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| evening snuggles on the couch are simply the best |
As some of you may know, the reason for the amputation was cancer - his radiographs showed something suspicious just below his left elbow. Osteosarcoma in dogs is not pleasant, often causing spontaneous fracture in addition to massive amounts of pain if left untreated. The prognosis with amputation isn't wonderful since metastasis occurs early, but there are things that can be done to extend quality of life and even minimise occurrence.
However, Rosco's histopath results, which eventually came back on Tuesday, show not osteosarcoma but a very odd hyperproliferative boney reaction going on. All three vets involved in his case (me included) are stumped by what was going on below his er, stump.
Since chemotherapy is proven value in minimising osteosarc mets and since Rosco has such an odd histopath result, weve asked the pathologists to look at more sections just in case the tumour is eluding detection. We may even ask for a second histopath opinion, and we're getting an second radiological consult too ... all in a hurry as we don't want to miss the window of opportunity to tackle a tumour if this is the case.
So we're cautiously optimistic that we just have a weird dog on our hands.
Rosco meanwhile is bounding (and I do mean bounding) along in rude health. He now lopes at a pretty rapid pace and needs very few stops on his daily walks. We're still not taking him the distance, staying only to local short walks but I think we'll start extending his range soon.
We should know soon if Christmas will be a cancer-free or a chemo-abundant one.
Right now we're just enjoying having a dog who is so obviously pain-free and happy, allbeit on three legs.
Stay tuned.
