I've been reading through some of the content and posts on this site and I wish I'd found it a week ago. I thought I'd add a post here to say hi.

I found my Polly dog on my company's mailing list about 9 years ago. A family had found her alone at their doorstep but couldn't keep her (they had a full house of rescues already). They called her Polly because "doesn't she just look like a Polly?" (She does.) She grew up to be a pretty, big 65-lb dog with a cat-like personality. She lounges in my office while I work, we take our breaks outside together, she helps me garden on weekends by nibbling on my plants, and are pretty much never apart.

She's had a few health issues over the years, really bad allergies and ACL tears in both her knees, but this one takes the cake. She started limping and our vet initially thought it was a soft tissue injury. When it didn't go away they did blood tests and took xrays and still couldn't spot the problem. We had an appointment with an orthopedist there, but the appointment got pushed back due to bad weather. That was about a week ago. Last Friday ago I was helping her down the stairs and I touched her leg and she yelped. I had a terrible feeling, took the day off work, and called around until I found a vet with a resident orthopedist who was able to see her that day. They took more xrays and told us they're 95% sure it's bone cancer. I didn't expect to hear that and it hit me hard.

I don't blame our regular vet for not catching it right away, they really covered everything they should have and it was just bad luck. The first xrays were blurry right where they needed to be sharp, and the orthopedist pointed out how much worse it'd gotten in just a week. Polly had a small fracture where the bone was thin too. After the vets there answered a lot of questions, we decided to amputate her left front leg to manage her pain. That happened on Tuesday (Oct 15) and we brought her home Wednesday. It sounds like we should know the biopsy results in a week or maybe a little longer and I guess the next steps depend on what they find there. Her lungs looked clear on the xrays and they didn't find any lumps in her abdomen with the ultrasound so I'm cautiously hopeful.

Right now it's just hard seeing my friend in pain. She's on gabapentin, rimadyl, and cephalexin. She also had IV antibiotics after the surgery. She has tramadol and an anti-anxiety drug we can give her if we feel like she needs them. The tramadol makes her hallucinate I think and I am almost reluctant to use it.

I think she's just at that point where the nerve blocker she had during the surgery is wearing off. She woke up making a terrible screaming noise last night, and shivered and panted for a few minutes after that. It was so scary and I wasn't sure how to comfort her so I just told her what a brave girl she is and petted her until she seemed to feel better. I think some of you have mentioned rearranging when to give each of the pain meds so that they have more overlap, so I'm going to try that today. Reading everybody's stories has been so helpful, it sounds like a lot of dogs start feeling better steadily after a kind of slump like this after surgery. As heartbreaking as it is to hear about other puppies hurting, it's showing me that this is maybe normal for the circumstances and not something that's going to last forever.

One thing Polly's surgeon did that I don't see a lot of people mentioning was that she used a bandage over the wound. She said she finds that the compression helps minimize swelling and provides a bit of padding if she wants to lay on that side. Polly doesn't seem to mind it. The vet techs added some little heart shapes on it (they were so good to her!!). We are going back for a bandage change/checkup on Monday, and then they will likely remove the bandages a week after that.

I am hoping that she can rest comfortably and sleep as much as she needs. I am also hoping she can do a big ol poop today. This post is much longer than I thought it was going to be, so I'll leave it on the poop note. Nice to meet you all!