It’s just the beginning Part 1

I’ve been tossing around writing a blog for days. Maybe weeks but then I finally decided well, why not. If this can help someone, maybe even just one person then, excellent! I want to give back to the tripawd community as they have been so wonderful to us.

Let me first tell you about Buddy. Buddy is a mixed breed dog (maybe Rhodesian Ridgeback with a mix of something else pretty awesome) that came to live with us just over 13 years ago. He followed my son home. Well, actually he followed him down a wooded path. We got a call from our son on a pay phone with the conversation that sounded something like this: “Ummmm…Hi mom. I found a dog. He started to follow me across a street and I didn’t know what to do.” UGH!!! Well, we took him to the pound in hopes that the owner would come claim him. No one came for him and 9 days later, he was ours, much to the chagrin of our 2 cats! Little did we know how much this 3 month old puppy would soon forever change our lives. All for the good.

So now let’s fast forward. Somewhere around February 2014 we  noticed a large lump on Buddy’s right front forearm. It wasn’t to alarming to us because he has fatty lumps all over. Seriously. He is Mr. Lumpy-lumpapolis.  If there were doggy liposuction out there, they could make a fortune off of us. This lump, though, was different. It wouldn’t stop growing. So in January of this year, we brought him in to the vet thinking that, once again, it would be another fatty lump. Our vet aspirated it and  came back with, “Guys, I don’t like the looks of this. This isn’t fat. This is likely a sarcoma.” Our hearts sank. The choice was amputate, to which we said no way, radiation ($$$$$$ OMG no way) or surgery in hopes that it would come back VERY slowly. He had surgery 2nd week of January to remove it. It was a grade 2. Which means, it’s going to come back. All was well until about May. A very nasty little bulge was starting to make its appearance. By August it had tripled in size. Once again we went to the vet with the hopes of removal. “Guy’s,” she said, “This will be the last surgery we can preform on this. It’s in a nasty spot. Not a lot of room to work with. You have to start thinking about choices again.” She could remove it, but this time it will come back twice as fast. (Cancer is just ugly like that.) It will start to bleed and become painful and then you have consider quality of life. We can see a doggy oncologist ($$$$) or amputation. (No way. That’s just cruel.) We opted to do surgery again because we wanted to prolong his life for as long as possible. Surgery was scheduled for Monday, August 24th. Our hearts were so heavy the weekend before surgery. I started researching diets for dogs with cancer. There has to be something we can do to help this dog. Then I started pondering amputation. How do 3 legged dogs walk anyway? Can a senior dog with a front leg amputation walk? They must get around in doggy wheelchairs. I’ve seen that on TV. Steve is pretty handy. I wonder if he could build one? So on a whim I texted my vet to see what she thought about these doggy wheelchairs.  She called me (on her day off!) and very excitedly said, “Are you telling me that amputation is on the table?!” And I said, “I don’t know? Maybe?” After much discussion, we decided surgery should go as planned and to leave this as a future thought. In the meantime I came across this awesome website called Tripawds. Hope. There it was. My eyes welled up.  Dogs, even senior dogs, CAN handle amputation. I thought long and hard that Sunday night. After a very tearful discussion with my husband Monday morning (the day of surgery)we thought, well, maybe if she goes in there and see’s there is not much she could do with the cancer, that maybe, she should just amputate. I texted the vet.  She called and said,” Wait, don’t bring him in yet. Let me make a call to my dog oncologist friend and see if there is another way. Maybe I have the amount of money involved wrong.” And so we waited. Surgery was scheduled for 1:00. She called at 11:30. We could do palliative radiation to the tune of $2,500-$5,000 with the knowledge that it might not work. That was an easy no. Her heart and our heart said if amputation is on the table and he is walking around pain free right now, let’s wait. Let’s give him more time with his leg. She said, “Call me or text me in 3 weeks to let me know how he’s doing.” That week we changed his diet and gave him all kinds of supplements with the hope to slow it down. 2 and 1/2 weeks later, it started to bleed. I texted our vet pictures. She called and said, “Tracie, it’s time to stop messing around. If amputation is on the table, now is the time.” I could just feel my body starting to tremble. “Ok, I said. But I want to make sure he is a good candidate. His quality of life is what comes first. ”  Buddy is 13 but you would never know it. My neighborhood is full of senior dogs but he doesn’t act like an

old dog. He still chases squirrels! We feed him well and he  goes for walks, without fail, twice a day. He can handle this. We just know it. So, the vet had his lungs x-rayed for cancer. She x-rayed his back and hips for arthritis. And we held our breath. All clear. OMG. Did she say all clear?! Surgery was scheduled for September 14th. OMG. My niece is getting married the 19th. The family will be here. How are we going to do this? Are we crazy? Stay tuned. More tomorrow.