Osteo Thread

[krissn333]

Crap. Another friend's girl was just diagnosed. It's in the shoulder . I think they've opted for palliative care. If you could say a little prayer for my friend Sara, her hubby Brent, and their girl Chey, I'd appreciate it.

[BauersMom]

You got it, Kristin.

 

It seems like the dxs come in 'waves'. The board will be quiet, and then a whole slew of new diagnoses. I dunno, maybe that's just my impression.

 

Berkeley is gaining a little weight, so I think it's time to lay off the 'extra' cookies.

 

How is everyone else doing?

[Guest snakes]

FedX is still going, 13 months and counting. He even played a little in the sand trap (on leash and somewhat controlled by me at the golf course the other day and had a huge smile on It drives him crazy he can't run with the other dogs, but he certainly doesn't seem to mind the extra pets and scritches he gets

[dmswartzfager]

Symbra seems to feel better and better each day, and once again hopped up into bed to snuggle this morning. She's finally eating her own kibble and doesn't need to be tempted with all sorts of other food. She does like to "hide" in the office, so we try to check in on her often since she's starting licking her incision every now and then.

 

Brian goes back to work on Monday, so she'll be coming to work with me next week so I can keep an eye on her, at least until her staples are out. We only have one doctor next week, and since it's her first week back from maternity leave, there are no surgeries scheduled, and she doesn't have many appointments, so we can set Symbra up in the surgery room and put a gate up in the doorway so she can see me in the treatment room.

 

We have a follow-up appointment with the surgeon on Wednesday afternoon.

[krissn333]

Pinky is up to 55 lbs. and we're happy with that. That funny bald spot she had where her pain patch was has finally started to fill in Bag Balm really did a lot for it. She's still got some flaky skin there, so we're continuing the Bag Balm for now.

 

She's enjoying sprawling out on the couch a lot more than she really ever has. She's always been a guarded dog, usually laying curled up. Odd how losing a leg would make her more comfortable with herself I love it though. She has NEVER roached...ever. I'll be thrilled if she ever does!

Edited February 18, 2012 by krissn333

[greysmom]

 

GO PINKY!!!!! <3

[krissn333]

Anyone heard from Jane lately?

[joejoesmom]

Anyone heard from Jane lately?

I've been very busy cuddling with Joe

 

I got him a new stuffy that grunts really loud. It doesn't hit him in the head when he shakes it (this is something he loves but it causes him to bounce up and down), but I think the loud grunt makes up for it. And he still has the snake if he absolutely must hit himself in the head.

 

His pain has remained well controlled. We go on Thursday for our last radiation treatment at OSU. Reminds me, I need to send an email to Dr. Couto letting him know how Joe is doing and talking about next steps. Dr. C. wants to do chemo. I am really leery about using chemo. He had some inappetance and diarrhea for a few days after some of the doxorubicin treatments. This time they would use carboplatin but it seems that dogs can have negative affects from this too. I guess I could always try it and stop if he seems depressed at all. Decisions, decisions. Dr. C suggested that we hold off pamidronate (or similar) treatment for a while. I guess it is used more as pain control than bone strengthening? I assume that there is a limited number of times it can be administered? Are these assumptions accurate? I would love to hear from those who have done pamidronate. Of course I will be asking Dr. C these questions too.

 

Joe remains my silly, clumsy, soft, cuddly boy.

 

Jane

Edited February 21, 2012 by joejoesmom

[krissn333]

We did pamidronate with Sutra. From what I understood, there are kind of diminishing returns the longer you do it. It can also adversely affect the kidneys.

 

Pinky hasn't had any inappetance or diarrhea or anything from the carboplatin. I don't know about what's normal for dogs on doxorubicin though. As we'd said before, every dog is different. If Dr. C thinks you should go for it, you could always try it and see I guess, like you said.

 

Yay for grunting stuffies (those are Fritz's favorite)!

