Glad to hear that Oslo has improved.  It is always amazing to me how differently each responds but in the end nearly everyone of them prove to have resilience beyond our belief.  As explainded to me by Cherry's oncologist and confirmed my sister the MD, the sooner they are up to the chemotherapy the better.  The desire is to attach the micoscopic cancer cells that are in the blood stream from settling comfortably anywhere else now that their main site has been removed.  For Cherry, it was literally hours after the amputation, after returning her body to "normal" temperature, but before she awoke.  In many respects, we were luck with the chemotherapy in that she was capable of having it so quickly and her cell count never dropped as a result of the treatments.  Our only complication was a total loss of appetite.  I had to stuff nearly every morsal of food during our two monts of treatment.  Many have had an easier time, and many have had a far worse time.  Bottom line, it will never be too late but you may be battling cells that have settled down rather than floating in the blood stream.  In fact, there was thought that Cherry had growth on her kidney and potentially on her para-thyroid.  Since the treatment for both would be the chemotherapy, we just continued on our treatment program.  We are more than nine months post-amputation and she is doing absolutely wonderfully (especially for a very senior standard poodle.)

You are alread doing all the right things - researching the illness and potential treatment and consulting with your vets.  They can give guidance based upon Oslo's current state of health, while we can only comment on what is "normal" but as you gain time on the site, you realize that there really is no "normal".

With Paws Crossed and Sending Nothing But Pawsitive Thoughts,

Bob & Cherry

We were told 2 weeks after surgery, but our Oncologist is only in on Wednesday and Thursday, and we missed the dates and had to schedule for the third week after surgery.  No biggie!