When we took Spencer to the vet after finding the questionable mass the vet suggested that we leave Spencer there overnight so that they could do surgery first thing in the morning. The vet talked to me about what we were likely facing. He said that I really needed to prepare for the likelihood that Spencer’s leg would need to be amputated. He did a chest x-ray to check the lungs and it looked like we were OK there. The kids and I left and I called my husband to fill him in. The kids were very upset. Especially my 7 year old daughter who had always been especially close to Spencer (I have 7 year old boy/girl twins and a 5 year old daughter). I came home and started reading. A friend found the tripawds website and sent me the information.
The next morning they did the biopsy. I had to go out of town for a little while that morning, the vet called me to break the news that he was positive it was cancer; but not sure of what kind it was. They tried to see if they could safely remove the tumor; but did not feel that they could. He said that the good news was that it did not appear to be in the bone at all. He still felt that we would most likely need to amputate the leg though due to how aggressive the tumor seemed to be. When I went to pick Spencer up that day (August 18) he managed to pull all of his stitches out while the vet was talking to me! So they had to go in and put in staples (he had internal stitches too, so what he pulled out was just a safety net really; but it was still best to make SURE it would stay closed!). Once that was done we were on our way home. He was on “restricted activity”, no stairs, no playing with the other dogs in the neighborhood. I decided that while he was on “no stairs” I would sleep on the couch so that he wouldn’t be downstairs by himself. He did great with all of it and by the next day I was having to really get onto him to make him not run around like he didn’t have 14 staples on his side!
It was a long weekend waiting to find out what was going on.
Over the weekend I read a lot on the tripawds website and I started coming to terms with the possibility of amputation. I started talking to the kids about it too. I explained that Spencer was very, very sick. That if he had to have his leg amputated that it would actually be a GOOD thing. Because it would mean that we thought that there was a chance that he could LIVE. I went ahead and told them that there was a good chance that he could be too sick for us to save; but that if there was a chance that we could, that we would do what ever it took.
On Monday we went by the vet for a suture check and the biopsy results were in. The vet we had been working with wasn’t in that day, so we spoke to one of his partners. I don’t think that she knew that we were already aware that Spencer almost definitely had some form of cancer. So at first she really thought she was breaking BAD news. But I think she quickly realized that I was prepared and assumed it was cancer and that he would lose the leg. She told me that it was a grade 3 fibrosarcoma. I later learned that 90% of fibrosarcomas are grade 1 or 2. I also learned that most often they occur in older dogs, normally 10+ years. So at 4.5 years old, and with a grade 3 tumor… the odds weren’t going too much in Spencer’s favor. 🙁 Talking to her we pretty much agreed that he would have the amputation on Wednesday; but I would talk to the vet who had done the biopsy the next day to find out for sure if he felt the leg could be removed along with clean margins on the tumor. I also got the OK to go ahead and let Spencer run around like he was wanting to since even if he did tear the stitches some, the leg would be coming off in just a day or so anyway.
So, I went home. The next day I took some pictures with the kids and Spencer with his 4 legs for the last time (unfortunately no pictures with all 4 of them cooperating). I dropped him off at the vet Tuesday evening for him to have the amputation surgery Wednesday.
Here is a picture of Spencer’s last day with 4 legs:
love that picture of the kids with spencer – some saucy boots on sis!!! we remember how scary and sudden all of this type of news was to us. glad you found tripawds, it’s a great place for info and sanity.
charon & gayle