Carly's Story

So,  I’m going to start a blog about my pups journey with becoming a tripawd and how our family is adjusting as well.  Carly Mia is a 154# 6 year old female Bull Mastiff who has recently been diagnosed with Osteosarcoma.  I was there when she was born, and I’ve fed her and cuddled her since then! She has always been a laid back dog, being a Bullmastiff and all, they have 10-15 minute spurts of energy and then they are done. She has always had such a good spirit and when we noticed her limping on her front right leg, and saw she had a hard lump there, we immediately became concerned, thinking she hurt herself getting up into or down out of our bed. So my husband took her to the vet. They examined her, and said she probably just sprained her ankle there, so he gave her an antibiotic and sent them home. Carly seemed to get better, but it was only temporary. October 2, we took her back to the vet, where the vet examined her again, and this time, took an x-ray of the site. What he came in and told us was nothing I had ever expected…..he showed us the x-ray where it showed a tumor in that leg, and said that he was leaning towards the cancer diagnosis. I lost it. She sure didn’t act like a dog with cancer! So, he sent the X-ray to another specialist to have a look, and said he would give us a call when he got their results back. That was the longest weekend of my life. We finally heard back from him on Monday, saying yes, the doctor agreed that it was in fact osteosarcoma, so we scheduled an appointment with the vet hospital where we would begin our treatment of this nasty disease. We had no idea what we were in for….but we did know we wanted our pup to be pain free and happy again!  She had surgery- amputation of her front right leg October 12th,  2015. It’s still very early in her recovery but she is doing great adjusting.  We are still trying to control her pain and get the doses right,  and having some side effects to them.  She is on Tramadol 1 twice a day,  Trileptal 6 twice a day,  Rimadyl 3 twice a day and also  an antibiotic twice a day.  I think she has some signs of phantom limb pain and have a call into the doctor about putting her back on the Gabapentin as I’ve read on here it helps greatly.  She seems to have restlessness,  some shaking and panting as well.  But it’s not every day either… So it’s tough to know what is causing the symptoms.  Well,  this is the start!  Thankful to have the support of so many others here!