Hi,  My name is Helenmarie and I just wanted to say that I am sooo grateful to have found this site.  We have a wonderfully sweet natured yellow lab, Dylan.  He is 7 1/2 yrs old. He is a big lab, weighs about 121 lbs.  We also have a border collie, Zoe, (same age)  In July we noticed that Dylan developed a limp and noticed a small bump on his left front leg.  At first we thought he may have slipped on the deck and in a couple of days he would be better.  Within a week the lump got bigger.  We took him to the vet for checkups and x-ray.  He was healthy except for the bump.  They sent us to a specialist orthopedic vet and had a biopsy done on this bump.  It kept getting bigger.  Results came back - it was cancer.

We were absolutely devestated and lost.  Our wonderful vet, who I think may be one of the best on the east coast, said that  we should amputate as it kept growing.  It was myaxosarcoma.  He said it would not spread but the lump would continue to grow. And grow it did- it became the size of an apple, and other lumps were growing around it.  We could see it was getting much worse and more painful. 

We were so worried about the amputation due to his age and weight.  He also was always a couch potato.  So I could not imagine him getting up and around after this.  After finding tripawds.com and reading all the stories we were much more confident about having this done.  He had his surgery 2 days ago.  Brought him home yesterday.  It was tough as we have several stairs and he was in pain due to surgery.  Finally got him in and settled.  He ate his dinner like crazy and had plenty of water.  Getting him up to go outside to pee is difficult right now as he is hurting and medicated but from reading all the stories here I know things will get better.

Thank you again for being here and I will keep updating Dylan's progress.  I want to help others with this very difficult descision as I was helped from others.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!