Hello!

My  American Bulldog Zooey was diagnosed with osteosarcoma on 12/24 and we were told to just do palliative care and gave us life expectancy of two weeks. My fiancé and I were absolutely devastated. We were in shock at the news but processed over the weekend/did some research and found that amputation might be an option so we went back to our vet Monday 12/27 and requested a referral to a specialized vet but our vet (Dr. Long at Gandy Animal Hospital in Tampa- I WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND HER OR EVER GO BACK THERE AGAIN AFTER THIS ENTIRE EXPERIENCE) completely changed her tune and told us zooey would be a great candidate for surgery and to bring her back later that day to check all her vitals and do a chest scan to see how much the cancer has spread. Everything came back great (no visible metastasis in chest) and Dr. Long told she could do the surgery Thursday 12/30. We were weary abt the fact that she discouraged us at first but then changed her tune once we wanted to be referred elsewhere but rationalized that it was due to the fact that we explained to her that I work from home and my fiancé had the next week off so we had the means to support her.

Fast forward to surgery day, we brought her in and we felt like it was pulling teeth to get surgery info (we both have never experienced this so we were limited on the questions we could think of to ask her) but the vet assured us this was basically routine surgery and that zooey would be in a lot less pain. She told us the surgery would be about an hour long and we would receive calls once it started and finished. we received a call at 1145am that the surgery was starting. At 1pm we did not receive a call and we thought maybe they got busy or whatever but then 2pm, 3pm started to roll around and we started getting EXTREMELY anxious. My fiancé caved at 430pm and called. We were informed that Zooey was STILL IN SURGERY, was actively bleeding and they could not find the source and that they estimated a 50/50 chance for survival.

we rushed to the vet hysterical because we thought we were saying our goodbyes. after 6 hours in surgery they controlled the bleeding and were stapling her up but she had already lost alot of blood. she was transferred to an ER vet for monitoring and potentially a blood transfusion. she stayed at the ER from 12/30-1/1. during this time, she was on Fentenyl, lidocaine and ketamine plus iv fluids; they tried multiple times to help her stand with a sling but she would just duck down and refuse. She is extremely stubborn and we tried a sling before amputation to prevent her from breaking the leg before surgery and she did the same. Based on the fact that her PCV was stable, she ate solid food and was able to take medicine orally we were able to take her home 1/1/22 around 8/9pm. Her first night was so scary for us because I feel like we have no idea what is normal or not. They sent her home with gabapentin, cephalexin, yunnan baiyao, gallprant and codeine. 

1/2/22-first full day at home, started off positive (ate and had bowel movement) but lost appetite/refused to take meds with food so we had to basically force it; we called the vet because they initially told us to alternate doses of gapa and codeine but she seemed uncomfortable so they told us it was safe to take them together but just to know she will be more drowsy;

we tried to get her to stand assisted but still is not wanting to but in that process she soiled her pallet that we created for which cause us to have to move/manipulate her a bit more  to clean her and move her to new/clean set up-which she was NOT A FAN and then I could tell she was hurting because she was panting/gums turned pale. at this point we were kind of freaking out and super emotional because we were worried she might be anemic.

we forced ourselves to calm down and give her a bit of space/time and luckily her gums got color back, she took her medicine easier later that night and even readjusted herself to make herself more comfortable(when we adjusted her we had her lay on her leg a bit to give the incision some air but she does prefer to lay on the incision side mostly)

1/3- this morning was promising, she ate dry food, seems overall very comfortable and showed major interest in try to move. we thought it would be good to maybe get her to stand again and she did more than yesterday but she is still trying to use the leg that's not there and if we didn't support her she would faceplant; she wont take a step or place her paws down in a regular way (looks almost as if she's curling her front paw forward unless we place it down correctly for her) and still doesn't like us to move her.

This has been an traumatic experience and I'm struggling with feelings of guilt about our decision because of the complications and lack of progress standing up so far. I am wondering if anyone has gone through a similar experience and how they encouraged their dogs to stand/take steps and if they refused then how did they move the pup around to clean her messes/prevent her from spending too much time on one side?

any advice, encouragement welcome!!!