Well, like many on here i'm sure i never thought i would ever be writing a post such as this. My beloved 5 yer old F2 puggle ronnie started limping around 3 weeks ago and struggled to shake it off. We attended the local vet here in Tottington (We live in Lancashire in the UK) Pennine Vets and they examined him and initially prescribed meloxicam 1.5mg once a day to see if it eases up.

It initially presented itself as a left sided limp on the front leg and after a week of no improvement we went back to the vet for x-rays. This is where i choke up... the results showed severe shadowing on the lower radius of the front right leg, the perceived left limp was a false positive as it was actually just him leaning more heavily on the left to take the strain off the right side. 

Initially i was presented with it being 1 of 2 things. Either the 'better case' of osteomyelitis or the worst case of osteosarcoma. The x rays where sent to a specialist who advised it was 90% chance of a sarcoma by looking at it so we where referred to what our vet describes as 'the gold standard' of care and oncology which is Liverpool small animal veterinary school on the Wirral. 

We set off on the 90 minute drive yesterday and i left ronnie with them around 11:30 and returned home and then went back to collect him around 18:30 (with traffic a good 7 hours in the car yesterday!) They sedated him for examination and carried out a myriad of tests. CT scan, bone aspiration (small needle sucking the cells from the tumor site) as well as bloods and lymph samples.

This is where it gets slightly more hopeful. Firstly the CT scan showed no sign of spread to the lungs or liver (yay!) just a mild touch of early onset arthritis in the rear legs and the blood tests where clear. We're still waiting on the lymph samples however the bone aspiration which was done by the head of oncology Dr Ricardo Finotello took 4 separate samples from the tumor and found no presence of cancerous cells? 

Now the feeling is that yes it is still bone cancer however who knows perhaps not as advanced as we feared? also potential however unlikely that it is Osteomyelitis still.

Presented with all the facts and based on my research i didn't hesitate in opting for amputation. While limb sparing and bone removal analysis options are there, my primary concern is Ronnie having the healthiest longest happy pain free life possible and we both agreed (the doctor and I, not Ronnie and I) that amputation seems inevitable so lets go for it and not waste time or put him through further unnecessary pain. 

Being only 5 years old and super active regardless of the limp we feel he has a good chance of some quality time ahead of him still. Honestly none of the vets can understand how he is still wagging his tail and running around wanting to play in spite of whats clearly a painful tumor for the last few weeks! 

He has been discharged with Gabapentin 300mg twice daily. paracetomol/codeine half a tablet twice daily and continuing the meloxicam, and we are due a call from the ortho ward on Monday to arrange the operation for around wednesday or thursday so I'm frantically now preparing myself and trying to arrange time off from work and the necessary equipment to make this as easy on him as i can. 

Thankfully we are insured through Petplan, which is bloody fantastic and while its by far the most expensive insurance provider it is worth it's weight in gold. heres the rundown so far. 

X-rays at our local vet this included GA, 1 day hospitalization and 6 x rays £657

CT scan, bloods, lymph and bones samples from SATH £1500

The estimate for the amputation is £2000-2500 

I have a £4000 limit on the policy that runs december to december so i'll definitely be shelling out some money but thank god i had this policy in place!

Now, how much i spend depends on the next part... post amputation the leg will be sent to be decalcified which will take around a week, from then they will know definitively what is the tumor and what the next step is. Assuming that it is bone cancer as we expect we are looking at 4-6 sessions of carboplatin chemotherapy. These range between £400-£450 a session every 3 weeks so another £1600-1800 out of my pocket over the next few months which is manageable.

And as of today, that's our story! I will update this thread a lot over the next 2 weeks as i feel it will be a good outlet for me to get my feelings and fears out there and hopefully receive some guidance as I'm terrified about what to expect for the week post surgery.

And without a doubt my biggest fear and question is around life expectancy. He is 5 years old and strong as an ox even still but i've heard even after all this life expectancy is around 6-12 months with around 20% of dogs making it 2 years. i just can't understand why it's still so short?

If you made it this far thank you so much for reading and please leave a comment or question.

My name is John and ronnie has an instagram here @ronniethepuggle

JB