Sweet and dearest Tripawdian family,

It's been eight months or so I haven't published here, life got on the way and lots happened which sadly prevented me from being here and helping others who are starting their own journey and fighting the fight ...

But despite of that I have a corner of my heart that is only yours, your true friendship, advice, love and support during my cancer journey with my beloved baby Eurydice is for ever engraved in my heart and nothing, nothing will ever change that.

I will be back here in the future maybe it will take a while but I'll be back. 

In the meantime I want to share something with you which hopefully will help the ones who are going through the initial stages of amputation with their babies.

For those of you who never met my girl, Eurydice was a huge 77kg Great Dane who lost her right front leg to osteosarcoma just before she turned 5. 

Going back to now, I had major surgery last July, not amputation but major surgery nevetheless.

I remember vividly (when Eurydice came home from her surgery) the surgeon mentioning how important it was to keep the pain under control and strictly sticking to the correct schedule for pills.

Of course I did it, but at the same time I had my personal worries concerning side effects etc and as it happens, I am generally against pumping chemicals into anybody's body.

So much so when Eurydice started acting crazy, spaced out, whining, jumping up all of a sudden, not recognising me at times I got seriously disturbed and as the surgeon told me these were side effects from the medicine.

That made me seriously consider reducing or stopping some of her pills, especially gabapentin.

Gladly, I held off and as expected she eventually recovered and got her happy, well humoured, goofy self back. 

But the doubt always stayed in the back of my mind. Was it really necessary to pump her with so many pills ? Was it really necessary to keep them for so long?

Well, I suppose Angel Eurydice proved to me this IS what needs to be done.

Just before my own surgery I was given a super powerful anaesthesia and nerve blocker on my neck which numbed my entire arm for a period of time.

As I am a real chicken for anything involving needles I declined and declined but the surgeon refused to perform surgery unless I had it done because "I wouldn't be able to deal with the pain" otherwise.

When I woke up I felt great, honestly!

What is this "painful recovery" about ? I feel like I can dance all over the place!

Well ... it became a different story when the effect wore out 12 h later ...

The pain was absolutely terrible and painkillers were not 100%...

I then remembered Eurydice's surgeon mentioning amputation was the only solution to eliminate 100% of the pain, no other alternative would do.

And we're not talking about bone cancer in my case so I cannot even begin to imagine how painful THAT would be...

So, there I was, relying on painkillers to fight the pain and, of course, being stubborn I thought I could start reducing those after the first couple of days.

Big mistake.

The pain started escalating and it took longer for it to be back under control.

Which reminded me again of Eurydice's surgeon advice "give her her pills right on time so the pain doesn't get out of control"! 

I am now on the mend doing rehab for the next six months and feeling fine.

But the point to the story is I now KNOW what it means to have proper pain control and pain control on time!

So, if your vets tell you your babies don't need pain medicine (as some idiotic vets still advise) or if your vets are reluctant to give strong pain killers or not enough of them please ask them to call me  I can brief them straight away!

Don't be fooled by vets CV's, experience etc advocate for your babies and get the medicine at hand and on time.

Recovery doesn't last forever, you've got lots and lots and lots of time to enjoy life with your babies once recovery is over so just make sure they are not in pain during the first couple of weeks (sometimes more, sometimes less) after surgery.

I wish you ALL the very best and will be in touch again in the future.

Teresa, Angel Eurydice and baby Paloma

ps Angel Eurydice has some surprises lined up. She, Pedro, Woody, me and Paloma have been busy working with her