Our gorgeous girl Lilly became a tripawd 4 weeks ago and I just wanted to share her journey. Apologies in advance for the long post!

I have been lurking around this site since we learned the news she was going to loose her leg as a source of information but more importantly strength. I would like to thank each and every one of you who contributes to this wonderful community, it has been invaluable in helping me get through the really tough times which are hopefully reducing each day. 

Lilly is our very beautiful 11 and a half year old greyhound. 4 weeks ago today Lilly slipped on the kitchen floor (all 4 legs went in opposite directions) and fell over. She cried out in pain and I knew something was seriously wrong. This was the start of one of the worst days of my life.

Once we got Lilly to the vets we received the initial news from one of the junior vets that she'd broken her thigh bone but it was a straight brake and could therefore be fixed. We were told to collect Lilly at a certain time and take her to a referral centre for the repair. Not more than 5 minutes later the head vet at our practice phoned us to say they needed to do some further x-rays so we should wait until we hear back from them before we collected her. At that time I thought nothing of it.

The head vet phoned back some time later and informed us they thought Lilly's x-rays showed signs of bone cancer and the repair was therefore not an option so we were then given the option of amputation or putting Lilly to sleep. We really value the opinion of our vet who was not at work that day which I was really upset about. The head vet (who happens to be the husband of our normal vet) rang our normal vet to get her opinion regarding amputation. Both our normal vet and the head vet felt Lilly would cope well with amputation so in the space of about 5 minutes the decision was made to have Lilly's leg amputated. 

We collected Lilly from our vets and drove her to the referral centre for the amputation. Once we arrived at the referral centre, my husband carried Lilly through to the operating table before we saw the vet to go through things and sign all the paperwork. As we had no knowledge regarding bone cancer we did not know that she'd need another x-ray to check her lungs were clear. This was a real blow, after thinking we were going to loose her at least twice that morning to a glimmer of hope, we were right back to the possibility that we might loose her again. 

We signed all the necessary paperwork and headed home with no idea whether the lung x-rays would be clear - we'd told the referral centre to ring us immediately if anything did show up on the x-rays. 

After about 3 hours we'd not heard anything from the referral centre so assumed Lilly's lungs were ok and the operation was underway. We rang the referral centre for an update and were told Lilly was in theatre which at least put our mind at rest that her lungs were ok. We were asked to call back an hour later for an update. When we rang back Lilly was out of surgery and ok and told to ring back in the morning to arrange visiting or picking Lilly up.

We collected Lilly Thursday afternoon and started the road to recovery. 

As with a lot of people's experiences the first 2 weeks were really tough, Lilly didn't eat or poo for about a week but was drinking and weeing ok. 4 weeks down the line she is doing really really well, I am very very very proud of her. She is nearly back to doing everything she did on 4 legs and her sparkle is starting to come back, more so I think than before her amputation. The only things she can't do at the minute is go upstairs so we are having to carry her. It is still a bit tough for her when she is getting up but this is getting easier every day.

On reflection, we think her leg probably broke due to the cancer as her bone was in quite bad condition. She was starting to show some difficulty getting up before her amputation but we just thought it was down to age and/or arthritis but again on reflection this may have been due to pain.

Here is a picture of Lilly just a couple of weeks after her operation

Here she is yesterday having her first proper playing session

And finally here's one of her before she became a tripawd from a couple of years ago when we were camping

Lilly lives with our gorgeous boxer Buddy who has been a really good brother. I can't leave him out so here's a picture of him and Lilly together

We have been on a really journey these last few weeks and don't wish to repeat the 24/48 hours we had 4 weeks ago ever again but feel we are definitely on the way up and will hopefully be out and exploring the world again soon. 

Thank you again for all the support people give each other on this forum, it really helped me even though it was other people asking the questions 

Gemma and Lilly (and Buddy and Phil my hubby) x