About 8 weeks ago now, our 7-year-old Boxer, Levi, came up lame during a walk. Was still lame the next day, so we took him in for x-rays. Showed some arthritis in both knees, hip dysplasia in one hip, but then the doc said "I'm afraid that's not Levi's biggest problem," and our hearts sunk.

The doc showed us a lesion on his lower left rear leg that he said looked like bone cancer. We weren't ready to amputate without knowing more, so we went to another doc (internist), who basically said the same thing. They took a bone biopsy at this second appointment, and we began the long wait for biopsy results.

It was during this time that I found Dr. Dressler and started reading his wonderful book.

Then the results came back - no cancer found on the biopsy. So, yay? Still, the mystery of the lesion remained. We took more x-rays to look for progression of the lesion over 4 weeks' time. There was some, but not "dramatic" progress. X-Rays were sent to a certified radiologist to read, for another set of eyes. He said it could possibly be a malignant tumor and that there may be a primary tumor elsewhere (apparently sometimes bladder cancer metastasizes to the bone).

So, Levi had an abdominal ultrasound. Again - completely clean.

My wife and I were near stretched to our limit by this point by the constant string of non-answers. I contacted a friend of mine from college who had graduated from UPenn Vet and is now a surgeon in Puerto Rico (she also has Boxers). She called me after reviewing his case and x-rays and said that, if it were her dog, she would amputate the leg. While this obviously wasn't the answer I had hoped for, I appreciate her honesty, and we've scheduled the amputation for a week from tomorrow.


Once the leg is off, they will be able to get a better sample to biopsy (why the first one may have been non-representative, I don't know; just bad luck I suppose, if that ends up being the case) and hopefully diagnose the tumor so we can plan our next steps.
My friend explained that the lesion had progressed into the neighboring bone between sets of x-rays, and that with every day the chances of a pathologic fracture increase. As she was telling me this, Levi was running around the backyard like a nutcase, and I was envisioning him experiencing such a fracture. If we can spare him the pain of that, I think we definitely should.

It just sucks because he's pretty much fine. He has never been nearly as lame as he was that first day 8 weeks ago, and while he favors his leg a bit, I'd say he's at about 80-90% of normal.

I have also read (and my vet friend confirmed that this happens in some cases) that once the primary tumor is removed, any micrometastases that are present (his chest x-rays were clear, for now) can experience a growth spurt. So, while we will take away the chances of a painful pathologic fracture, we may also shorten his life due to the metastatic disease at the same time (especially without subsequent chemotherapy).

It's an extremely hard decision to go ahead and amputate, but I just can't see re-biopsying, waiting another 2-3 weeks for results, and perhaps being in the same boat a month from now as we are right now - with a dog that has an unidentified scary lesion on his bone that could lead to a break at any time. We are beyond frustrated, and none of our options seem like "good" options.

The surgery is in 8 days, and my wife and I are terrified.

Here's Levi: https://instagr.....M4Vu-HMCL/