Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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My post is to give you an update on my cat Harley. She was diagnosed with a cancerous leg tumor on her right back leg back in May 2020. It was suspected she got this from a vaccine injection site. She had amputation surgery in June 2020. Our oncologist did not recommend chemo as they saw no signs of spread. That was a happy day and we were so grateful we did not have to put her through those chemo treatments. She went through three months of nerve pain and strange walking backwards behavior. Medication helped her through it . At that time we felt completely hopeless. We got through it with much help from the people on this website. I can’t begin to tell you how much we appreciate other fur parents sharing their experiences with us to give us hope. Miraculously after those three months she was doing absolutely fantastic. We are now in December 2020 seven months after finding out she had cancer and six months from her amputation surgery and we have one happy healthy cat! This is as good as it’s going to get given her circumstances! We know we made the right decision to amputate as she is still with us!
I came back to this site to make sure that I updated everyone on our success story. At the time I found Tripawds one of the things that I noticed is that I couldn’t find anyone who came back to talk about their success story about our particular circumstance which is the purpose of my posting today.
My hope is that others will see this and know that there is hope.
YAY HARLEY! 
Rosalie I'm so hoppy you came back to tell us how she's doing. You're right, many times people don't update and we never know how things turned out. It's so pawesome of you to share this great news. Harley = HOPE! Absolutely!
So she's all good and no more backward walking? Was it the Gabapentin that helped? Anything else? That's a big topic around here as you know.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Thanks so much for coming back and giving us this GREAT update!! And without a doubt, this kind of follow up and detail def will help others as they navigate through recovery. Harley is a purrfect example of how good life can be on three and how important ot os to always have hope and stay pawsitive.
Ear scritches to Harley and a pat on the back for you! Good job!
Hugs
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
jerry said
YAY HARLEY!Rosalie I'm so hoppy you came back to tell us how she's doing. You're right, many times people don't update and we never know how things turned out. It's so pawesome of you to share this great news. Harley = HOPE! Absolutely!
So she's all good and no more backward walking? Was it the Gabapentin that helped? Anything else? That's a big topic around here as you know.
No more backwards walking! It lasted for three months. We understood this to be severe nerve pain that requires time to heal. Every cat is different and some get severe nerve pain causing this odd walking backwards behavior. When I reached out to several other fur parents at that time to find out how long this might last one had said her cat had this backwards walking for three months and the other six. This at least gave us, first of all, hope and some point of reference how long it might last. Before we knew this, we didn't know if it was going to last forever or there was hope there was a point it would go away. Reaching out to these two people was the greatest thing we could have done. During the three months, we gave her Gabapentin and as the episodes became less frequent we began reducing her dose and then completely got her off it.
Most of all, Harley got lots of LOVE, HUGS and KISSES 
!
Thank you so much for sharing the details! Talking to others is everything during amputation recovery, isn't it? I'm so glad you were able to find hope through the Tripawds community.
I've added Harley's story to our "How to Help Amputee Cats Walking Backwards" blog post, so now Harley can give hope to others too! 
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
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