What a wonderful find this site was for me last night.  We are sitting at home waiting for the call from the vet on our 15 month old Newfoundland Molli.  Surgery to remove her badly damaged front right leg is going on as we speak. 

Ours is not a cancer story but one of a terrible, stupid accident but our outcome is the same.

At 15 weeks old Molli jumped from an open car window going 20+ mph.  The story of how she ended up in the car (not ours) is not really important, just stupid.  We spent several weeks going back and forth to a specialist to decide what to do for Mollis leg.  It had not broken, miraculously, but instead had badly damaged the tendons and ligaments in her 'wrist' and 'elbow'.  Because she was so young and her growth plates so soft we were in a bit of a sticky situation.  After a few weeks Molli had figured out how to use her leg by using her forearm and sort of swinging her foot forward to compensate for the lack of control in the wrist.  It was quite amazing.  She was happy and of course full of wild energy and always mischievous.  The specialist decided we needed to wait for her to be closer to full grown to see how the 'elbow' healed decide whether fusing her 'wrist' would be enough to fix her arm.

In the meantime she took anti-inflammatory and occasional pain meds.  She grew and grew and grew and her arm improved.  She wore a small spot on her upper pad from using her forearm to walk but that healed as her leg improved and she walked with the leg straighter.  In January we started to notice a small rub on her main pad from walking in her slightly odd way.  We tended to the wound, wrapped her foot before going out, applied gallons of medicines and ointments out the wazoo. To no avail the wound got larger and deeper then it got infected.  By June she was taking antibiotics every day and we were spending a great deal of time cleaning her foot. 

The good news also came that month that she did not need any orthopedic surgery.  The ligaments and tendons had healed enough that, although she had a hitch in her giddyup, she was able to manage just fine.  The wound however required surgery.  This brings us to the last 2 months of absolute misery.  The first surgery went well, the wound was cleaned and closed.  After two days there was a mild infection and her paw was really bothering her.  We attempted to sedate her and allow the incision site to dry and heal.  On the third night she chewed the collar off and took every single stitch out of her foot.  The second surgery was less successful, Molli had not left much for them to work with.  The infection persisted.  The third surgery was our last ditch effort.  It was all for naught.  The infection got worse, the wound opened a significant amount, she dislocated her toe then shattered it.  We planned to remove the toe and use the skin to deal with the wound on her paw.  Molli had other plans and right before her surgery her whole leg began to swell something awful.  Xrays showed nothing new, she had no fever but we knew something was very wrong.  The next morning the swelling was clearly life threatening.  An abscess had formed and on our way to the hospital opened up.  She has been in the hospital for 9 days, fought off a strep, staph and ecoli infection and is stable enough now to amputate her deteriorating  leg.

To say it has been a roller coaster would be a gross understatement.  To say we are broke would be too.  However when I stumbled onto this site last night and found the you tube videos people pointed to it was really a gift.  I have felt so guilty for my poor Molli having spent the first year of her life in medical limbo, not getting to be a puppy, not getting to enjoy her life the way she deserved that I needed to read these other stories.  Watching a large golden lab chase a frisbee at the speed of light made me cry with joy for the first time in months.

Stay tuned, I will update with progress reports and thanks so much for all your stories of courage and positive outcomes.  I needed it more than I knew.

Amy