Hi all,

My husband and I have an 8 year old catahoula named Tallulah who was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma in early November. We looked into a clinical trial that she was eligible for at Colorado State University but the timing with the holidays would have left her waiting too long to begin treatment so we decided to go with the standard of care and scheduled her amputation surgery for the week before Thanksgiving. 

Tallulah did great with the surgery and for the most part, her recovery over the last 4 weeks has been smooth. On the way home from her suture removal appointment, I noticed a mass in her mouth and emailed our oncologist right away.

 Since we had her scheduled for chemo in a couple days, the vet said she would take a look at the mass then. The vet decided the best course of action was to do a biopsy of the mass and did that at the same time as the chemo.

 Tallulah handled the recovery from the biopsy well and had no visible side effects from the chemo. Today we heard back from the oncologist and the tumor is cancerous but they are not sure if it’s related to her osteosarcoma or is completely different. There is no evidence of metastatic disease in her lungs and both the lymph nodes they tested from the leg that was amputated and from the mouth looked free of cancer. We’re told it could be melanoma or sarcoma (progression of the osteosarcoma in an extremely rare form or a different type of sarcoma altogether).

 We’re now scheduling additional tests, including a PET scan, over the next month while continuing the carboplatin. 

Has anyone else experienced something similar, like a highly unusual progression of osteosarcoma or your dog being diagnosed with two different types of cancer at the same time? If so, what did that look like and what was the prognosis?