Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
Tripawds is your home to learn how to care for a three legged dog or cat, with answers about dog leg amputation, and cat amputation recovery from many years of member experiences.
Join The Tripawds Community
Learn how to help three legged dogs and cats in the forums below. Browse and search as a guest or register for free and get full member benefits:
Instant post approval.
Private messages to members.
Subscribe to favorite topics.
Live Chat and much more!
Register
Log In
Members
Add Topic
Offline
Harley was officially diagnosed with cancer this past June. He was on chlorambucil for two months this summer July & august) and had surgery to debulk his tumor Sept. 26. His platelet count late June was about 200,000, then about 106,000 in Sept. and Monday they were down to 42,000. He was supposed to begin a new metronomic protocol of cytoxan and piroxicam but that won't happen now. His oncologist is baffled because he is actually more perky since his surgery. I'm going to take him to his regular vet for a recheck but this is just so disheartening. He has an excellent appetite, is running, happy -- really shows no signs of anything. Any ideas??
Harley is an 8 year old Golden Retriever. Amp surgery for an infiltrative lipoma canceled due to two masses in chest. A rescue, he found his forever home on 3/18/07 and left for his eternal home on 1/09/13. His story and medical history are at http://myharley.....pawds.com/
It sounds like he has been off of the chlorambucil since August. Has he had any chemo injections? If not then it is odd for the platelet count to keep dropping that long after his last chemo dose. Any exposure to ticks this summer? Erlichia and other diseases spread by ticks can often lead to low platelet counts. The other possibility is an autoimmune disease causing platelet destruction which can cause platelets to drop very quickly. Sometimes splenic tumors (specifically hemangiosarcoma) can cause bleeding or platelet consumption.
Pam
Thanks Pam. I took him in this morning to repeat the platelet count. I've never found a tick on him so that pretty much would eliminate that. And on chemo, his last chlorambucil capsule was a week before the surgery so actually that would have been about mid-Sept and he never had any IV chemo. Hemangio of the spleen is what I am most concerned about. He did have two small spots on his spleen when they did the ultrasound in June but the oncologist was not concerned about these feeling they were probably age-related and the lung tumors took center stage. I know how fast hemangio sneaks up since my first golden died from this, but he was more lethargic and Harley has absolutely no symptoms of anything right now. In fact since he had the tumor on his leg debulked again, he is really doing well. I'm just going to try to keep the running to a minimum until I hear back from the oncologist next week.
Harley is an 8 year old Golden Retriever. Amp surgery for an infiltrative lipoma canceled due to two masses in chest. A rescue, he found his forever home on 3/18/07 and left for his eternal home on 1/09/13. His story and medical history are at http://myharley.....pawds.com/
1 Guest(s)