[Guest snakes]

As pamidronate was explained to me it is for pain control and builds bones. It is a human medication used for osteoporosis patients. I was told that they generally do 6 treatments. Our oncologist after six treatments said that it was up to me what we did, either stop infusions, keep going on a schedule, or just do treatments on an as needed basis as FedX has pain. She did say that there were no studies to show the benefit of doing more treatments. I decided that at the moment we would go every three months for a sort of "maintenance dose". Lately i have been thinking of just doing an "as needed" basis. Luckily his kidney values have been stable.

[NeylasMom]

As others have said, the biggest risk with continual use if adverse effects to the kidneys, but it's a small number of dogs that are affected in that way, especially now that there is a protocol that involves administering fluids before, during and after the treatment. I believe Neyla had issues because she already had compromised kidneys. The oncologist should have known that from her history, but kidney values test fine going in so she didn't have any concerns.

 

As far as what it does, there is evidence (I read the journal articles) that it can actually promote bone growth. It was early on in the studies, there may be more solid evidence out there now considering it's been well over a year since we did the treatment. There was also some evidence that it might in and of itself have some anti-cancer properties. Having said that, I believe it's still primarily a pain management treatment.

 

Has Dr. Couto indicated how far the new lesion has progressed? I would think that would be a major factor for consideration.

 

Glad he's continuing to do well and enjoying his new stuffy.

[giadog]

Gia's amp is today!! I feel woefully unprepared.... But I'll keep reading everything I can get my hands on while she's in the hospital!

[vjgrey]

Argh. Gabe is in for chemo today, but that's on hold because his oncologist thinks his back leg tumor has progressed pretty substantially. They're doing x-rays now so we know better where we stand and what our options are. Meanwhile I'm trying not to have a total meltdown in Starbucks. What an ugly, awful disease.

[krissn333]

Hoping for better news than you think, Valerie

 

Will be thinking of Gia today!

 

We re-try for Pinky's chemo tomorrow morning

[NeylasMom]

for Gia and Gabe

[vjgrey]

He's having radiology take a second look at the x-ray, but so far, it looks like it's not as bad as we feared. He said he sees no signs of fracture/impending fracture, and the tumor looks relatively the same. The bad news is that, while he's walking on the leg (toe touching but no limp), he's showing a pretty significant pain reaction when handled.

 

We're going to go ahead with chemo and discuss upping/changing his pain meds.

 

It's so very, very hard to know where the line is - knowing whether he needs to keep fighting or whether he's just had enough.

[Guest amberj002]

Hi all, unfortunately we are now members of this club as well. Our 11 year old, Nadia, was diagnosed with osteo two weeks ago today. As soon as I saw the lump on her leg I knew exactly what it was. The lump seemed to appear out of nowhere. She was doing really well on minimal pain meds then over the weekend started limping and had a really rough day yesterday...she didn't take a kong with peanut butter, didn't eat, lots of panting and obviously in pain. I had to wait for a vet call back to see what to do with her meds and spent a lot of time reading this thread and found it so helpful, and I just wanted to thank you. She is on gabapentin, carprophen (rimadyl generic) and tramadol. I was able to advocate for upping the gabapentin based on what I read here. Her night was ok, but still way better than yesterday during the day....but today, holy cow she was a different dog! Still limping but not nearly as bad as yesterday, she ate a little, was excited to take a little walk, excited waiting for her kong. It was such a relief to see her happy and semi-normal self. I know there will be ups and downs along the way, but having only gotten her diagnosis a couple of weeks ago I wasn't prepared for that. We did notice that the tumor looked considerably larger, so maybe that was what was causing her pain? Anyway, like I said before, I just wanted to thank you all for providing your experiences, it has been very helpful!

[dmswartzfager]

We have just returned from our follow-up visit with the surgeon - Symbra now has her staples out. There's a little seroma at the end of the incision near her butt (collateral damage from her licking her butt) that we need to keep an eye on, but otherwise, everything looks great.

