Me again.  So for peace of mind, we brought Chuck to an oncologist earlier today, was at a pretty big place.   He felt from x-rays that the tumor was I think he termed it "productive" growth.  Something like that, where it wasn't destroying the bone enormously, which is why the dog can still use the leg.  In fact, the last couple days he's actually been running around a bit, which is weird.  Anyway, he said the liver numbers were some alkaline level, which he thought was caused by the tumor itself.  Also felt that he would be fine with 3 legs, better that it was a rear leg going, and was surprised at how lively the dog is right now as it is. He may be a bit overweight, but he's strong as an ox, and when a squirrel was sighted, before this tumor, quite fast.

So the next step were chest x-rays, which they did right there, without tranquilizing at all.  And to our surprise, they were deemed clear.  So now the next decision is to see whether to go forward with amputation and chemo.  Ballpark figure he gave was like 4-5K for surgery and 3K for chemo.  Said doing nothing or amputation only, on average they make it 4 or 5 months.  With chemo, average is one year.  Now outside those big time costs, our worry is still that we do all this and he doesn't last much longer after that.  But the dr. was very helpful and we have to decide by early next week what to do.  Thanks all.

Came through surgery fine, no complications.  Was on high dose of whatever pain killer they use Thurs and Fri.  This afternoon we went to see him.  Underside is pretty red, has lot of swelling, etc., looks like a lot of white blubber.  But he was acting pretty normal just winded and tired.  However, he hasn't gotten around very well at all.  They're using a sling on him, but he only goes a few feet before tiring.  So he's spending night 3 there still.  He ate a little bit more today.  I think he needs to have the meds come down more, and hopefully he'll be able to walk more.  We got a cheap stretch of rug for the distance of his bed (an actual baby mattress - used them for years) and the door.  Someone gave us a fold-out ramp.  Might bring him home tomorrow, not sure.  Really it depends on whether he can even stand up long enough to go to the bathroom.  I mean, we can help him up and maybe up the ramps over the stairs, whatever.  But if he can't stand to do #'s 1/2, don't know what we can do with him until he can.  I know many here have written that the first two weeks are rough, but I'd think he has to be able to stand and walk more than 10 feet so he can relieve himself.