Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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Mischief,
The way the Dr presented it anyway made it seem like the risk of fracture from the procedure itself is lower than risk of him doing something in his daily life to cause one. The only thing is we’re assuming the cementoplasty will help prevent fracture. The company claims it does but we don’t really know. 🙁
I think I had assumed if my worst nightmare came true and he had lung mets that the procedure would no longer even be an option. I hadn’t thought out the possibility that I would find he had lung mets and the Dr would still say he is a candidate for the procedure. I also hadn’t considered that he might have a micro fracture since he hasn’t had any running episodes or anything that caused me concern like those other times when he didn’t have one.
If he had the lung mets, but wasn’t hobbling more and I didn’t find there was a fracture, then I’m quite sure I would be leaving things alone. It’s just the fact that his walking has been how it was in that last video I sent every day since and now I can’t amputate so it’s try this or have to say goodbye to him sooner than the lung mets will factor in.
I'm so sorry you and your dear boy are going through this. He knows he's loved and that's the most important thing to him.
I'm really sorry about the news, that's a huge gut punch. There is so much to consider, but yes, get through tomorrow and take things step by step. After surgery, every day is bonus time.
Mets don't always behave as predicted, some dogs' quality of life lasts much longer than predicted. Honor has proven to be one very strong, stoic dog with all the characteristics to thrive despite the current diagnosis. I hope with all my heart he makes it through surgery and can go home with you to spend his days doing what he loves best.
If you want to talk please join us in the Tripawds Zoom call tonight, in just about 15 minutes.
Thanks so much Jerry. I really could have used that zoom call but am just now seeing this. One of my 13 yr old sons came with me to help (bet he is regretting that) and I needed to figure out how to order a pizza delivery …something that should have taken 15 minutes but took an hour. Then, I realized I only had dog food here for Honor and he’s gotten used to having grilled chicken or ground beef or turkey at home for dinner with a smaller amount of dry food. He had no interest in his dry food with canned on top so I ordered him a steak and potato from Outback. He was happy to eat that. I have to drop him off tomorrow for the procedure. Then he has to stay there overnight. That part also is stressing me.
Aww I get it, everything is so overwhelming. I'm so glad that he ate his special dinner, that's a terrific sign.
Please keep us posted on how tomorrow goes. We are sending all the love and pawsitivity in the world to you both.
Things are very bad right now. He was discharged yesterday but they put a splint on him and he is non weight bearing now 🙁. The Dr’s didn’t seem concerned and thought he would be ok in a couple days, but this is nothing remotely resembling the video of Colt after cementoplasty and I paid an amount for it that was very close to what I paid for stereotactic radiation. I figured it was well worth it if it improved his comfort but, right now, things are much worse.
He was able to hop on 3 legs out of there but they had given him an injectable pain med which wore off. It took me 2 1/2 hours to get him out of my SUV and in the house and he hasn’t moved for 16 hours since.
I was up all night trying to get him outside with no success and he finally went were he was laying at 4 am…a dog that has never had an accident in the house in his life which makes me feel terrible for him. If I hadn’t been awake, it would have soaked the splint and bandage which would have been an emergency requiring him to get somewhere for it to be changed. I had asked them to put a Help Em up harness on but they only put the front on and not the back. I can’t get the back on when he is laying down. Slid a cut shopping bag under him and tried that but he needs to be trying to get up too and he won’t or can’t. I feel like this is more what I would expect after amputation; not after something I tried to do in order to improve his pain level and walking from where it was. Looking at the bioceravet videos and literature, this is not what I anticipated. They shaved all the fur on his leg and shoulder and a large part of his back off so now the harness is chafing his skin. I’m so mad at myself for having done this. I can only hope things will turn around and I will feel a lot differently in a couple days but right now I wish I had just taken him home, enjoyed a last week or two spoiling him, then said goodbye before he had to go through anything else. I will be in sheer torment without him but I’m in torment right now too. Saying goodbye would have only left me suffering and not him along with me.
He has an appt at a local vet monday to get the splint off and an appt Tues with oncologist. I’m renting a minivan but still don’t see how I will get him in it. I’m not even trying any kind of chemo until I know he can even walk again. And, no, I won’t amputate if he can’t because he already has so many nodules in his lungs and we know his chemo wasn’t effective. I knew when we got that lung diagnosis that we weren’t going to have long. I just wanted his leg to hold out as long as his lungs so we could enjoy the remaining time together but I think I may have just shortened that considerably.
I'm sorry to hear that both you and Honor are struggling. I hope this is just a phase of recovery and he seems more like himself soon.
A friend of mine also had trouble with the help em up harness. It cut into her girl dog's inner thighs. My friend fashioned a fleece cover for that part of the straps. If sewing isn't your forte, depending on the width of the straps, either of these might make a good soft cover. Hopefully the links work - I've had mixed results with sharing from the Amazon app.
