Our first post! Bella our Saint Bernard was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in July 2013, about three weeks ago. She is a very tall, happy, go-lucky girl about 126 lbs post surgery. As with any dog owner the news was devastating. We quickly started to search the web for support and discuss findings and options with our vet whom has just been amazing and very supportive in our decision making process. Last Friday, August 9th, Bella’s leg was amputated. We realize the cancer may have already spread but we couldn’t think of an alternative. She needs us to help give her every chance she has to fight this. We start her on low dose chemo next week.
We brought her home yesterday and she was so excited. She had a nice dog popsicle last night and you could just see in her face that she felt better. As of this morning, 2 days post surgery, I actually had to tell her to stop running! She is doing better than the vet expected (I knew my girl would). Prior to the surgery I kept asking all the “what ifs” like what if she hurts one of the three legs she has left but then I realized the one leg she had that we were removing was useless anyway. She was already running around on three most of the time and knowing there was a cancer in that leg that would hold her back was too much. Also knowing that it would eventually be so painful that even if she did beat the cancer and it didn’t spread that she would not be living a very happy life.
Currently we are doing everything we can, taking it day by day and we’ll see what happens. We switched her food to Blue Wilderness, a grain free low carb food and found some low carb treats for her as well. In case anyone is looking we are using lamb lung treats, and Beams makes this great catfish skin stick which she loves. We also switched to the raw bones that you keep in the freezer from Instinct Raw Bone. The vet also suggested vitamin C and she has been on that for about a week. Carbs feed tumors so if you can avoid them or reduce intake it’s good.
Thanks for reading, if Bella’s story can help anyone else out there in a panic, trying to make a decision, researching about what to do we are grateful. Every dog is different and we all know our dogs the best. Here’s to the next post and keeping our fingers crossed there will be many more.