Hello, 

I am new to tripawds. First, let me tell you our story as it is unique. Our fox red lab, Titan, began to limp a little over two years ago. My husband and I thought he just tweaked something at first, but when it didn't go away after 5 days, we took him to our local vet. We noticed a bulge in his elbow so at the worst, we were thinking maybe arthritis as he was 7 at the time. 

It was to our devastation that after x-rays, our local vet came out and said she was 99% sure it was osteosarcoma and that our best course of action was to amputate immediately and begin chemotherapy but at the most, we should expect 3-6 months of life. Needless to say we were heartbroken. I wanted to rush to amputate quickly to give as much time as possible but luckily, my husband is less prone to panic. We made an appointment at our local universities veterinary hospital with an oncologist for a week later.

Now really expecting the worse, we got the craziest news. The oncologist didn't think it was cancer at all! They had never seen anything like what they were seeing on his elbow before, but it was not presenting like typical osteosarcoma. The good bone was all intact and not deteriorating and the orthopedic surgeon thought perhaps a microfracture had healed wrong at some point. We left the vet that day with with a plan to manage the pain of the elbow through pain medicine and to come back in 3 months for xrays. We were so relieved! 

Over the course of about a year, we managed with pain medicine and Titan did incredibly well. He was able to walk, run, play with no difference. He would get xrays every 3 months to monitor growth in his elbow and lungs. There were some small blimps on the radar in his lungs but the vet at the time, while not being sure, thought/hoped they were just non-cancerous lesions. We considered doing biopsy's on both earlier on but didnt want to do anything to invasive while he was doing so well. Finally, a year in, the lung lesions while growing super slowly, were growing, and for peace of mind, we decided to do the biopsy. It was through that, the vet confirmed it was cancer. 

The vet team at the university hospital was still pretty perplexed. It is a research university so they ended up consulting with other research hospitals and found a very rare specialist in Texas (we are in Ohio), who diagnosed him with parosteal osteosarcoma. It is a very rare and not well studied sub form of osteosarcoma. Where are lucky, is that this form of the cancer is much slower growing and therefore life expectancies are longer. (P.S. - Ohio State University is now writing a study and paper centered around this form of canine cancer with Titan the star of the show. It has been pretty cool and they have done a great job of taking us along the journey of the study, the other universities who have partnered and the help it will provide to other animals with this diagnosis). 

Because of the diagnosis, we moved forward with high dose radiation on the elbow, followed by low dose chemo which Titan is still on today, but continued to save the leg as he was managing just fine. 

Now, another year later, his limping returned and worse than ever. Pain medicine was no longer managing it and his elbow was noticeably bigger where the bone cancer formed. He went in for his routine visit 2-3 weeks ago and upon x-rays, the bad bone was not forming into and deteriorating the good bone. It was time for amputation, to give him the best quality of life, for what we hope is still good amount of time we have. (He is now 9.)

I was really hoping he would be one of those dogs who rebounded so quick, but this week has seemed to be a tougher go. Physically, i think he is healing just fine. I think it is more mental. He really struggles to get comfortable. He refuses to lay on the amputated side at all and fights off laying down, so sleeps standing up or sitting in a very hunched position. His head will fall as he hits the official sleep and then he will pop back up to fight it off. Walking wise, he seems to tense every muscle. He has fits of panting and trembling. We have already messaged the vet who said this is just normal recovery. For the record, we don't think it is his medicine because he was on both carprofen and gabapentin to manage his elbow pain months to a year before this and he is acting like this with or without the trazadone. Yesterday, we had a real scare when he began trembling and started to walk like he was dizzy, almost completely falling over. He was doing the same thing while sitting. If he wasn't leaning in to something, he would just let his whole body fall. 

Has anyone experienced a tougher mental recovery? Any tips? Everything I read says the first couple of weeks are the worst. I am really hoping that is the truth. We haven't let Titan out of our eyesight, including sleeping on the couch in our living room at night to not leave him alone. His anxiety is making mine through the roof. I hate to see him like this. 

Sorry for the long post and appreciate any tips/advice in advance!