Fleece for a horse halter https://a.co/d/iQ4gJ2I
Fleece seat belt cover https://a.co/d/0nPlPzr
Thanks Mischief. I think my exhaustion level at this point is making me more negative and less rational. The Dr at UF was kind enough to get back to me on her own time and what she said was reassuring and made sense. I think it was not very realistic to think he would walk out of there doing great right away. They were doing quite a bit of digging around to remove the dead tumor and you actually have to insert this stuff through bone. Also, said his leg was at an odd angle for the long procedure. He is likely just very sore. She feels confident everything looked good on the xrays (and they did show me the micro fracture had even been filled in) and everything looked good. So, if this stuff works as it should, she gave him the best shot of it doing so. She thinks some of theravet dogs were up and mobile next day but others took longer. And, he just started hopping a little bit more and looked like he even was putting a little weight on leg while standing. She also mentioned the splint itself may be playing a role in his reluctance to put his leg down. That makes sense for him. He will get it taken off Monday. We rented a minivan and got sod to put on the patio so he won’t need to travel far to go to the bathroom if he will use it.
Eustacia,
I'm sorry this is so hard for you, I just want to give you a giant hug! Please trust in the vet team, they are among the best in the world and they have your back, and Honors.
Just try not to compare his recovery against Colt ... who is about 1/2 Honor's size, younger, and a very different situation. Honor is his own dog, on his own timeline, he's a special guy and his recovery is too.
Relax, breathe, and try to just take it easy this weekend. Recruit as much help as you can but don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed.
Keep us posted on how he's doing. We are sending lots of love to you.
Hey Eustacia,
I have been gone for a while, and just caught up on everything. I am so incredibly sorry with how stressful this has been. The feeling like you did more harm than good is so relatable it hurts my heart for you to feel that way. I'm also really thankful you were able to chat with the vet and get some positive feedback about why he might not be perfect walking out after the surgery. I'll admit, I would have had the same expectations based on the reading I've done on cementoplasty, so at the very least you are offering really valuable information to others who might be looking into this procedure.
I think it makes a lot of sense that the splint might be making him really apprehensive about standing up, You know how Great Pyrenees are- you don't make them do anything, you can only convince them occasionally, I know Ellie wouldn't walk when I tried to help her with the sling she'd just go dead weight whenever I brought it out from literally the first try, I could easily see Honor doing the same with the splint.
I'm also so sorry about the lung mets, that's just a slap in the face on top of everything. Jerry and Sally are so good at being positive and have the experience of seeing so many dogs have lots of quality time after the diagnosis, I wish I shared that enthusiasm, but will admit that when it comes on this fast and aggressive it's hard to find the good and it's simply so unfair. So I'm mad at the world for Honor's situation, he doesn't deserve it, you don't deserve it...and yet here we are. Please continue to remember that every decision you have made has been in Honor's best interest and you made the best decision based on the information you had at the time. It's been a couple days since you're last post so I'm crossing my fingers or a positive update soon that he has rebounded after getting his splint off.
My thoughts are with you two, and all the healthy vibes are headed your way.
Whitney, thanks so much for taking the time to catch up and your support. I wish I could give a positive update. Things have been really rough. It would be hard to put positive spin on it.
He did start putting a bit more weight on the splint, but was still very reluctant to move far or much. There is no way I would be able to get him in the minivan I rented for the purpose of appointments. Since all our last car trips were heavily weighted towards going to medical/surgical appts and not to the lake, he is not about to go near a vehicle right now even if he felt better.
I had to cancel the vet appt to remove the splint and get a mobile vet to come to the house today. When she and her assistant came into the bedroom with me where he was, he initially stood up wagging his tail and very happy to see guests like usual. It was the most excited ai have seen him about anything recently. He laid down as instructed but, as soon as she took out something to cut with and reached for his leg, he growled and snapped. She backed away and he kept giving her a hard stare. At that point, they had to leave the room, hand me a muzzle to put on him and instruct me how to put it on since I have never had to. 🙁 When they came back in, he was still growling and agitated so her assistant also had to hold a blanket over his head while the vet removed the splint. She had to put a couple fresh bandages on over the sutures and those need to be taken off in 2 days. She gave me some kind of medicine cocktail to give 90 min beforehand if she needs to come again. Yet, I already had given him his gabapentin beforehand. They left room and I took off blanket and muzzle and brought it out to them. I tried to leave his cone off but he immediately went after the bandage so back on with the cone. Here is the part that really breaks my heart. About 20 min later, he was in the kitchen on his bed and I looked up from what I was doing and he was giving me a hard stare with the upper corners of his mouth turned/puffed up. He has never given me that look in my life and I don’t know if I can ever remove the image from my head. I start crying every time I think of it. The only look he has ever given me is that staring into my eyes soft look of love. I don’t know if I will ever see that again. I think I have lost his trust by being involved in this whole thing. I don’t even know if he’ll let me remove his bandages in the 2 days. And, now, for any vet visit he will have to have a muzzle put on before they do anything because I am worried he is now reactive to anything like that…and this is assuming I will ever even be able to get him out the door and into the car to go to a vet.
