LakeshoreGreys

Welcome! I'm in Manitowoc, WI.

Our Molly developed an egg-sized lump seemingly out of nowhere on her forearm, between her foot and her ankle. We noticed it last Monday, our vet took a needle biopsy Tuesday, and results were small tissue sarcoma. Met with an oncologist this Monday, who gave us all of the treatment options. We're leaning toward an amputation. Does anyone have experience with this that would be willing to share their story?

Since our appointment was so late yesterday, they won't send out till today. So likely Friday or Monday.

Sample sent in, but vet thinks soft tissue sarcoma or mast cell tumor.

No limp, thankfully. Appreciate the good thoughts.

We already had an appointment set up for our cat, so if the vet can't get us in earlier, I'll take her in at 5 tomorrow.

Just found a lump on Molly's forearm, above her wrist. So scared it might be cancer. Will call vet in a.m. She is almost 7 years old. I am in tears.

Cancer.

My guard dog, Mama's big boy. You jumped into my lap and into our hearts two and a half years ago after your owner could no longer care for you. We were not looking to add to our family when I saw your picture, but something in your eyes spoke to me. A little chubby and a lot of happy, your personality was huge. You had many traits, many of them shared with previous hounds of ours that had already taken their trip to the bridge. You were the perfect combination of them all, and you had your own personality quirks to add as well. Always an enthusiastic greeting for those you knew and loved, and a different, scarier bark and growl for unfamiliar vehicles (and, of course, the school bus and garbage truck). You made me feel safe when Papa was out of town on business. I am only sorry for not having more years to spend with you, and for the last three months. Had we known in August what we know now, we would never have left you suffer as long as you did. Godspeed, our Comanche, our Chi Chi, our Cheech. Say hello to the others for us.

Well, here we are almost 3 months later. He was improving on the pred, though he got scary skinny. We tapered down gradually, from 50 to 5. About a month ago, he got really puffy right by his eye. Bad tooth abscess. Full dental a with that tooth removed. We've been fighting an infection ever since then...very stinky and so bad it burst through to the surface 2 weeks ago. Seemed to be healing nicely finally last week, but this week it's back with a vengeance. He has been cultured several times with med changes but nothing can knock it out. Biopsy was done on the tooth and removed tissue and though cancer was not apparent, the pathologist said she wouldn't rule it out. Meanwhile, Comanche is uncomfortable. His face is constantly oozing and he is rubbing it on everything. Appetite is way down...today no interest at all in breakfast. Even with various enticers, it is hard to get him to take his meds. Vet said we should expect culture to come back today or tomorrow. If there is not something that says, xXxX will knock it out, she mentioned a biopsy.She's thinking cancer. And we don't think we want to put him through another biopsy. If it turns out to be cancer, there is not much we can do for him anyway. So this morning I woke up to him on the bed with me. This is where we'll stay today...as long as he wants. I just want him to be comfortable.

Just an update...he's been on prednisone for a week now, and is doing better. Had him in for a recheck and she wants to stay the course with the prednisone for a while. Still a very painful response when she presses on his muscle around his eye area, and it is more sunken looking. However, sometimes he will let out a bark or two, and his jaw chatters like crazy at mealtime. The tramadol seems to take the edge off the pain for him.

She said she took a good look. He wasn't sedated or anything like that, though. I begged her to take a thorough look when we had planned to do the biopsy, and she said she had been planning on it!

On the 19th, his CBC came back normal. Turns out she did not run the antibody test right away. She was planning to do a biopsy instead for a more definitive answer and prognosis. When we brought him in on Thursday for the biopsy, she changed her mind because he does not have a lot of muscle there and she would have had to cut way up to his eye to get a decent sample. So instead, she took another sample and send that in for the 2m antibody test. That came back with a number less than 1-100, and with the muscle atrophy he appears to have, she's thinking it's end stage masticatory myositis. Since we had him on Dermaxx, we have to wait a week to start prednisone (just like you said, tbhounds!)- so he'll start that this coming Saturday. In the mean time, he is on Tramadol - 2 50mg pills every 6 hours - but that does not seem to be working nearly as well as the Dermaxx did. With the Dermaxx, he was almost back to his old self and even tried barking. With the Tramadol, he barely moves, and yesterday he let out a yelp trying to eat a piece of hot dog - 3 hours after getting his dose. Are there any alternatives to Tramadol that work better (and are not NSAIDS)?

