Rox’s Story!

 So yesterday was the 1 month ampuversary for Rox! What a little ride it has been, so I wanted to share her story. Over the past few months I’ve thought back on dates, and tried to remember the different notions and things that happened along the way. Rox’s story begins on the 29^th of May.

Rox, my 10 year old Golden, and our 6 year old Corgi Spencer both stay in the back of the house when we aren’t home. We separate the two dogs into spacious areas in the bathroom and bedroom. This is mainly because Spencer is a handful, and we like to keep Rox with him for company. They still stay separated by a gate though, as Spencer LOVES pulling out Rox’s hair. She doesn’t play with him as much as he likes, so he tries to bug her into play mode by tugging on her butt fur. /sigh

This was the start of a few events that led to us learning of Rox’s disease, and her eventual required treatment. That evening when I got home, in the middle of our bedroom lay the mini staircase we had bought for Spencer to climb into ur bed. It was turned on its side, and there was a tear in our bed sheets. Rox looked pretty proud of herself, sitting happily in our bed. It was clear however, when she attempted to stand that she had bumped her shoulder during the fall with the mini staircase. At this point I’d like to mention this is exactly why these staircases require supervision. I should not have been lazy and left it along the side of the bed as I did while we were at work. She’d probably used it many times before, but it only takes 1 time for an accident.

I figured that night she had just hurt herself a bit with the fall, and we went along our business as usual. Rox has a tendency to lick her feet, so having a slight limp isn’t anything new to her. She was clearly bearing weight on the limb, so I wasn’t concerned it had been broken or dislocated. I figured, “She’s old, she probably just got a little bruise, she’ll be fine”. This is typically so out of my realm of normalcy, since I am worry wart about my dogs. But that is what happened, my second mistake.

The next day she was still limping, and I recall being invited to a movie and declining so I could stay with her. I scheduled an appointment with our vet for that Saturday morning. However, I got a call that morning, they weren’t able to get her in, so it was cancelled. Since this didn’t seem like an emergency, I didn’t want to take her to the Pet Hospital, a limp in my eyes didn’t mean anything life threatening.

At this time we were using the Banfield veterinary practice, at Petsmart. We had moved to a new location in Houston this last year, much further away from our old reliable veterinarian. While he had given me a referral, I had opted for Banfield as at the time it was more convenient. While they worked for the small things like annual checkups and vaccinations (free vet visits, etc), it was hard to get an appointment anytime in the near future when my dog really needed to be seen. I figured with a nearly weeklong wait, she would probably recover by then, so I didn’t schedule the appointment.

It went like this for 3 weeks. Rox’s limp would get much better and then worse, so I’d call for an appointment, and she wouldn’t have been able to be seen for several days. I had considered taking her to my normal vet, as a dropoff, but it was difficult to do with my schedule, so I bypassed that idea for a while. However, Rox’s obvious discomfort got to the point where finally I called every Banfield in town, just to get a drop off appointment for her to be seen. I had no idea really what it could be though.

I took her to Banfield on the 17^th of June, and even now I regret not trusting my first instinct back when it first happened to take her right in, regardless of if she had an appointment or not. Looming vet bills really deterred me I must admit, as only 6 months previous we had spent nearly 1500 dollars to have a hematoma removed from one of her ears. I can’t believe I let money keep me from giving my dog proper medical attention when she really needed it, but now I know, and the damage has been done.

The day she finally went to the vet, I spent the entire day festering in my own fears, only to learn that the reason for Rox’s limp was a mass in her shoulder, an Osteosarcoma. I didn’t know what this was, I just remember feeling ‘OK’ about it, Osteosarcoma didn’t sound too bad. When I asked what a Sarcoma was over the phone, and the vet described it as Cancer. I thought, ‘Golden’s get cancer all the time, this is normal, she’ll be fine’. It was weird how calm I felt, but after that phone call, I did the first thing I always do, I looked it up online. Osteosarcoma in dogs: Prognosis = Poor.

I cried nearly the entire way to pick her up, leaving immediately from work once I did a bit of reading about the disease. I took her in for a limp, how could it have been cancer? I was just amazed, and the more I learned the worse I felt. When I picked her up that day, she couldn’t walk out of the vet. She was in too much pain, but otherwise she seemed happy. She was just such a trooper, always with a carefree expression and a wag in her tail. I just couldn’t believe that something so terrible happened to her, and even then I didn’t know the scope of the problem.

