Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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Good Morning,
Our Bear is a 4 year old Golden Retriever. We recently found a mass on his shoulder area and a CT is pointing towards cancer. We are waiting for the biopsy results to determine the best course of action for him. As of right now, our Oncologist believes this could be a soft tissue sarcoma, hemangiosarcoma, or histiocytic sarcoma. Due to the size of Bear's tumor (softball size), amputation is the likely route for him. Depending on the type of cancer, and the grade, his prognosis could be slim to curable. This has been such a gray area for us as Bear has been acting his normal self, a happy go-lucky and active pup. We are praying this comes back low grade but are struggling with the decision to amputate. We want the best for him and want to pro-long his life as much as we can if he is comfortable. We are devestated over this and are wondering how did we not catch this sooner considering its size. Bear is constantly getting many snuggles and rubs...it is so hard to believe that we could not feel this before. The Dr. believes that his tumor was hiding under his shoulder blade for a while and has recently began to pop out from that area.
This has been a roller coaster of emotions for us that began almost a month ago. We initially visited another emergency hospital and Oncologist where a biopsy, aspirations, and x-rays were completed. The biopsy and aspirations came back as inconclusive, and the x-rays did not show any signs of fractures. Frustrated and concerned, we opted for a second opinion and here we are....one CT down and waiting again for the results from another biopsy. We are happy with the current Oncologist and feel very grateful to have found him. He has been helpful in explaining all of the possibilities to us.
Bear LOVES to swim and run...he is so playful and active. Picturing him with only three legs just breaks our hearts. We know this may be the best option for him, but we are nervous to put him through such an invasive surgery. And if the biopsy comes back as high-grade, what do we do then? We are hesitant to amputate if his prognosis is only months long. Palliative care may be the best option there? As you can see, we are just all over the place and completely heart broken. Bear is our baby and is loved by so many.
We are happy to have found Tripawds. It's great to see how helpful and responsive people are in these forums...we would love to get some insight from those who have gone through the same situation.
Thank you in advance 
-K
Welcome and best wishes for Bear! This journey can be a roller coaster indeed. We look forward to following his story. Your future forum posts will not require moderation.
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Okay, DEEP BREATHS....B R E A T H E......B R E A T H E......really, take deep breaths and exhale slowly. It helps!!!
YOU ARE NOT ALONE! We understand the emotions involved in this journey like no others can!!! It is scary and nerve wracking, exhausting physically and emotionally. HOWEVER, you will soon have a treatment plan and can move forward. You WILL find some relief at that point and much more confident!
The important thing to remember right now is to Be More Dog ! BE MORE BEAR! Bear is living in the NOW and has no worries about the next moment at all! He just blissfully flows from one worry free mome t ro rhe next.
A "diagnosis" doesn't mean squat ro Bear. He doesn't have a timeframe stamped anywhere in his and butt and he doesn't cou t days on a calendar. He just cares about being spoiled and loved and pain free quality time right by your side.
Just to address a couple pf rhings briefly. Until you've been on this journey, there is no way you would have been obsessively looking for lumps and bumps non stop 24/7. That would be crazy!!! This journey makes you do crazy things like that now though. Even if you did find a lump, many Vets would tell you just to wait and observe. You were very proactive though once you found it and did not wait. Good job!!!
Should an amputation be what is needed to give Bear a pain free quality life, we can assure you Bear would want that chance! We can also assure you Bear will handle being a Tripawd loke a RockStar! Sure, recovery is ruff for a couple of weeks, but once he's pass the recovery stage, you will be thrilled to see how good he feels with that bum leg gone!
Let's just wait and see what the Onco says, then we can help more should you need to proceed with remov6 that vum lev. You will learn, if that's the case, you are doing this FOR him and not TO him!
STAY CONNECTED!! We are all on snuggling Bear`s team now!!!
Hugs
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
Sending lots of love and positive energy for Bear.
My boy was older, but also had a softball sized tumor - his was hidden and never visible as it was a soft tissue sarcoma peripheral nerve sheath tumor in the brachial plexus (arm pit). Despite the fact this hidden evil turned out to be Grade III of III, we had 6 wonderful, happy months with little or no pain. Of course I wanted and was hopeful for cure. But this group helped me realize there was another reason to do this and it was just to give him back a quality of life for however long we could. This group helped me "Be More Dog " through it all and I'm grateful for the bonus time we got. He was a very active boy for his age and we went back to dog park a few weeks post amp and he romped there and in the lake and spent lazy hours watching over his domain from the second floor deck on the back of our house. And begged to share his daddy's beer. It was a good summer.