Thanks, Bradymom! tbhounds, Not sure, can you tell me more? She said she was sending the blood test into San Francisco or San Diego or something, I think. Maybe St. Louis?

She's leaning toward masticatory myositis. She's running a CBC and sending it out, and also is doing a urinalysis and protein/creatinine ratio. She said that she always thinks the worst, but that until tomorrow when the blood tests come back, we should not worry. That she's not worried yet, so we shouldn't be either. We do have a baby dosage of Dermaxx to relieve some of his pain.

Will do. He goes in in an hour and a half. Will post when we return.

Duckie, I don't notice a difference. Good thought though! My first thought was tooth too. He just had a dental in April, but anything is possible I guess. Masticatory Myocitis looks scary. I'm really worried about him. He's not himself - normally he's up and greeting us and pawing at the ground and barking, but he just lays on the couch. He's also one that "watches the clock" and knows what time his meals and treats are, and doesn't let us forget...but not the past few days. I worry it's going to be something terrible. I'm usually pretty laid back with dog stuff, because after 20 years of greyhounds, sometimes I think we've been through it all. But this is a new one on us. Even DH is worried.

Our ten year old suddenly developed pain when opening his jaw. He eats his kibble okay, but will not touch cookies. We tried opening his mouth wider to look, but he screamed. He does not bark any more either. We have an appointment tomorrow morning, but are wondering if anyone else has experienced this with their hound.

Just want to share this because I still feel guilty about this...our dog Joe had a limp. We took him to our vet on a Friday, who said "Eh, just keep an eye on it and if he's not better Monday, call me." He also gave us some pain meds. Sunday night when Joe came in from his bedtime turnout, he would not walk on his leg at all. When we took him in Monday morning first thing, the xrays showed that not only did he have osteo, but he must have broken his leg at that bedtime turnout. He did not cry out at all, our brave boy! And aside from the limping, he was acting normal and happy and healthy. Instinct told me when he started limping that it was not good, and I still feel guilty about not pushing the vet to take an xray right away. Not trying to scare anyone, more that I am trying to make it up to Joey by sharing his story with others in hopes that his pain can be avoided by other greys. KaraBear, I hope your guy's limping is not serious!

Hey Jey, yeah, they sent it out last Thursday and called Monday with the results. She even commented that some of the testing might be done Friday, but since the culture takes a while, she'd wait until all of it was in before she called.

Only new thing I can think of is we typically give the Kirkland dry dog biscuits but we ran out, so I had to substitute Milk Bones (just the plain, uncolored ones) until we got back to Costco. Thanks for sharing that thought, Sambuca!

No infections were found. They ran a tick panel (negative), cbc (nothing unusual), urine culture (negative), urinalysis. Urinalysis came back with high protein value again, so they sent out for a protein/creatinine ratio. I guess his protein was .9 and it should be .2. If I understood her correctly (why do the vets always talk so fast!), she wants to try an ace inhibitor for 2 weeks. I guess that will decrease the blood flow to the kidneys and <I didn't understand this part but DH said he thought she said it would give them more time to process the urine>. Then we recheck in 2 weeks and hopefully the protein number is lower. She said it's not kidney failure but early kidney insufficiency. Not sure what the difference is there, but we'll try the test and once we see the results I will ask her to summarize for us.

We adopted our newest boy in early June, and he is 8 years old. Never had an accident in the house, even when he first joined our family. There were times he would do his last potty for the night at 7p and be fine until 6a (though typically he's up with DH at 4a) About a month ago, we noticed his bed was wet in the morning. Took him into the vet and they said there *could* be a touch of bladder infection and put him on an antibiotic (cephlalexin) for two weeks. We noticed that we had been filling the water bowl a little more than usual, but not a drastic amount...and with the others using the bowl as well, we weren't sure he was the culprit. We since make an effort to get him out for his last potty for the night a little later, between 9 & 10. Between that and the meds, he was dry for about 2 weeks. This week, we're back to wet beds and he is drinking A LOT. Today, for example, I filled the water bowl four times. It holds a quart of water, and was bone dry between fillings. He is doing the majority of the drinking - I've seen him tank up. He's not actively peeing; it seems like it leaks out when he sleeps - we don't see it anywhere else in the house besides his bed. We have a vet appointment tomorrow for this and his eye (one of his eyes is a bit squinty). Just thought I'd toss this out there to see if anyone has any ideas.

Sending hugs to you and your family.

Thanks for posting this! Brother joined so many at the bridge last year. It helps to know he has some excellent company!