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 1st 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 14th.
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.
Sorry this comes so late after your post, but hang in there Kiara and family! The first couple weeks are always grueling. Paws crossed for no complications on top of an already difficult recovery process. My last dog, and last tripawd, Yoda, was very very likely a doberman mix (though I’ll never know for sure). He had to lose his front right leg to an osteosarcoma tumor. He didn’t have long after that (though many dogs do!), but the time he had was very high quality! He was a mellow guy, but even so, I totally hear you about having a hard time keeping activity low. Thank goodness once the incision heals, they don’t have to take it easy any more! Just one week before Yoda passed, he still caught a rabbit in the yard!
Best wishes. I hope you keep updating.
(Oh, and Gerry is my dog now – he was a shelter dog with a badly injured knee and amputatoin was deemed his best bet. Anyhow, I strongly suspect he’s part doberman too).
Welcome and thank you for sharing Kiara’s story!
Sorry for the late comment, but by blocking search engines as you have in your Privacy settings, the Tripawds community is not getting notified of your new posts. Consider making your site “visible” to everyone, or start a new forum topic and reply with a link there every time you update Kiara’s blog.