Lisa, Minneapolis
On October 27, 2016, nearly 6 months after amputation, and 18 months since his cancer likely started, we lost Pofi to a recurrence of Soft Tissue Sarcoma in his spine quite suddenly. His canine sister also succumbed to cancer on March 1, 2019 - we lavished her with our love in the interim, but life was never quite the same without her only real canine friend. Cliff kitty had to leave us, too, suddenly, in August 2019. Lucia kitty grieved all these losses, but helped us welcome two new Lurchers into our home and our lives, Shae and Barley.
THANK YOU all for your thoughtful words and I apologize for the delay in responding! It is so wonderful to have the insight and care of others 🙂
We received Bear's biopsy results last night. The Dr. mentioned there would be a very small chance that this could be scar tissue and it just so happens that the results are pointing to that. No cancer cells were found in his biopsy. We are so relieved that cancer is out of the picture for this. However, we still do not know what this mass exactly is. The Dr. said this is one of the strangest things he has seen in his 18 years of practicing. The CT did not not show any foreign bodies in this mass that would be causing all of this inflammation (porcupine quill, stick, etc)...so we are all pretty stumped here. We cannot recall any past injuries that may be contributing to all of this scar tissue either.
Our Vet is starting Bear on a one week course of steroids and if this does not help with the swelling, we will proceed with a steroid injection. If this mass becomes more problematic, we may have to revisit the possibility of amputation. We are not completely out of the woods yet, but we feel like we can breathe again knowing that Bear is not facing an unfavorable prognosis with cancer.
Has anyone experienced anything like this?!
Sally, Bear has had cancer in the past so we are normally super diligent on feeling for any curious lumps and bumps on him! During his last cancer, we were told to wait and watch as the aspirations were inconclusive. But I was not comfortable with just waiting so we opted to remove the tumor. The biopsy of this removed tumor found cancer. So this is another factor making me worried...cancer hides in so many different areas of a tumor. We are hoping this is not the case for this current mass.
Thank you again!
Please know that many of us have had the experience of doing a biopsy and it coming back as "inconclusive." Just because there are no cells in the biopsy does not necessarily mean you are out of the woods. I don't say this to scare you, but there are a lot of us that this has happened to.
Murphy was initially misdiagnosed for a couple of months. Then his repeat x-rays showed a tumor; and he had an x-ray guided bone biopsy at the University of Michigan. When it came back inconclusive, we had a 3rd set of x-rays, which showed that the tumor had grown even more and that part of the bone was actually missing. We were lucky that he hadn't had a fracture yet. We decided then to go ahead with the amputation, which ended up giving us another 4+ years with our boy (against all odds!).
So don't wait too long to follow up. Keep a close eye on that area. And follow your gut.
Donna
Donna, Glenn & Murphy
Murphy had his right front leg amputated due to histiocytic sarcoma at 7 years old. He survived 4 years, 2 months & 1 week, only to be taken by hemangiosarcoma at 11 1/2 years 6/12/17
Read about Murphy's Life on Three Legs
Don't know if this will help but my Oscar had ultrasound, x-ray and finally a cat scan when he developed leg swelling and some pain in his rear leg. At first the vet thought muscle tear but that was ruled out after doing ultrasound. It was a lipoma but we were not sure what kind so we did a cat scan. It ruled out plain old fatty deposit but was inclusive if it was in infiltrate lipoma (fat infiltrating the muscle) or liposarcoma which would be cancer. Even the biopsy was not helpful. But with infiltrative lipoma which vet thought it was, even if we debulked tumor it would have grown back and the leg would have to get amputated eventually so I decided to amputate his leg, hard decision, especially when you are not 100% sure what you are dealing with. Fast forward to today, 2 months post op and Oscar is running and playing and getting back to his old self. There are still challenges but he us doing well.
Already Mr. Bear, we'll be expecting some good results from those steroids, okay?? And you have the backmup plan of the injection if needed, so that's good.
You can definitely breathe a little easier now. Scar tissue can form for so many different reasons that aren't really apparent, but "some sort of something" happened to make it form. Doesn't mean things might change down the road, but right now the test results are good!
Cheering form you Bear!
Hugs
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
Donna, thank you for reaching out! It is so frustrating that multiple biopsies are not able to give us any answers. I'm sorry to hear that Murphy went misdiagnosed for those months...but happy to hear you had more years with Murphy 🙂 Did you happen to try steroids prior to surgery? This is where we are with Bear and after a few days, we can notice a difference in the size of his mass as it has shrunk a bit. I wonder if this is something you have experienced during those months when he was misdiagnosed...
Pjpamjean, thank you! Glad to hear that Oscar is doing well. I cannot imagine making that decision when you do not have a 100% answer 🙁 Did you opt for a full biospy of the tumor after the amputation?
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