Month: July 2013

Thank you so much for the lifeline Sally! You’re right! He was on fentynl patches in the hospital and to downgrade to tramodol is quite a jump. He’s drinking and peeing; pooped yest (yAY) but is only eating some deli meat and can dog food. I free feed them; always have and they both graze throughout the day but he hasn’t even looked at his food bowl. I gave them each a whole can of dog food the other night and Oscar ate about 3/4 of it so gave 1/2 can last night and he ate the whole thing. thanks again for all the encouragement; you are indeed an angel!

Oscar, Gus and Lora (Oscar’s mom)

Tried to write friday pm but it wouldn’t let me log on. Didn’t try sat or sun but tried around 03 and again it wouldn’t let me but now at almost 05 it will. Must have problems in the middle of the night.

Oscar came home on saturday. we went to PT and this early in his recovery she said it’s mostly keeping him safe so she gave me massage techniques. Got him out of the truck ok; it was awkward but he landed safely. He took off and was going to go off the other end of the deck which has 2 steps so I stopped him because he didn’t know how to do steps. He’s been crying a lot; I take him outside, give him food, water, pain meds and he cries.

The physical therapist picked out a harness for him; it’s the convert walking harness. I was wondering about the custom made harness, also the step loader for the truck and a wheelchair?? It seems like it’s asking a lot to put all of that weight on his front leg.

The MD called and said she had his biopsy report and I’ll call her tomorrow. I just don’t know what to do for him; he seems so sad.

Oscar’s mom (Lora), Gus and Oscar

The little medical student Katie faithfully calls me every morning and late afternoon. He needed quite a bit of help walking last night and he isn’t eating. Today he was walking a little better; she said he was having trouble on the tile floors in the hospital area but did much better when he was outside on the concrete. He’s still in intensive care and his pain is being well controlled.

He may be able to come home on saturday; I’m not in a big hurry for him to be discharged because he needs to be doing fairly well. I’m an old lady with a bad back and Oscar outweighs me. Usually a bag of deli meat is a great incentive

Till tomorrow; over and out

Oscarsmom (Lora), Gus and Oscar

I have trouble with this site sometimes. I wasn’t able to publish my blog last night and it cut some of it off. Now the font is wacky. Anyway…….

I remember I had said last night that just before I went on this site I had a major “OH NO, WHAT HAVE I DONE?” moment. Katie (the little medical student) called me last night and said he was doing well and left me a message this am and said he seemed nervous and they were prepping him for surgery. When I opened this blog I was going to call it waiting and she called me to tell me he just came out of surgery and he’s doing well. There wasn’t too much bleeding which can happen with all the blood vessels they have to cut off and she’s going to call me later this evening when he wakes up. (My stomach is doing flip flops). Will add a post tonight. I’m going to read your comments now and then keep myself busy in the garden and cleaning.

First of all:  thank you so much for your supportive  comments!   And please benny55, don’t make comments about yourself; you have a heart of gold; that’s what’s important!

This morning we went to UW vet school for Oscar’s pre op physical.  I was with a student answering questions etc when I said; “Oh Oscar, you are dirty, we should see if we can  give you a bath tonight.”   The student then said “So you’re going to take him home and bring him back in for his sugery in the morning.”   I didn’t realize that they were planning on keeping him overnight tonight and then doing the surgery in the am.  In a way it was good to be surprised, otherwise I’m sure I would have freaked out if he werould have been home the night before  surgery.  I asked her to show me on his body where the surgery would be and I didn’t know (hadn’t thought about it) that they will be taking the whole sihoulder bone.  Yikes.       (I got another surprise when they wanted 1/2 of the cost of the surgery this am

