kaiser715
Doing hard time
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2006
- Location
- 7, Pocket, NC
Bad dog news.... Blaze, our Belgian Wafflehound (i.o.w., mutt), started limping back around Christmas. Left front leg. Then, when we had that ice storm first week of January, he slipped and we thought just tore the muscle....just a soft tissue injury. But...it hasn't healed, and swelling continued to increase over the following weeks. We have had several vet exams and x-rays over the past couple of months, and been monitoring it.
Finally, decided that there was some underlying cause for it not healing, and Friday a week ago, did a needle aspiration. Pathology report came back this past Thursday showing soft tissue sarcoma. A cancer for which chemo is not an option, and where it was located (upper leg/armpit area) would not allow full access for radiation therapy. The one option was amputation, but again, that type of cancer would be hard to eradicate, and that high in the leg would involve removing a lot of muscle and tissue from the chest and back, and probably his shoulder blade too, leading to a long and painful recovery.
The past few nights, he has been in right much pain. That upper leg was 3-4 times normal size, and by today was hard as a rock. The slightest movement elicited yelps of pain. Last night, at 130a.m., we took him to the veterinary ER in Cary. Got a morphine shot, which should have held him for 8-12 hours, but severe pain returned in a couple of hours. He has been on quite a cocktail of pills for several weeks for pain management, and by today we were maxed out on dosages of about 5 different meds.
By noon today, we decided what must be done, and took him back to the vet ER, and made the hardest decision of my life.
Blaze came to us in 2010...he found us, just showed up on our porch, and moved right in. At that time, we thought he was 2 or 3 years old, so figure 10-11 now. We have made sure that the last 8 have more than made up for whatever he endured the first couple of years of life. We treated him well, and he was a great dog in return. Never had an accident in the house, never chewed up a shoe or anything, travelled well.
We will miss him greatly.
Finally, decided that there was some underlying cause for it not healing, and Friday a week ago, did a needle aspiration. Pathology report came back this past Thursday showing soft tissue sarcoma. A cancer for which chemo is not an option, and where it was located (upper leg/armpit area) would not allow full access for radiation therapy. The one option was amputation, but again, that type of cancer would be hard to eradicate, and that high in the leg would involve removing a lot of muscle and tissue from the chest and back, and probably his shoulder blade too, leading to a long and painful recovery.
The past few nights, he has been in right much pain. That upper leg was 3-4 times normal size, and by today was hard as a rock. The slightest movement elicited yelps of pain. Last night, at 130a.m., we took him to the veterinary ER in Cary. Got a morphine shot, which should have held him for 8-12 hours, but severe pain returned in a couple of hours. He has been on quite a cocktail of pills for several weeks for pain management, and by today we were maxed out on dosages of about 5 different meds.
By noon today, we decided what must be done, and took him back to the vet ER, and made the hardest decision of my life.
Blaze came to us in 2010...he found us, just showed up on our porch, and moved right in. At that time, we thought he was 2 or 3 years old, so figure 10-11 now. We have made sure that the last 8 have more than made up for whatever he endured the first couple of years of life. We treated him well, and he was a great dog in return. Never had an accident in the house, never chewed up a shoe or anything, travelled well.
We will miss him greatly.