 

Still waiting to hear back from OSU re: chemotherapy.

[krissn333]

for staples being gone!

[NeylasMom]

for Symbra

 

Deanna, how did she handle being at the vet's office for the surgery and recovery? Neyla's fearfulness was one of the reasons I didn't think she was a good candidate, but it was one of many so I never really had to worry much about that particular one.

[Zoolady]

Ben went in for his second round of chemo today. I was thinking maybe for the ones after today I would wait to make sure he's good to have it but was surprised because his white count which they said should be 3,000 was 2,000. We will try again next week.

 

The oncologist said it wasn't anything to worry about and no antibiotic needed now. She said some dogs are good every three weeks and others every four. Ben is probably a four weeker.

 

He has been feeling good and even tries to run which we discourage.

 

I did speak with her about OSU and if we are lucky enough to be granted the chemo, she is willing to administer it for a fee which I think is what vets do. I'm not sure how to proceed though because they didn't answer my first email. I know they are doing wonderful things and are very busy. Do you think it would be okay to pursue it and if so, what do I do now? Is it too late because he's already being treated? The plan is to do six treatments.

[krissn333]

I don't think it would be too late. They usually let you choose either carboplatin or doxorubicin and then they'll send it to you. That's what we've done - OSU sent the chemo to my vet and I pay him to administer it. We do bloodwork on the morning that I bring her in and as long as everything is good, she has her chemo while we're there. We had to postpone her last one because her neutrophil count was too low. So we're trying again tomorrow.

 

Was Ben's white count 2000, or his neutrophil count 2000? Our vet pays more attention to the neutrophil count. If it is below 2000 he does not like to treat. Pinky's was 1600 last week, so too low for her regularly scheduled chemo.

[dmswartzfager]

for Symbra

 

Deanna, how did she handle being at the vet's office for the surgery and recovery? Neyla's fearfulness was one of the reasons I didn't think she was a good candidate, but it was one of many so I never really had to worry much about that particular one.

 

Better than I expected, but clearly she did not rest well while there - while we were visiting her and she would start to snooze, she was awake whenever there was any sort of unexpected noise or someone walking by her cage, but she was otherwise calm (however, we also did not see her until a full two days after the surgery). She did not eat well either, but I think that was more an upset tummy from the pain medications more than anything else. She's been coming to the hospital with me this week, and after about 90 minutes of panting and pacing in the surgery room on Monday morning, she's pretty comfortable there now - she heads straight to the bed I've made up for her and settles down almost immediately.

 

Honestly, in my "what if" scenarios thinking about what we would do if our dogs were diagnosed with osteosarcoma, I always figured we would go the pain management route with Symbra because of her nervousness. But also, in my "what if" scenarios, we had time... I had never stopped to consider what we would do if we didn't know about anything until there was a pathologic fracture. So that night with her on the X-ray table with that broken leg, I spent all of five seconds considering putting her to sleep, decided there was no way in hell I could let her go that night as long as her lungs were clear, ordered the chest rads, asked Dr. Kortney to find out which ER/referral center could do the surgery ASAP, and never looked back.

[krissn333]

For what it's worth, I think your instincts were dead on...seems as though she's done so well! I was so happy to see her roached on the couch right away after coming home It's really something I never considered either...what would I do if one of them just broke their leg and we found out it was osteo...it's tough.

[BauersMom]

Berkeley is a miserable patient and does horrible in new/unfamiliar situations and did decent (for him) through chemo. We had to rearrange things a bit and try to desensitize him a bit... and had some bad moments for sure... but I have no regrets going that route with him. Our post-chemo life is much happier though, that's for sure.

 

Ironically, of all my pets past and present, Berkeley has been at the vet the most (even before the osteo dx!). Bloat, broken toes, hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, the random gashes and so on means Berkeley is in every e-vet's records within 30 miles from here.