Hi all,

I've been following the Tripawds community since my kitty, Murphy, was diagnosed with a leg tumor a month ago. He started limping in January and we went to a vet who told charged us $100 to tell us his tendon was hurt. He was put on a no-jumping regime and got worse. This was the same vet who told us our 14-year-old Golden Retriever was doing great while she was coughing and vomiting. A week later we had to put her down. Not happy with that vet at all. We went to another vet at the same clinic who felt a mass on his leg joint and took expensive x-rays to tell us we had three possibilities: either it was a massive infection, cancer, or the biggest case of arthritis he'd ever seen. We never saw the x-rays. He said he's know more with a 500 dollar biopsy. We couldn't do that. Murphy was put on antibiotics for 2 weeks to see if it was an infection and baby aspirin. When asked how much amputation would cost, the vet said somewhere in the range of 2-3 thousand dollars, which we knew we couldn't do. He basically told us there was no chance he'd survive if it was cancer. After a few weeks of Murphy vomiting, we called a vet tech family member and were told that aspirin is awful and 3 thousand was ridiculous and that ended the relationship with that vet.

We found a new vet a month ago and he has been amazing. He got the x-rays from the previous vet and showed them to us, very clearly explaining that infections didn't look like this, arthritis didn't look like this, and aspirating the lump would tell us more. We aspirated it and got a confident diagnosis that it was bone cancer. What exact variety we didn't know. Amputation was what we could afford, at only 500 dollars. We talked to the vet tech family member and decided to go through with it if a lung x-ray showed no visible lumps. It didn't, and yesterday, 8/6/15, Murphy went in to surgery to get his back left leg amputated.

He is home now, incredibly stoned on his medication and trying to get in to trouble at every turn, as usual. He is doing okay, it seems. The scar is quite gnarly and the cone of shame --or "Elizabethan collar", as the care sheet calls it--makes him look fluffy, cute and slightly pathetic, but Murphy the Maine Coon seems to be doing okay.

I am scared that it is going to come back. Very scared. I think that taking it one day at a time is the trick and loving him as much as possible. Caring for him is difficult because he doesn't seem to grasp the fact that his leg is gone. Maybe that's the morphine. He doesn't want to settle down if he isn't laying on myself or my mom. The next seven days are going to be hell.

I just thought I'd introduce the two of us and see how things go. I can't think about the horrible things right now. Now I need to be with my baby as much as possible.

Thanks for reading!