Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
Tripawds is your home to learn how to care for a three legged dog or cat, with answers about dog leg amputation, and cat amputation recovery from many years of member experiences.
Join The Tripawds Community
Learn how to help three legged dogs and cats in the forums below. Browse and search as a guest or register for free and get full member benefits:
Instant post approval.
Private messages to members.
Subscribe to favorite topics.
Live Chat and much more!
Register
Log In
Members
Add Topic
Offline
Hi, we are looking for a referral for an Oncologist to put Hero on chemotherapy in the Los Angeles, CA area. Any help would be appreciated. We are aware of the Veterinary Cancer Group and City of Angels, but they are expensive. We are hoping to find a good but reasonably priced place to go.
Also, if you can give us an idea about the cost and a good treatment plan we would greatly appreciate the advice.
Our vet who performed the amputation is Parkway Pet Hospital in La Mesa, CA (San Diego). We like them a lot, they are caring and the surgeon (Dr. Frankel) did a great job but (1) they don't have an oncologist and don't do chemotherapy, and (2) they are about 100 miles from our house. By the way, they charged about $1100 for the bone sample, x-rays and whatever else they did to diagnose Hero. They charged around $2500 for the amputation (they also neutered Hero at the same time – adding insult to injury for the poor boy).
Thank you.
Hero
Do any primary vets offer chemo in your area? It seems that several of the tripawds on the site have chemo administered by their primary vets even though they do have oncologists in the same city. We do not have an oncologist in my city, so the vet had to administer the chemo. In this specific case, it was a good thing - I think the vet did the chemo herself and she seemed far more skilled with the hands-on details than the oncologist's nurse at the specialists' clinic (which was in a different city). I'm sure it could work the other way - lots of animal techs are highly skilled with hands-on procedures, but this person did not seem to have much experience.
In deciding where to go, I called around to find a clinic that used chemo relatively regularly.
I have no knowledge whatsoever of that area but if you have a university veterinary teaching hospital close by I would recommend maybe checking into that, since they are not as financially motivated as regular offices. In my experience, they also seem to be very aware of the latest information and some even have clinical trials that may offset some of the cost. Best wishes for your beautiful boy.
Karin & Zoe
Karin and Zoe beat me to it! I, too, was going to suggest a teaching veterinary hospital. We took Emily to The Ohio State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Columbus, Ohio so I can't give you a reference in your area but I a wondering if mayb your vet would be able to refer you to the nearest teaching hospital. Not only are they up to date with the latest info but since they have students working as well our Emily got one on one care through out the entire process. Emily's chemo was between $250 and $300 per session.
Good luck and keep us informed.
Debra & Angel Emily
Debra & Emily, a five year old doberman mix, who was diagnosed with an osteosaecoma. She had a right rear leg amputation on May 19, 2009. On November 10, 2009 she earned her wings and regained her fourth leg.
We took Max to the VCA Animal Referral Center in Fountain Valley (Orange County). There's also another veterinary cancer treatment center in Tustin (also OC). I'll provide the links below. We were very happy with their services, and Max is just shy of 14 months post-amputation. As for price, I would assume it differs everywhere, but will probably stretch your pursestrings wherever you go. Good luck with whatever you decide.
Di
Hero, we have to say that Veterinary Cancer Group has to be the best private practice oncology group that we know if, if not in CA than in the country. In fact, we just toured their facility and interviewed their founder, Dr. Rosenberg, this week.
We recommend touring their facility, and then touring another less expensive facility, and check out the differences. The cost at VCG covers much more than chemo, it also means that Hero will have nine doctors and board certified oncologists on hand, discussing his case each week. Seriously, they have a group meeting each week and everyone discusses their cases, getting feedback from the most brilliant minds around. We learned that VCG is the only facility that has this many docs devoted to their patients. And they do have clinical trials there too, some which may offset the cost. Ok, I know we sound like a sales pitch for them, but we are really, really impressed with their work.
Tripawd member Maximutt got treated by an awesome place in Fountain Valley, you should PM him to find out where. And yes, teaching hospitals are also great. I went to UC Davis for my amputation, and we were sooo impressed.
Let us know who you end up going with, we'd love to have a link here to them. Thanks for checking in!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
1 Guest(s)
