I have another question for you guys:  yesterday Jack was up and moving quite a bit and even walked up the stairs.  Well, last night he woke up screaming and took about 30 seconds for us to calm him down.  This morning he was panting and shaking, so I took him into the vet a day before our scheduled appointment.  The doctor found a lot of bruising in his abdomen and did a blood test to rule out platelette or clotting issues.  His blood is perfect.  What she thinks happened is that small vessels burst due to his activity level yesterday, and because of his compression wrap around his wound, the blood had no where to go except his abdomen.  No where else is bruised and besides the fact that well…he's missing a leg, he is perfectly healthy.  Has anyone else had this problem?  If so, how long did the bruising take to clear? 

P.S.  He's staying the night at the vet so they can make sure the bruising doesn't spread and so that he is forced to stay sedentary in his cage.

Haven't been on the site for a week but wanted to address this issue.  Brody is now two weeks and two days past amputation.  He is a greyhound.  Instead of coming home the second day, he had some bruising to his groin area.  They were taking his blood and clotting every four hours trying to decide whether to give him a transfusion.  The next day, his groin was solid red, the day after his whole stomach was red and blood was oozing out of his skin.  It seems that in a third of greyhound amputations, the dogs react negatively to the meds and develope vasculitis.  Brody's condition became guarded, but luckily he had a vet who knew what vasulitis was and started transfusions, first the platelets and then the blood.  They did this twice ($1,000 per transfusion).  Brody immediately responded and was able to come home six days after surgery.  However, he had some bad nights–screaming, etc.

Well, we knew that the first two weeks were bad.  But on day 12, he actually got up and wagged his tail when it was time to go out.  I stopped the pain medication as I figured that it was making him constipated, hence the screaming.  I gave him vegetables and mineral oil and that cleared him up.  He has been walking more and that helps too.  Unfortunately, I gave him too many raw carrots last night and he had to go out a couple of times. 

I do have to say that there were moments that I felt horrible for having done this to Brody (especially after two really hard surgeries to the now amputated leg last year).  If it hadn't been for the chat room one Sat. night, I would have felt worse.  Now Brody is pretty much back to normal except that he doesn't walk for 45 minutes.  We walk slow for about 20 minutes.  But he still loves to sniff and today he actually wanted to go outside and lay in the sun (never wanted to do this before), so he is enjoying his life in a new way.

We were referred to an oncologist on Friday so will start chemo soon.  A whole new chapter.  But we are happy for every day we have with our Brody. 

The bruising in caused from bleeding capillaries.  Just make sure that it doesn't get worse; if in doubt, call your vet and good luck.

Pat

Thanks for the info!  I just talked to the doctor, and Jack's bruising has not spread or worsened, which is a good thing.  However, she did say that when they were checking him out last night he did that scream a couple times, but then was fine.  Because he only does it when he is in a certain position, the doctor is pretty sure he pulled or separated a muscle under his incision.  I asked her about vasculitis and sepsis and both are ruled out at this time, but she has started him on anti-biotics so that both are less likely to develop.  Although we would be allowed to take him home today, I opted to keep him at the hospital one more night just to make sure nothing more serious arises.  We also have a 7-month old german shephard/sheltie puppy who likes to jump on things, and jumping on a much smaller, three-legged, muscle-pained dog is probably not going to be very helpful.  Thanks again :)

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Captain Jack, the day after surgery

Good News!  We received the pathology results today on a lymph node removed from Jack's shoulder during surgery, and it came back negative for any cancer cells!  We will have to wait a couple more days for the results from the actual tumor, but we are hopeful that the cancer was contained in his leg and has not spread (his lungs and chest were also clear on the pre-surgery x-ray).  Our regular vet told us the most common type of cancer is osteosarcoma, and for 2 days we were pretty much distraught.  Our first ray of hope came when we went to the Oncologist who, when we mentioned osteosarcoma, informed us that his tumor was in the "wrong" bone and had partially spread to the bone next door.  We didn't want to get our hopes up, but the results we got today are certainly good news.  Waiting for results is the hardest part because I feel like I should be doing something, but can't.  We took Jack home today from his hospital stay due to broken vessels due to activity and phantom pain, and he is content sleeping in his little bed.  Only a couple more days left until we can decide on further treatments, and I can't wait to get that started!!!