Hi! I've been following tripawds.com since my wonderful dog amputated her leg in August! We are from Porto Alegre, a 1.5 million people city, capital of Brazil's most southern state.

I've rescued Madalena when I was in high school and she was a 5-month puppy, in 2010 (her teeth are black and weird because she probably had canine distemper before we found her, we still don't know how she recovered). We've been inseparable ever since, and a year later adopted Dolores from the shelter I work in. Left to right, Dolores and Madalena in 2012: 

We had a "foster-forever" that came to live with us in 2014, his name was Bronca (something like scold/rant in english), a grumpy (and cheese maniac) 15+ old senior. He was blind, deaf, had heart-disease, tumors, and maaaany other health (age and abandonment related) problems. He died April this year. This is everybody: 

First semester this year, me and my mom noticed a lump in her right armpit, but it wasn't big so we did not worry. Couple of months later and she was limping and the lump had gotten bigger. We took her to our vet, did a biopsy and it came back with neurofibrosarcoma cells. 5 days later, on August 6, she was having her amputation. The vet told us that chemo wouldn't do anything for a tumor that big, so we did the surgery and waited. 

My mom was terrified, but I knew it was for the best and wasn't surprised to hear that 12 hours after the surgery, still in the hospital, she was jumping up and down the stairs. She was always an active dog, but she turned it out like nothing had happened! This is me and her still at the hospital, 24 hours post-surgery, the other is my mom hiding behind her (so I would not catch her crying): 

We came back home, she took her meds and started on supplements, Omegas and Diacerein. The vet told us not to worry, since neurofibrosarcoma does not tend to metastasize, and she had been living as always, but late September she started coughing blood. They found a tumor in her lungs and a mass in her spleen. We are still waiting for the results of the biopsy, but I already know that it will not be a primary tumor. The only thing that confuses me is how this sarcoma turned out to be metastatic. 

In the meantime, we take walks, we sleep a lot (my girlfriend complains that after the surgery she claims even more space on the bed haha), sunbathe...This is us on our terrace the other Sunday (pardon my pajamas): 

I have to say that is very difficult to find material resources to deal with everything and it makes me sad that many of the things I would love to have to make her life easier aren't available here. I usually buy baby clothes and adapt to cover her scar. I ordered a Ezy-Dog harness from a distributor in São Paulo and cannot find a way to order a (much needed) Ruffwear Harness, since no store ships to Brazil. I have ordered K9 Immunity Plus 15 days ago and it isn't even in the country yet, and time is running out...

But we are hopeful and waiting that the time we still have together is gonna be a-m-a-z-i-n-g!!!! Thank you for this community and the chance to see so many inspiring stories! :)))

Love,

Madalena and Augusta