The Banfield veterinarian, who I had never met before, explained that this was a pretty serious situation, and that she would need to see an Oncologist right away. He seemed slightly sympathetic to me, but really didn’t do a very good job of explaining the situation, the treatment or the prognosis. I knew it was “poor”, but what even did that mean? I got the impression from him that Rox was brought in to the vet with only days to live, and that there was nothing to be done. It was pretty terrible at the time, and I felt like the floor had been swept out from under me. And the entire time Rox at my feet perfectly happy to know she’d be headed home soon. Little did she know, she was going to be spending a lot of time at the vet.

I wanted a second opinion, but mainly I wanted real reassurances from someone who know my dog. That was when we started seeing Dr Wiltshire again, Rox’s 5 year veterinarian on the other side of Houston. We’d spend plenty of time at their office over the next few months as we went through this ordeal.

I saw Dr Wiltshire that following Saturday morning, and he explained that she would most likely need an amputation, but reassured me that she could handle it much better than I could have ever expected. He said that with the amputation, and removal of the mass in her upper shoulder, this would remove the pain and she would continue to live a normal life. She would need to have the entire arm, and shoulder blade removed, and would most likely require chemotherapy as well. He would not be able to do the Chemotherapy, and suggested if I wanted to really know her chances of surviving the cancer, I would need to see a specialist, which we did. However, getting into the oncologist proved more difficult than expected, and I ended up finally getting a referral and appointment for Wednesday of the following week.

Seeing the Oncologist answered my basic questions about what to expect from her condition, but didn’t really tell me anything new as to Rox’s chances. He told me the numbers; with full treatment she’d have a 60% chance of making it 9 months to a year. Even now I’m still not prepared, and I hope that Rox is in that 10% that lives much longer, but I guess that is to be seen. After that appointment, my Veterinarian scheduled her for surgery as early as he could, which was the 10^th of July. Sadly, as much as I wanted to do it sooner, I could not afford the procedure right away anyways. I hated the prolonged term that Rox has had to deal with the pain, but we made sure she had plenty of medications.

I found the Tripawds site, and made a little fundraiser to help get some help with Rox’s upcoming bills. In the end it was a blessing we raised money because on the 10^th of July, Rox went into surgery and things didn’t quite go according to the plan.

The day before she was to come home, that Monday, Rox’s incision began to bleed. For the first day Dr. Wiltshire attempted to stop the bleed with compression bandages, and started running some additional tests to see if she was having any problems clotting. On the third day of bleeding, without hearing the results of the coagulation panel, he decided it would be best to go ahead and attempt to stop the bleeding from the inside. Rox went back under the knife, after her second blood transfusion (she is now part Boxer and German Shepard), and now has a second scar to accompany her larger main scar. However, he found the bleeding site, and stopped it. Several days and many tears later we found that her platelet levels were normal, and all was fine with her blood. She had some stubborn bleeding vessels in a group around a large artery, that just didn’t want to clot. Once they were closed, she healed up at a good rate.

During the first few days of her stay, I didn’t want to go see her, as I knew she wouldn’t be coming home right away. When things turned sour, I got some advice from Tripawds on how difficult it would be for her, to see someone familiar only for an hour or so a day, until she got to come home. With those responses I decided it would be worth the slight upset she might feel when I needed to leave. Seeing her helped me a great deal during this time, and I hope it also helped her. During this time Spencer was a good companion for me, as I missed Rox dearly, and he did as well. He would wait at the door all evening, as he did when he waited for someone to come home. He knew she would be back and would sniff me like crazy when I’d come home from a visit with his big sis.

She finally came home that following Friday, a full week after her original surgery. It was difficult getting her motivated to get up and about, so we bought her many different products for her feet. That helped her gain courage and strength to get up. When she would make it outside, she would just bound around the back or front yard. She wanted to explore, but didn’t really have the stamina required, so she would take frequent breaks. Spencer was incredibly patient with her, and even now he still is. I am amazed at his ability to empathize with her, if that is what you’d call it. Whatever it was, he knew she needed space, so he gave it to her.

Since then, once her zombie stage wore off from the Tramadol, she has settled back into her comfortable happy self. Her staples are out, and her incision looks great. Now I must say that she seems even happier than before, seeming completely brilliant when she smiles. Her hop is getting more coordinated, and she had returned to her routines of napping and playing. Just this past Friday she started her first Chemo session, which seemed to go well. She was a bit tired when she got home, but after that seemed fine all weekend. We congratulated her yesterday on her ampuversary with new squeak toys and a fun new Diet Kibble, Yay!

I am so happy to see how well she had taken to her new life, and it doesn’t seem to stop her at all anymore. I worry every day about her, but I am happy to see she is comfortable again. So I’ll wrap it up here, and give updates as they come along.

Thank you to everyone for the continued support.

Lots of love from Rox and Aimee