We’ll see how long blogging lasts. The love of my life, my heart dog, Fallon Ellen Greyhound has cancer.
It’s been a rough week since we found out about this. It started with a limp, and now we’re at an osteosarcoma diagnosis.
We/re looking at treatment options.
I consulted by email with a greyhound specialist, Guillermo Couto, who is the go-to osteosarcoma guy, and he made me feel really confident about amputation. He reviewed her x-rays, medical history, and bloodwork and was really straightforward with that recommendation. My local vets were less optimistic, given Fallon’s age (just turned 11) and maybe the start of arthritis in her back legs (The tumor is on her left front leg), plus she is a shaky mess when she’s at the vet, and will need to be in the hospital about 2-3 days. Even with that, Dr Couto was all in for amputation. But he is the only one who hasn’t met Fallon face to face.
A friend from our greyhound group who has a tripod dog who had cancer used a vet/ortho specialist in a town about 1/2 hour north of us. (Her dog was 5 at the time of the amputation, and she said she would never put an 11 year old through that). My vet said she would refer to a different specialty practice, which is less than a mile from our house. We got a very significant unsolicited positive referral to them also by a very trusted friend.
It’s Sunday night. Our plan was to spend the weekend researching, thinking and considering all the options. My vet is going to call again tomorrow and we’d have well thought out, pertinent questions to pose, and with that we’d have a plan going forward and we would execute that. However, we’re finding that crying and drinking lots is more in line with our mindset now.
Where we’re leaning this minute (it changes a lot) is to consult with a surgeon–maybe 2, and go from there. I know there’s no wrong answer about next steps, given we’re without a crystal ball, and the hardest thing is we’re going on a lot of conflicting opinions based on valid input about next steps. But Dr. Couto was 100% solid on amputation, so that’s where I think we’ll land, unless the surgeon(s) give us something even more solid. I’ve been reading lots about the couple of weeks of hell after the surgery, and I’m all in to support our girl. I think she will be, too.
We’re fearful that Fallon will easily break her leg having seen her x-ray(which is how we found out about her sister Willow’s cancer about a year and a half ago, because we suck), so we carry her up and down stairs, lift her onto the furniture and bed, and we’re limiting her walking pretty significantly, just leash walks down 2 or 3 houses and back. However, Fallon is really doing excellent, and would happily do all this herself. She is super playful, alert and trying to be active within our restrictions. She’s eating and drinking, and the reason we’re leash walking 100% is that she still wants to roughhouse with her younger sister Maggie in the yard. So she’s in a much better place than we are. She is on Tramadol and it seems to be holding her well, all that seems compromised is her pretty significant limp.
More to come…
