Dog Amputation Three Legged Dog

Life Without Jack Day 1

The world seems too quiet,
The birds seem to bold,
My yard seems to large,
I miss Jack.

Sorry for the lack of updates.

Jack is still with us but we almost put her down last week. We’ve racked up $18k in medical bills. It’s hard to know if she needs to go or if she has time. That day was the worst, she was clearly in pain that you would not want to leave your dog in. The drugs were not strong enough. However after receiving her acupuncture she calmed down and returned to her normal self. The Rimadyl and Trumadal resumed being effective and we also started Codine for times like that where her pain spikes. She’s still so much a puppy when not feeling the pain. She has two more Chemo treatments that we are hoping will stop the tumor in her hip that causes the pain. I feel either we’ll have a breakthrough or it won’t be long now, I just wish I had a clear sign. We also started giving her herbs for the pain and inflamation from our eastern medicine doctor. We’re hoping those help augment the drugs. The good news is that when the drugs are managing the pain she’s not doped up or anything just is not in distress and is her normal self. The chemo also makes it hard to determine what is pain and what is a side effect of chemo and radiation.

My Dog Amputation Story A Bit Late

So I’ve got three dogs, one almost 14, one 6 and my youngest who is five who this blog is about. My 14 year old we recently found out has 4 tumors, 1 on the liver operable but three on the kidney, spleen and something else non-operable. We’ve been torn about removing the liver tumor as she’s not bothered by any of them and she is 14. We decided to wait 4-6 weeks to see how her appetite and attitude was and the re-ultrasound and make more decisions. So my youngest 5 year old has been limping for about three weeks and finally stopped putting weight on her rear left leg. We brought her in and the vet after some blurry xrays due to her moving thought she might have a torn ACL. I actually was glad to have a dog with an issue that only money would solve via an operation after having two other dogs die of cancers. We were all ready to have the ACL surgury done when he sent the xrays to the surgeon who would do the operation. He had a dog with xrays just like what he was seeing, and it was bone cancer in his case. We took her to our University of Minnesota small animal hospital for new xrays and a new opininon. That produced nice digital xrays where the Doctor felt it was 90% certain we were dealing with Osteosarcoma bone cancer which was eating her from the inside out. I had wanted to amputate the leg to eliminate the pain and then move on to chemotherapy etc. My wife and local vet wanted to do a bone biopsy just to be sure. This however would have delayed any pain relief as with the Thanksgiving holiday and time it takes to get the biopsy results we would have been a week or so out and likley been amputating anyway. The night before the biopsy she was in alot of pain, not sleeping and moving about whimpering due to her pain. The cancer likley had caused multiple small fractures in her bones causing pain as it eats from the inside out. My wife called the surgeon and lucky for us we could change the procedure from biopsy to removal of the leg. We’ve thankfully been able to use the time for healing after the amputation and as I thought the analysis of the leg produced Osteosarcoma which requires the leg be removed as a pain relief procedure and cancer fighting procedure. She’s healed well but is depressed but can move about just fine. We now have to do chemotherapy to prolong whatever life she has. I anticipate 6-18 months of good life with her and will plan to make the most of it. Besides the leg removal she’s fine so I see no reason we cannot have many many happy months ahead.

Dog Leg Amputation Cost

When faced with the prospect of having an amputation of my dog’s leg I was of course curious as to the cost. I was prepared to spend whatever it took but still wanted to know in advance so I could set the funds aside. If you are wondering what a dog amputation will cost I can tell you that to have the left rear leg amputated cost about $1500.00 This was on top of the $597 that we spent for xrays and costs for consultation prior to her amputation. We do expect to do chemotherapy as well. We have to wait for her to heal first so I do not know the cost but will update this blog when I know the cost of chemotherapy post amputation.

Information About Bone Cancer And Dog Amputation

I’ll write more on this later, we removed the leg from my dog through amputation because she was in a great amount of pain. We never got to do a bone biopsy due to this. We’ll find out this week after her removed leg is examined if she indeed did have bone cancer. Here are a few sites that provide good information on Bone Cancer and Dog Amputation.

Bone Cancer Dogs