Kiara's Journey

I have not been very good at keeping this blog updated, because it seems like cancer has touched every aspect of my life lately, from family to friends and even my beloved Kiara.  Kiara has earned her wings, so I feel I need to finish her story.

Kiara received 4 rounds of carboplatin ending in mid-march.  She did not really
have any side effects from the carboplatin.  She was then entered into clinical
trial of Palladia/Piroxicam/Cyclophosphamide and was randomized to the aggressive arm of the study.  She started receiving Palladia every other day and Proxicam/Cyclophosphamide the other days of the week.  She started to experience
some of the side effects of Palladia.  She suffered weakness in the hind quarters, so we took her off of the Palladia for a week.  A week later when she started taking the Palladia again the dose was lowered and did not experience any side effects again for months.  She had a really good spring and summer, until August when she slipped on the dew in the grass and injured a disc in her neck.  She was started on pain killers and restricted activity.  It took about 3 weeks, but she was back normal.  Sometime in mid-September she began using her front leg more cautiously and stumpled periodically — over time that behavior became worse.  I took her to her check-up on Oct 6^th and learned that she had two new tumors, on in her neck and the other in the elbow of her remaining front limb.  She declined very quickly and by Oct 11th she could not walk on her own, we needed to help her with a sling.  We decided to release her from her pain and we said goodbye the next morning.

She is at peace now and is running free at the rainbow bridge with her sister Zira (pictured with her above) who preceded her in death in Dec 2010.

 

 

 

Kiara had her 1^stround of Chemotherapy on Thursday Jan 27, 2011.  We met with oncology and they told us that Kiara qualified for a clinical trial of Palladia/Piroxicam/Cyclophosphamide Therapy for Dogs with Osteosarcoma at the University of Madison Wis.  We thought about it, and decided to sign her up for it.  Phase 1 of the trial has her receiving 4 rounds of carboplatin every three week followed by a blood test 1 week later.  After the first treatment, she is doing really well.  At least better than I expected.  Really the only side effect that I have noticed is she had been a little more tired but she seems happy with no other noticed side effects.  What I enjoy seeing the most is that looking into her eyes I can tell she is back to the dog she was before the cancer diagnosis – minus the leg of course.  She has been comfortable, is off pain meds for 3-4 days now and is getting around quite well.  She is doing stairs well and is doing some running outside with little effort.  My husband and I had noticed that her gums seemed a bit paler than normal this morning which was a little concerning so we took her temperature and it was normal so we didn’t feel it was anything to worry about, but I will be calling the oncologist tomorrow.  Later in the day they were pink and normal.   Which was really nice to see.

She seems to be handling the snow really well.   She was outside to today with our daughter playing in the snow.

 

I just wanted to convey our thanks for the support and advice over the pass several weeks.  It really helped to know we were not alone in our journey.

osteosarcoma.

The vet called with the pathology report today and it turns out to be osteosarcoma as was suspected.  The one piece of optimistic news is that the lymph node they biopsied came back benign.  We have scheduled chemotherapy to start on Thursday, Jan 27.

This week has been kind of frustrating; she just has not been acting like herself.   She has been confined to a small room with limited activity (like we were instructed), but now she is acting depressed or more like she has cabin fever.  She has begun to pace the floor and just does not seem like she is comfortable anymore.  She is also panting a lot.  We are trying to figure out if she is in pain, stressed out or just wanting to get to her favor spot at the top of the stairs.  We can see she is gaining strength and stability as she adjusts to being on three legs.  She has always been a very independent but affectionate dog and it seems like she is confused as to why she is perhaps being punished and confined.  We, too, are eager to allow her more mobility but that requires climbing stairs and the risk of her tiring and falling which we want to prevent early on in her recovery.

As I start this blog, Kiara, our 3 year old Doberman, is currently at the vet’s office recovering from having amputation surgery becoming a tripawd – losing her left front leg.  This is all so new and I am very grateful that I found this site.  It has helped make a very difficult decision a little easier.  That is why I felt that we needed to share Kiara’s Journey.   Let’s take a few steps back to Dec 10, 2010.  It starts snowing outside; Kiara and her sister Zira go outside for a quick romp in the 1^st measureable snowfall of the year.   They come inside after about 30 minutes running and playing in the snow and now Kiara has a noticeable limp.  We figured she sprained something while playing outside.  We decided to just restrict her activity for a few days (for a 3 year old Doberman this was rather difficult), but we did the best we could.  A week of restricted activity goes by and she is not noticeably better, so we make an appointment to take her to our primary care vet.  After the vet examined her, they felt her left shoulder was the problem.  They also thought she just sprained or pulled something, and prescribed rimadyl and rest.  We opted not to have radiographs taken because they felt there was no break and nothing actionable would come from radiographs.  We bring Kiara home and start her on the rimadyl regiment.  A few days go by with no noticeable change in her limp; if anything I felt she was getting worse…by this time she has yelping as few times in her sleep.  It was time to take her back to the vet for a follow-up, but before we could get her back to our primary care vet we notice that her left front paw is cool, noticeable colder than the other 3 paws.   We called the vet and they would like to see her right away.  We take her to the vet office, and see an orthopedic and have radiographs taken.  The orthopedic tells us that Kiara has a primary bone tumor and is most likely osteosarcoma, but there is a small chance it could be a fungal infection.  We need a bone biopsy to confirm osteosarcoma.  We schedule the biopsy to take place the next day, Dec 23.  I pick Kiara up on Dec 23 after her biopsy to find out we need to wait 7-10 days before the pathology would come back.  That evening Kiara seems depressed, sleepy from the anesthesia or just in pain.  I am not sure which.  We celebrated a quiet Christmas together with friends and family.  On Dec 27, Kiara’s sister Zira passes away, she was almost 10. 

Dec 30, the results of Kiara biopsy come back…normal bone growth, but the orthopedist still felt it was cancer and we needed to amputate.  Wow, what a shock.  We sure were not expecting this.  How do we amputate her leg without a definitive diagnosis?   The orthopedist told us we could do a urine fungus test to rule out fungus, but it would take a week to get the results back.   So in the meantime, we decide to get a second opinion.  So on Jan 5, 2011 we took her for second opinion.  They also came to the conclusion it was cancer based on the radiographs and a physical.  On Jan 6, we had an appointment with our vet and they told us the fungal test came back negative.  So, later that day we met with an oncologist who outlined our options.   A difficult decision to say the least.  Are we opting for amputation for us or for her (or both)?  Without knowing what type of cancer we don’t know her real prognosis.  We knew she was in pain and wasn’t happy.  We had to do something.  The choices were amputation or pain medications for a few weeks/months and euthanasia?  We scheduled amputation surgery for Jan 14^th. 

Jan 17 – Jan 21:  Kiara came home on Jan 17 and of course it was in the middle of a snow storm.  We have had some of the normal ups and downs of the first week.  We did have a small setback on Jan 19; two of her remaining three limbs were really swollen.  We had another trip to the vet, 2 hours later and a blood test to check for infection later, the explanation for the swollen limb was inactivity.  We need to restrict her activity less – even though we were told to restrict her activity initially… we obeyed too well.