Over the weekend of June 22 and June 23, a couple of times I wondered about that right front leg.  I remember thinking “did he break something in his foot?”   Went to see the vet on July 3rd and he decided Oscar needed x-rays of that right front leg.   At that time he also started Oscar on tramodol 5 pills every 12 hours.  Oscar had the leg x-ray on July 9th and when I picked him up at the end of the day, the Dr. mentioned “osteosarcoma”, showed me the x-ray and I was able to see the tumor.  His tramodol was changed from 5 pills every 12 hours to 5 pills every 8 to 12 hours.  (I then vaguely remembered someone had  mentioned cancer back in April when he had the first set of x-rays but I totally forgot about it.)  They were able to do the bone biopsy the next day and then we had to wait for the results.  I was pretty sure he did have cancer; he was limping etc.   I was also getting VERY frustrated trying to give him pills; tried rolling then in deli beef which worked for a couple of days and then he chewed the meat carefully and spit out the pills.  (on July 4th I grilled them each a steak and cut them into pieces: THEY DID NOT CHEW ONE PIECE OF MEAT; SWALLOWED EVERY PIECE WHOLE!  ).  He  did the same with deli turkey and ham, canned dog food, liverwurst, hot dogs and ice cream.  I even tried the ugly practice of shoving them down his throat, but he has a super gag reflelx and is able to eject them from his throat.  About 3 days ago–at my wits end– I tried chunky peanut butter and it’s working!  He can’t tell the pills from the peanuts.

THE DECISION.  

When Dr. Brooks showed/told  me about the cancer he also mentioned the usual treatment: amputation and chemo.  I was adament–NO AMPUTATION!  His hips are bad, he’s too big, it’s cruel etc etc.  My biggest concern was his comfort.  His results came back on tuesday July 16th and he did have  cancer.  I was able to get an appointment on Thursday July 18th at the University of Wisconsin vet hospital.  Wednesday July 17th, couldn’t sleep and found myself on “YOU TUBE”.  It was a site of people with their 3 legged dogs and how well they were doing.  A little crack appeared in my No Amputation decision.  The vets gave me all the treatment options and the amputation/chemo started looking better.  Asked for 1 night to think about it and the vet gave me the “Tripawd” website.  After seeing all the positive posts I made the decision to have his leg amputated; there should be 100%  pain relief.   I know if I don’t-his pain is going to keep increasing and his leg will probably fracture at some point.

I know he is miserable.  He’s not eating and he’s barely using that right foot.  He holds it up.  It was breaking my heart–he was still trying to play with his stuffies and limping the whole time.  But…he can still get up the stairs and on the bed.

Tomorrow we are going to the UW vet school for his pre-op physical.  (This blog is now caught up in time.)  Off to download the e-books to help me get ready for his surgery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello fellow fur parents; here we are in a situation no one thinks they will ever be in.  First of all, I would like to thank all of you for your positive and encouraging posts; especially atlasmom with your statement:  “absolutely no regrets”.   The compassion and support of this site is amazing!   So Oscar and I are going to tell our story in diary form as so many of you do and I hope we also are able to help people who find themselves in this awful place.  Here’s our story………

Oscar is an english mastiff; he came home with me when he was 10 weeks old; he was a little older because people had put money down on “the biggest puppy in the litter” but they never came back to get him.  I wasn’t planning on getting another dog, already had a couple:  Ben was an 8 year old chocolate lab and Gus was an english mastiff-about 7 or 8 months old.  As Gus got bigger, he became too much for my lab so I decided another dog as big as Gus was called for.  Called the ad in the paper and as it turned out, it was the same breeder that Gus came from–didn’t recognize the area code.  So Gus and Oscar are truly brothers–10 months apart.

We went along for the next 6 years;  Oscar was very healthy; only issue I had with him was he growled at his brother.  Usually it was some kind of dominance thing.

He has always slept  “frog legged”, never grew out of it.  I became concerned this past winter when his back legs were still wacky and backward.  Was finally able to get them x-rayed in April and he was diagnosed with bilateral hip dysplasia and significant arthritis in both hips.  He was put on Rimadyl 2x per day, Dasuquin (a supplement-glucosamine type) and Welactin (a concentrated fish oil).  On the advice of a friend, I also started going to a woman who prescribes herb and supplements and provides accupressure.  He was given Dr. Harvy’s comfort flex as well as some dandolion and milk thistle.  She did one short session of accupressure and said his spine felt tight.  THEN THE EVENING OF MONDAY June 24;   HE STARTED LIMPING AND HOLDING HIS RIGHT FRONT LEG UP A LITTLE.

To be continued…