Here is another of the copy and pasted updates to my friends on that photography board:
Spencer is still doing GREAT. Today he got his stitches out and got the all clear to resume normal activity as he is able (so still needs to be spotted when going down stairs, have to make sure he doesn’t go further on a walk than he can make it back from since he is having to build up new muscles…).
The doctor feels pretty certain that he got all of the tumor; but there is just no way to know if something was missed on the celular level. It it was, then we will likely see another one within a few months. At that point it will probably be too late to do anything.
So we need to explore possibly doing chemo. 15 weeks of it is the oncologist’s recommendation based on Spencer’s records that he has seen. I have an appointment for him to see Spencer next week to go over everything. I just don’t know about chemo. Spencer’s lymph nodes were clean. We are pretty confident that we got clean margins for the tumor. We are going to go ahead and have an ultra sound done next week to make sure the spleen and liver look clean. (normally this would have been done before the amputation since if it had spread to those organs we would know there was no curing it; but we didn’t have time to wait for the u/s to be scheduled due to how fast the tumor was growing. So based on the lungs looking clear in the x-rays, and knowing that normally these things go to the lungs first, we decided to be aggressive and go ahead and do the amputation right away since that was the only chance he had to make it even a few more weeks).
If the spleen and liver are clean, and the lungs are still clean… then we have to decide about the chemo. It would be once per week for 15 weeks. It would have to start the week we are going to be in Disney, so my mom would have to take him for the first appointment. There is a chance that one of the chemo drugs could end up causing heart disease down the road. It is expensive.
If they could say doing it would mean that he would have his original life expectancy of about 10 more years then I would do it in a heart beat. Even if he feels a little puny for 15 weeks, that would be 15 weeks and then he would be back to himself. And we would have him for years to enjoy healthy.
But if he ended up with heart disease as a result? What would that mean for him? Or if we do the chemo. Spend thousands of dollars. And then it still comes back and he was sick for the 15 weeks and then the cancer is back and we still have to put him to sleep in less than a year… I can’t say that I think it would be worth it.
And it is especially hard because he seems FINE. It is like before the amputation… he really seemed like nothing was wrong; BUT there was no questioning that that tumor was there and so huge. So in the end, even though it was hard to go forward with the surgery, I also knew it was the right thing to do, because I could see how fast that tumor was growing. But now, it seems like he is healthy. There is nothing that I can SEE that is wrong. If we move forward with the chemo it is totally just going on the assumption that there are possibly some cancer cells there. But then… there might not be any, and he might be cured already. But if we wait and it comes back it would be too late to do anything. (round and round my thoughts go)
One thing that did happen at the vet today that scared the crap out of me was that he was standing by the door and I noticed a lump on his ribs on the opposite side. It was about as big as half of the palm of my hand. It was flat though rather than a huge mass sticking out. I looked closer at it and saw that there was a sore in the middle. I was soooo worried that it was a new tumor; but the vet said he doesn’t think there is any chance of that. It is some sort of trauma. Maybe from one of the times that he fell. It was basically a big scab. When we got home I washed it with a wash cloth and it his fur came off with the scab, so now it looks like he has road rash on his other side. 
Hopefully this one will heal fast.
And on the good news side… He is down to about 75 lbs. Which is a pretty good weight for him. I’m not thrilled that he lost the weight so fast; but now we just have to maintain him here. He was 85 lbs before surgery. Lost just under 5 lbs with the amputation, so has lost another 5 in 2 weeks. It will be a much easier weight for him to handle on the 3 legs.
AND… here is a picture from the weekend before (Labor Day weekend). Spencer had started messing with his stitches, so he had to wear a t-shirt. We were sitting on the screened porch and someone came up to the side and said something to him right as I was taking his picture.
And a picture I took on 9/7/11, two days before he got his stitches out (about to head out for swim team practice):
