I have already emailed the surgeon the other day, as he has been trying to use his back left leg to scratch (or it just makes the “tickle” motion) when I pet him and lightly massage the areas around his incision. (This was the direction of the discharge papers, starting at day 4 to switch from ice and use heat and light massage for 10 mins 3x a day) 

I would say that he isn’t as pushy as he was pre-surgery. He would get right in your face and just lay there and stare/pant at you. 

We have him on codeine every 6 hours, and gabapentin x3 every 12 hours. They said we should do gabx2 every 8 hours, but if we did that, then we would be giving him meds at: 11pm, 2am,  7am, 8am, 2pm, 3pm, 8pm, and again at 11pm etc. and trying to get sleep in there is a bit difficult! 

Though if he doesn’t start eating tonight, I will probably try that schedule, and just make hubby do the late nights... 🤣

I’m a teacher, and online school starts back up on Monday, so I will be on Zoom for almost 8 hours straight... not fun on less than 5 hours of sleep! 

School started back up on Monday (I’m a teacher, if I didn’t say that already) so I’ve been away from the site, but our boy is doing excellent! 

Last weekend he was waking us up at midnight and 2am for meds, but we spaced out his codeine until it ran out on Sunday.

By Monday he was waking us up at 4am because he was lonely. 🤣

By Tuesday he was refusing to go in his crate when we’d leave the house, and we’d come back to him on his favorite “perch” laying just high enough on the stairs to look out the front door window at the bunnies and squirrels. 

By Wednesday he was coming upstairs to the bedroom (and my “classroom” which is upstairs as well) and refusing any help down the stairs. He’s slow and careful, but determined to get back to his old routine. 

He would ring his bells to go outside, but when we put his leash on, he’d just stare at us and refuse to go outside... unless we took the leash off... and he would trot out and do his business... so we gave up. (It’s been so rainy and muddy here in Seattle, it’s almost a relief not to walk out into our soggy yard with him!)

We are still not letting him go on walks with us, which he pouts and cries about, but forgives us once we give him a treat and a belly rub. 

Hubby talked with the oncologist, they got the results back from his tumor, (and 2 lymph nodes they removed with his leg) and the type of bone cancer that he has is slower spreading and creates more dense tumors, which they reason is why he was able to keep the use of his leg for so much longer.

One of his removed lymph nodes had the cancer, so along with the Vaccine, we are going to do a round of chemotherapy. When we add up the cost of it, and subtract all of the other medications we aren’t going to be giving him anymore, it’s about the same cost-wise.

He gets his first round of chemo and the vaccine when he goes to get his stitches removed next week! Incision looks great, even the fluid and swelling has gone down considerably. 

I will have to dive back into your books and advice to figure out how best to get him back into “walking” and “dog park” shape... but glad to have my sweet wagging happy boy back. ❤️

I did some research, and all of the rehab places in the area aren’t allowing people to accompany their dogs into the clinic... that means I wouldn’t be there to take pictures or videos (which I would want to do to help me do the exercises at home anyways). Looks like I might have to wait to have that initial consultation reimbursement.

I thought I would update you while I’m still processing the news. 

It’s been a few awesome months with Max since his surgery. Dog parks, mud wallowing, hunting, marking every bush, being his normal sassy self, just with 3 legs....and a large lump on his chest that we assumed was just fluid and extra skin from his surgery and that it would eventually go away. 

We had the vets culture it last month, and it came back as benign and just fluid. So we didn’t think much about it until I noticed that it was oozing the other day, and that the incision area had gotten more firm and bumpy, and was really itchy for him. REALLY itchy. Poor pup would fall over any time I itched or rubbed it. 

I made an appointment with our cancer center again, and they tested it again yesterday. I was feeling hopeful that it was just an allergy to his internal sutures based on a picture from this website. 

Unfortunately, our news was not as positive. The culture came back as positive for cancer cells. 

The vet thinks that when they found and removed the lymph node they was cancerous, that it had already spread through the rest of his lymphatic system. His incision etc. is just full of spreading cancer, and it’s just too big to remove and stitch the skin back together. 

We are pursuing a different Chemo medication and looking into radiation treatment, but we have no idea how expensive that will be, and what it will do to our poor happy boy.  

I wish we had amputated sooner... but I’m trying not to dwell on the past and just spoil the heck out of our boy as much as possible. 

Our other dog (a golden retriever) also has an upper respiratory infection, so we are worried about Max getting it... but we can’t even contain his floof, so a germ/virus/bacteria seems like an impossible task. 

The Hart Family is feeling a bit down in the dumps today. 😭