giadog

That was pretty much exactly Po'boy's diagnosis, as well (except arthritis in only the left hip), and a combination of Quellin (rimadyl) and Gabapentin has brought him almost fully back to normal, and just as happy as he's always been. Hopefully Bella will respond just as well! I'm so sorry to hear about Magnus. Like others have said, that's the nightmare we all fear. My thoughts are with you.

We're dealing with this with Po'boy, as well, at 14ish years old. He's been doing the foot dragging in small doses for a couple years, then a couple weeks ago he REALLY started struggling with stairs. After that, I came home and he had slipped on the floor and wasn't able to get up, so I realized we had to really start taking it seriously. We've got him on Gabapentin and Quellin, plus glucosamine for the bit of arthritis in his back hip, and it seems to be helping quite a bit. I was planning on checking into chiro or acupuncture, but I hadn't heard about the depo injections... do they seem to help a lot?

Oh, I have a whole pharmacy of meds! Tramadol for pain, an antifungal for the corn, antibiotic for his terrible teeth, anti-inflammatory, gabapentin, and a muscle relaxer. He's definitely not feeling any pain right now. That said, even when the meds should be wearing down, he doesn't seem to be in as much pain, so I'm hoping it was a weird one-off. I'm still going to do the xrays and whatnot, but I'm not feeling quite so worried.

Brief update: the vet couldn't definitively rule out cancer, but she also didn't see anything that screamed cancer. More likely it's a pinched nerve/pulled muscle issue, in conjunction with a pretty bad corn on one foot that probably caused him to accommodate that foot and throw off his structure. We're going to run some Xrays and dig out the corn just to make sure, and probably do a dental while he's under, later this week.

Thanks for the advice, I'll be sure to have them check!

Hi, all, we're having an unusual issue with Po'boy, and I thought maybe someone here has gone through similar and has some insight. Friday night in the middle of the night, out of nowhere, we woke up to Po'boy doing the GSOD. Ran downstairs to check him, and nothing seemed obviously wrong. He's not limping, not favoring any particular body part that I can isolate, he's just clearly in overall pain and discomfort. When he lays down, he has to get up and shift every few minutes because he's uncomfortable, and often when he's shifting, he'll let out a scream. But he's walking fine, can jump up and down off the couch with no problems, and seems fine standing around. Eating and drinking normally. I called the vet to try to get him in on Saturday, but they didn't have any appointments till noon today. They did give me some Tramadol, so I've kept him pretty drugged up over the weekend to keep him comfortable. He seems fine when he's on the drugs. Any ideas for widespread, non-localized pain? My first thought was a pinched nerve. Of course I'm afraid of cancer, but this doesn't mimic either incident of bone cancer that I've gone through with other dogs.

I've had 2 greyhounds in my life, and in my experience, I wouldn't call them an overly expensive breed. Gia ended up with Osteo, and we went the full amp and chemo route, and if I recall, that came to somewhere in the 5k - 7k range, with insurance paying back about 3k. Po'boy's had no real medical issues (knock on wood), so other than a few hundred here and there for scrapes and scuffles, he's a fairly cheap date. I will say I've got the benefit of an awesome vet who knows my capabilities and will tell me based on descriptions and photos if a scrape or cut is something I should be able to handle on my own, or I should bring in for. I guess in the long run, having sent an American Bulldog through a 25k experimental brain surgery/cancer treatment (which was covered by the University study, thank doG), and putting the two cattle dogs through about 10k in treatment after my housefire, a few thousand here and there doesn't seem like a major expense over a lifetime.

Pam, I'm so sorry to see this post. You were both such fighters for him. Be proud of the life you gave him!

Hello from Madison! I drive past you every time I go home to visit my parents. I'll wave next time!

Gia is gone; her passing was peaceful and full of love whispers in her ear. DH made it as difficult for me as possible, but at least waited till after she was gone.

Well, today will be the day for Gia. She had another rough night last night despite adding the gabapentin in. I won't make her go through that again. She seemed a bit more herself this morning, but still just tired and ready, I think. xish-DH came over last night after I was done with my 2nd job and at least got a couple hours with her. He'll come with me on the vet visit tonight. She was our dog, and regardless of what's going on between us, Gia deserves to have as much love around her as possible. If I could I'd have the room full of all the people who loved her; she touched so many people.

Hi, all, sorry I've been a stranger... and now I'm back, with bad news, unfortunately. A few weeks ago, Gia started showing signs of discomfort, and her remaining front leg was swollen. I feared the worst, that the tumor had come back in her other leg and we'd have to put her to sleep immediately. I got her to the vet, and luckily, it turned out to be hypertrophic osteoarthropathy--the metastasized tumor in her lungs was pressing on nerves that were creating pain reactions in her remaining legs. We've been managing it with pain meds since then, but in the past few days, the meds have proven less and less effective, and the vet thinks we're fighting a quickly losing battle. He said there are really no other meds that will fight this well enough to get her back to a semblance of comfort, so I fear at this point, we've reached the end. So now I'm faced with all the heartache of that, plus trying to come to terms with whether or not I should let soon-to-be-xDH spend the day unsupervised at home with her... It feels dang near evil of me to keep him from spending as much time with her as possible, especially since i'm sure she'd love to be cuddling with someone at this point, too, but I worry about him having free reign at the house. Too much sadness to sift through to know what's the right decision at this point.

Great news!

I didn't really get a lot of information, because I'm at work and was already getting worked up just getting the news. Will the doxorubicin (I think that is what he said) reduce the tumor or just slow it down? How does it work from here?

Gia went in for her x-ray checkup today. They found a 2 cm spot on her lungs. We're going to switch back to IV chemo, a different drug. I don't remember the name of it. She was doing so well, I thought she'd be the one to defy the odds.