Morgan

Today is Day 4 and what a difference. First thank you to everyone for advice and feedback on the pain, I think a lot of his issues were actually side effects. I need to keep reminding myself that dogs are not humans and the side effects are different, I always find myself thinking of my patients and none have ever complained of wimpering or panting from pain meds! Now that would be interesting.

Morgan’s appetite has returned after about 3 weeks of lack of hunger. It has been so great to see him happy to eat again and look for food. Pain is much better and his mobility is so much improved. Now time to work on not licking the staples, luckily he let me reapply the bandage yesterday. Morgan does not handle “the cone” at all thanks to his anxiety that we just can’t go there. He’s also enjoying the daily ice sessions, just relaxing as Matt ices his incision, so far so good no signs of seroma!

Today was his first walk in weeks and the happiness was huge! We only went about 1/2 mile and by the end he was slowing. It is just great to be back out again and know that there is more to come as he gets stronger. 10 days until staple removal and recheck of the lungs and post-surgery cough…

Meet Morgan, a 7 1/2 year old lab-shepard-?? mix who came into our lives as a rescue pup when he was just a few months old and much smaller! He quickly grew and showed his stubborn, persistent personality and has been the protector and playful pup since the beginning. Morgan loves to run and frequently accompanied me on my morning runs.

This all changed in early August 2013, he spent a week being ill with gastrointestinal junk then soon after stopped putting weight on his right rear leg. Since he was always running, jumping and playing we went with the assumption he injured his leg. The vet agreed and nothing was looking too terrible on exam, we started some pain meds and encouraged rest. The leg continued to worsen and we returned the the vet on September 6th. After more exam we were about to leave with a consult to orthopedics and impending knee surgery but the vet had a feeling and requested a repeat X-ray to show more of Morgan’s femur. There it was, the cause of the knee swelling…a large growth on his right distal femur which we assumed was osteosarcoma. Talk about life being quickly flipped upside down. I immediately called the oncology department at The University Vet Center and we took the soonest appointment on September 23rd.

September 23rd brought hope and good news, he was healthy, lungs were clear= No Mets! and he was a perfect candidate for a clinical trial. He underwent a bone biopsy the following day but he was quickly removed from the trial. The surgeon found crumbling bone and knew the tumor had grown since the original vet visit. The good news from this was no waiting 10 days to get rid of the worthless painful leg.

September 25th- Amputation Day! all went great and Morgan became a 3 legged pup. He came back home about 24 hours after surgery and now his new life begins…

Luckily he is moving great, but we work on pain control and eating, all while explaining to a 3 1/2 year old little girl what her puppy is going through and why she can’t play with him like she used to. He remains stubborn and insists on sleeping upstairs no matter what we do to stop him. Last night brought us all a rough night, pain and wimpering meant little sleep for the humans. Hoping each day continues to improve and the good news follows.

Next up chemotherapy to begin in 2 weeks…

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