I hope you soon find a medicaiton routine that works for Butchie.  Trouble did much better after we were able to take her off the pain meds.  They really aren't able to return to their true selves until the meds can be removed or at least minimuzed.  Butchie seems to be taking a large amount of pain meds.

And if it hasn't been pointed out yet, the recovery period just sucks.  It is difficult and tedious for both of you.  Fortunately, it doesn't last forever.  Keep haning in there, it WILL pass.

I'm no expert but poopie is a good sign! 

I can't imagine what a dog must think after having the leg removed.  They are dopey and they can't walk.  It must be so incredilby frightening.     

Again, I'm no expert but the meds could be affecting the tummy.  From experience, hopping around doesn't feel so good on the stomach when you got extra acid.  That may explain the wanting to eat after the meds wore off. 

I hope it gets better soon!

Hi Butchie and parents!

Was just reading all your posts. You have had a difficult road the last week (seems like months doesn't it?). You seem to have tried many exotic pain relief drugs that I never hear about on this site. But I hope the Gabapentin helps. Another drug that tazzie dog (Pam the vet) has suggested in combination with Gabapentin is Amantadine, which apparently helps prevent pain wind-up or accumulated pain. Apparently you can use these in conjunction with good ole tramadol. Lots of our tripawd dogs use Gabapentin for phantom pain and for other types of pain. Butchie's yelping sounds like the descriptions other people have given for phantom pain . Also, pain and panting seems to be worse at night, but of course that does not mean we want to accept pain that occurs at night.

Was Butchie's scapula removed? Just asking since it might affect the level of pain if he still has something left to move.

As for lying around outside, I guess you aren't so worried about that anymore. I found that incredibly frustrating the first couple of weeks. My Tazzie would just lie around (my little block of cement). Occasionally I would say 'that is enough' and exert tremendous effort and emotion to try to get him to move so he would poo or pee. But that did not work. But once in a while when he was lying around outside, I'd look out the window and see him hop over to a corner of the yard, do his stuff, and hop back only to lie around for the next 23 hrs. Of course it was summer time then so I was worried about too much heat, not too much cold.

Other sources of motivation: bring the car over if Butchie might want to go for a ride or bring people over who Butchie might want to see. That brought some spark back to my dog and got him to move enough that he had to relieve himself. (Sometimes I drove the car right to him, so he felt he HAD to get up! Believe me, he did not want to move.) Tazzie's return to a mobile life was probably longer than two weeks, but we did have slow improvement around that time. Once he was in a setting with more things going on (people, parks), he perked up considerably. After one month he was pretty good. By week 6 and especially by week 8, he was great, swimming and charging around after ball-chasing dogs at the dog park.

Keep us posted on Butchie's treatment. It is unusual (but probably a great idea to control the cancer) to have chemo before surgery. I would guess (just my guess) that would slow down the healing process? Tazzie had a small subcutaneous surgery after 3 chemo treatments and the wound was slower to heal. Stitches came out at 3 weeks rather than at 10 to 14 days, and even then the vet was a bit hesitant to take all of them out.

Let us know how he did last night. By the way where do you live?

Susan