betty_joanne

UPDATE: I don't even know what to say. After doing better for almost four weeks Nilla took a turn for the worst. She stopped using her left leg again and appeared to be in pain.I didn't even need the technician to explain the x-rays today. Her Left pelvis and femur have been completely destroyed by osteo sarcoma. Amputation and/or chemo aren't even an option. I have to say good bye tomorrow. I feel horrible that she was in pain for so long. The difference between the x-ray last month and the one today is incredibly heartbreaking. Two cancer diagnoses in less than two weeks. There are just no words to describe how I feel right now.

We are going to start giving prednisone tommarow. I am not sure if it will give us more time but we have decided to not do chemo. Almost all of his lymph nodes are swollen now and he still has a terrible cough. I would prefer that he goes with dignity but it is up to my husband. "Grandma"(my mom) came by today and he was soo excited to see her. He loves my mom.

I just spoke to the vet. Chocko has lymphomasarcoma high grade.

Our oldest greyhound Chocko started coughing on April 1, 2019 and we noticed after a vet visit on the 5th that he had swollen nodules in his neck. Somehow, we missed the swollen nodules and the vet did too on that visit so we took him to his other vet a week later and got a fine needle aspiration from the nodules in his neck. He took a weeks worth of doxycycline and then the second vet switched him over to Clindamycin just incase it was due to a mouth infections. His check x-ray at the 2nd vet was clear. We are waiting on the pathology results from Friday. Yesterday, he was "mouth breathing" (had his mouth open just slightly all day when he was awake or sleeping). Today, Chocko now has a swollen nodule in his back left leg behind the knee and the same leg has swelling between the food pad and "ankle". He also appears to have a larger belly and a new fat pouch just in front of his penis. I am just heartbroken and can't keep it together. This is my husband's heart dog. He was our first greyhound and we have so many "first greyhound memories" with him. I just can't stop crying.

Update: Nilla is doing well after her stem cell injection. She still is not using her back leg fully but is putting weight on it more frequently as time goes by. She still becomes a pretend three legged brindle kangaroo in the backyard though. Her eyes are bright again and she is happy and eating good. We are happy she is doing well because our oldest has become sick and we are waiting on his pathology results. Our vet looked at his lymph node cells(taken from left and right side on neck) and said they look highly suspicious. Our first half of 2019 sure has been difficult. We are used to having healthy dogs and now that two of them are seniors and starting to have issues it is heartbreaking. Just two weeks ago I thought we were going to have to put Nilla down and now this. We got Chocko first and he is my husband's heart dog. He was the very first greyhound anyone in my family saw in person or touched. Yep, we went home with the big, black, and handsome office dog at the track. Best decision ever!

We picked up Nilla yesterday and she is doing well. She did not eat last night but that was to be expected due to her coming off of the anesthesia. This morning she has already eaten a couple of milk bones, cesar turkey wet dog food, and a frosty paw. She is putting a small amount of weight on the bad leg and it is paw side down 90% of the time when she decides to put it down. She is still limping and her left leg muscle has atrophied a lot. The amount of muscle one can lose in just over a week is just crazy. We are so happy!

NIlla has compression in her spine at the t9-t10 vertebrae. Mostly likely IVDD. The mri showed nothing abnormal about the hips. Today, she will get a stem cell injection into her spine with hopes that it will improve her condition. We will bring her home tonight. Tonight we will have spent nearly $4,000 on her diagnosis and treatment. We will not do back surgery on her. If the stem cell injection does not improve her condition and she does not start eating again we will have to let her go. It is not what we want to do but we have to be realistic about her condition and pain. I can't believe she went from acting like a normal, healthy dog to this in a just 4 days.

NIlla is going in for a mri on Wednesday morning. We saw a different vet at the same vet clinic that we went to last Wednesday. The vet told us that he felt the heart is not causing the pain that she is in and an ultrasound would not be a good option because he thinks that the issue is on the lumbar part of the spine and also possibly a groin ligament injury(in addition to the spinal cord injury). He is thinking either FCE or a spinal cord injury/issue of some kind. He is confused that she is in soo much pain though because a FCE almost always does not cause this amount of pain almost a week after the injury/incident. Nilla has lost 2.5 lbs and thankfully she isn't dehydrated. Also, we were given samples of CBD chews to give to her. She is almost out of Tramadol but we have found that the Gabapentin actually seems to work better for her. She is starting to adapt to being on just her three legs. She still wants me to carry her outside but then she hops really fast back inside once she is done.

I have learned that it is very difficult to find images of x-rays of greyhound hearts on the internet. I can't tell if there is an issue when looking at the side view but the other x-ray may or may not be heart disease. It does look big but I don't really have any other greyhound x-rays to compare it to.

trying again. In my opinion, the left femur at the top might have the moth like appearance of osteo. The vet looking at the x-rays ruled osteo out though. She isn't laying perfectly straight for the x-ray so that may be why it looks this way. I don't know.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Am8M-rwo-bcMhXbzzU3JaelZamBB trying to make a link using onedrive. not sure if it will work. I think that this x-ray is the most suspicious.

I just got the x-rays via e-mail and sent them to dr.couto to see how much a consult would be. In the process I realized that the vet only took a close of up the right rear leg and did not take one of the left rear leg(which is the leg that she is not bearing weight on). There are like 9 x-rays and none show a close of up the knee patella area on the left leg. Hopefully she just forgot to send e-mail it because if not I am very upset that it wasn't done.

The main issue now is that she is not eating. She had half a chicken thigh, cream cheese w/ meds and yogurt yesterday. That's it. I am still lifting her to take her outside but once her bladder is empty she is hopping on the back right leg back inside. I will say that she is actually squatting low to pee again. She refuses to lay down sometimes and when she does she will only lay down on her right side. She is panting and in pain. She only yelps if she is laying on her side and you move her left or right leg upward/downward at the hip joint. Her pain meds only give her comfort for about 2-2.5 hours and she only gets them twice a day. I am struggling with the fact that she is losing weight and in pain for several hours a day. The vet has worked on greyhounds but does need reminding that they are different. He did go by the greyhound blood work chart when they did Nilla's blood work before the x-rays. At this point, unless things change drastically, I think we will have to make a choice early to mid week on if we should let her go. I just can not let my dog slowly starve and be in pain. She has been knuckling her left paw since Tuesday. She will not place it at all on the foot pad. Both vets checked this.

ProBNP is 1078. That is not really above normal for a greyhound.

This sounds like what I am going through with my greyhound. She does have some hip pain though. I know this is an old thread but did you get a diagnosis?