Hi everyone,

I've been making my way around the blogs and in the forums and thought I would introduce myself and hopefully get some feedback to a question I haven't found a lot of answers for.

First, my baby is Vin, and she's about two.  We got her a little over a year ago from a shelter, rescued the poor thing out of those of those cages at Petsmart.  It's been a rough journey as she's had a hard time trusting us, a finicky eater, and a little bit mean.  The trust we built over the last year was severely tested when on Christmas Eve we saw her limping and found huge lump on her back right leg.  We rushed her to the ER vet who assured us she hadn't broken a bone or anything but that it was some kind of tumor.  A few days later she was at a local vet getting x-rays and we had the good news that it was soft tissue only and has not metastasized.  But it was large, clearly causing her pain, and had grown quickly, because we pet her all the time but hadn't felt it before.

A week later and she was back for a biopsy because the aspirate test was inconclusive.  I was at work but the way my husband tells it: two vets on staff that day looked at her and both agreed with us that it had grown further over that week, and given the way it was behaving it was almost definitely fibrosarcoma and that if we waited for the biopsy results to come back it could grow beyond what even amputation could do for her (it was pretty high on her thigh).  Having spent all the time I could researching fibrosarcoma I was sort of prepared for this and so her leg was amputated two days later.

We are currently one week into recovery and for the most part she is doing well.  She hasn't needed pain medication (was on Buprenex) for the past three days, has been able to lay on the stitched side, has accepted with some dirty looks wearing her cone, is eating well, using the litter box and getting around really well.  Our only problem is that a few times a day since coming off the pain meds she has jumped up in the air (often from sleeping) and started falling all over the place like she is jumping away from being pinched or shocked.  A couple times I have been really afraid she would hurt herself.  Most of the time when she does this she seems to be trying to use the leg that isn't there anymore and also seems to be jumping away from pain centered on that spot.  Afterwards she sometimes trembles and almost always comes to lay up against us and wanting pets and seeming weirded out.

Have any of you gone through this?  Did it fade as your baby healed?  Should I be sneaking a little bit of pain med (we have a tiny bit left over) into her food?  I'm dreading that she might have to live with this for the rest of her life.  

I did call the vet to let them know, and was told they would call back of the vet was concerned.  I haven't gotten a call back so...  Am definitely going to ask in a week when the stitches come out tho...

If you got this far, thanks for hearing me out, it's appreciated.