We are a pack of three – my husband and I and our tripawd – Meg. Meg is a (just) 9-year old Bull-Mastiff cross Ridgeback and the love of our lives.
Our story begins on a normal weekday afternoon when my husband tells me “Meg had a great time at the park but she’s limping a bit so we’ll have to keep an eye on her”. Sounded like a pretty normal reaction to a bit of rough and tumble with her best friend Tess at our local park so we didn’t really think too much of it. A week passed and the “limping a bit” turned into “limping all the time” which turned in to “I think we’d better take her to the Vet to get it checked out”. After a week of anti-inflammatories our limping friend was no better so it was back to the Vet for x-rays and then, the diagnosis – OSTEOSARCOMA.
Having been involved with children’s cancer for some 25 years we couldn’t believe that we were now one of THOSE families who get that sledgehammer smacking them between the eyes. My poor husband had the unenviable task of bringing Meg home and breaking the news to me. We cried for hours before we realised we were going to need some MAJOR supports in place to get through this. We then had the task of telling the rest of Meg’s pack about the challenge we had ahead – needless to say the extended pack including grandpawrents and great-grandpawrents also shed many a tear.
Our Vet was fantastic, answering all our questions as we struggled with the decisions ahead – amputate, not amputate, euthenasia, not euthenasia, chemotherapy, not chemotherapy… the list seemed endless and without answer. We made the decision to go with amputation (pending additional tests) and then follow-up chemo. On August 17th we dropped our girl off at the Vet and proceeded to make ourselves as busy as possible while we waited for confirmation as to whether the cancer had spread (which meant that the surgery was off) or whether we were good to go. Thankfully the latter was the case and our girl became a tripawd.
We bought her home on the Sunday, groggy, sore, bruised and rather sorry-for-herself-looking but I must admit I was stunned at how quickly she was already adapting to her new mode of transport. She quickly learned how to balance while she went to the bathroom and we didn’t have to help her at all. I’d read other blogs where dogs had to be held up in sling-type harnesses while they did their business but Meg wasn’t having any of that!
Our lives revolved around the Vet for the first week as well as “rostering” family and friends to make sure someone was always with her. Two weeks post-op we headed to Sydney to meet the Oncologist to “have a discussion about our options”. We literally thought it was a meet and greet, but it ended up being our first Chemo treatment! Meg has had all six sessions of Chemo with minimal side-effects. She did lose her whiskers and eye-brows but they are now growing back – PURE white!
We have now passed the 6-month ampuversary and are getting ready to face our next challenge – the 3 month post-chemo scans. We are really pawsitive that the scans will be clear but are also realistic about the statistics – but we all know stats are just a bunch of numbers, they don’t take into consideration Meg’s amazing adaptability. After all, who would ever have thought a tri-pawd could run, swim, run up and down stairs and love us just as much now as the day we got her. What do statisticians know??? NUFFIN!
Our pack are an amazing suppawt to us as are our extended pack – you! Thank you for sharing your stories, your tears, your triumphs and your sorrows. I know that we are not alone and thank God for you all.
Jane xx