescued, so exact age is a mystery) Vizsla.  He had had waxing/waning lameness on his right forelimb for a few weeks, and one day, I noticed that his leg appeared slightly thick above his carpus in the area of his radius.  I knew what it probably was before we even went for a radiograph, and I got him in for surgery the same week.  Sure enough, mid-grade osteosarcoma, lym node clean.  He walked out of the hospital 24 hours after surgery (they sent him home early because he stood up so quickly and seemed more stressed in the hospital).  The first week after his surgery was pretty stressful, which seems quite typical - he was painful and just seemed a bit weirded out about the whole situation.  In particular, it took a while for him to figure out that lifting a hind leg to pee wasn't a brilliant idea. He began Carboplatin 13 days after his surgery.  We had to delay his third treatment because his white blood cells don't quite bounce back enough for treatment every three weeks, and then we were out of town for an extra week - he had his third last week.  His lung scans were clear before surgery, and he had radiographs on 22 Dec that were also clean...but argh, whenever he coughs I get worred. 

He is doing fantastically well.  His primary focus in life before this was catching frisbees (he loves to jump for them, so we assumed he had strained something when he first started a light limp, then seemed to recover), and he can still catch them! 

Just wanted to say hi and thanks so much to all of you for your stories.  They have helped me, even if I haven't been posting.