He is bearing weight on his leg. I guess that’s good news. It’s still worse than it was before the procedure but expected if he is still recovering.
I had to cancel his oncology appt tomorrow because there is no way I can get him there. They moved it to Friday to give him more time to decompress. They want to talk with me about oral chemo options but would need to see him. I had asked if we could just discuss the options prior to my bringing him in but they would need to see him at the same time.
I feel like the cementoplasty may still actually work but what have I lost in the process of all of this? If I can’t get him there or decide I won’t do a chemo that might give him 3-6 months (and not optimistic on any stats after all this) then I may have 2 months (at best), 2 weeks of which will be in some phase of recovery for his leg after which then I might have his leg feeling good only for him to get taken over by lung mets symptoms.
Honestly, there is a large part of me right now that wishes I had opted not to do the procedure, made the rest of the time at the cottage we stayed at just a fun vacation and come home and scheduled Lap of Love to come within a week or so before he ended up with a catastrophic fracture and before he lost his faith in me. Maybe it is easier to say that now. Maybe I would have gotten home and not been strong enough to do it and he would have fractured and suffered from that. Maybe I would have said goodbye then wondered what if I tried the cementoplasty and chemo for the lung mets. Is there any outcome or decision in all of this where I will not question myself? Those who end up on the good side of the stats still have to suffer the horrible grief of loss but can at least say to themselves that they made the right choices. I am glad they don’t have to also suffer what this feels like because those of us who are on the really crappy side of the stats also have to deal with questioning our choices and regretting them on top of the torment of losing them. If he makes it 2 months (probably an optimistic outlook the more research I do) with lung mets, then I had 4 months total with him after diagnosis vs the 2 my general vet estimated with no treatment. Had I known that radiation, chemo, cementoplasty and the countless consultations and appts I had to drag him around to would give me 2 additional months (at least half of which he would spend with side effects or recovering from things) and especially if I knew that there would come a point where he would also lose his blind trust in me then, no, I wouldn’t have done any of it.
This all just absolutely breaks my heart. I’m so sorry for both of you to have to go through this.
i don’t think that you should be second guessing yourself. Every decision that you’ve made has been for him, and after doing tons of research. You’ve also dealt with, what seems to me, a difficult time with available vets within a reasonable distance. That isn’t your fault.
I will also share with you that i joined a Saint Bernard group on Facebook right around the time of Ophelia’s diagnosis, and since then, there have probably been a half dozen people post about their dogs being diagnosed with osteosarcoma who have decided to do nothing at all. Their decision to not even try to give their dogs a chance at life astounds me. You didn’t do that. We have to remember that we are in the minority of people who would do what we have done for our dogs.
I am also sorry to read about your belief that Honor has lost trust in you. I do doubt that that has happened. Mainly because dogs just don’t think like us. But if you don’t already do it, try having a conversation with him and explain why he’s going through this. It may sound stupid to some people, but i have these conversations with Ophelia probably every day. I just sit next to her and massage her and talk to her. Some days it’s just “how are you feeling today” or “what do you want to do today”, but both before and after her amputation, i explained what was happening and why i was making the decision that i was making. Maybe it does nothing more than make me feel better, but maybe there is more to it. Who knows? But it can’t hurt to try.
i don’t know what options you have moving forward in terms of treatment, and i know that I’ve mentioned it before, but do consider the Losartan and Palladia combo. I did read that you had mentioned the Palladia to Honor’s oncologist and she didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it, but not sure if that included the Losartan part of the treatment. Read the study. It seems to me that it had some really beneficial effects on the dogs who participated. And they all had lungs mets when beginning the treatment.
I agree with Michael that Honor hasn't lost his trust in you. To me, it sounds like he's in pain. I have no advice on how to proceed. I know that you are doing your very best to do right by your dog.
Thanks Michael and Mischeif. The support from all of you is truly appreciated and, even though Honor never became a tripawd, most of us have this horrible diagnosis in common. Could you give me the link to that study so that I can have it when I go in there? With oral chemo, I figure I can at least stop if he is showing side effects.
At this stage of things, I’m not willing to put him through much as far as side effects. I have a sense by how quickly this progressed that he probably won’t be on the favorable side of stats for anything. I guess at least by Friday I may have a better idea of how his leg is. If that isn’t gradually improving, it probably won’t make sense to do the oral chemo.
Also, I feel like his lung situation is more advanced than I even realized the more I look at bone cancer groups.
The incident today has also added even more stress and panic to my mind about home euthanasia when it is time. What if today had been that appointment and he reacted the same way? I can’t imagine mot having him home when I say goodbye.
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