March 23, 2020

Around the beginning of February in 2020 Akeela started limping on her right front leg, with no apparent cause. We made an appointment with our regular vet, who prescribed pain medication and an anti-inflammatory. They thought that she may have tore or strained a ligament in her wrist and recommended that we see a specialist if it did not go away within 10 days.

By the end of the 10 days her limp was almost entirely gone. I am fortunate because I can bring her to my work with me (yay pet friendly start-ups) and keep an eye on her throughout the day. I left her home alone for a few hours the following weekend while I ran some errands, and when I came home her limp made a full fledged comeback – this time worse than before.

That night while I was giving her belly rubs, she started whining when I touched her chest and upper arm. It became clear to me then that this was not an issue with her little dog wrist. I made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon for the next Monday.

On March 16, 2020 xrays of Akeela’s shoulder showed lysis of her proximal humerus – aka bone cancer or bone infection. They took xrays of her chest as well, and fortunately did not find any abnormalities. Treatment for bone cancer involves amputation of the affected limb, followed by chemotherapy (dependent on the exact type of cancer she has). Removing the limb would not remove all the cancer, but does prevent pathologic bone fracture and pain.

Akeela is a very active dog who plays incredibly hard, especially for her age. This was not a decision that I made lightly. For two days I did as much research as I could and called every clinic in the area to get their opinion on treatment. SRS/radiation therapy is commonly used for dogs who have cancer or tumors in areas that cannot be removed. I thought this might be a better alternative to amputation, but was told by several specialists that the best way to extend her life and give her the best quality of life was to amputate and proceed with chemotherapy.

Dogs who have amputation only have a life expectancy of 6-8 months. Dogs who go through chemotherapy typically make it to one year. If I did not move forward with amputation or treatment, they expected her to only make it two months. Although it was an incredibly hard decision to make, I decided to move forward with amputation. My incredible mom drove all the way from Oregon to Colorado to help me with her post-operative care.

A few months before, Akeela had an incident where she fainted at the pop of a champagne cork. When I took her to the vet, they said that with her age it is likely that she just has a weak heart. The noise startled her and caused a ‘fight or flight’ reaction. Because of this, they did not recommend putting her under anesthesia. This was a major concern for this operation, but the orthopedic surgeon assured me that they would pay close attention to the EKG throughout her surgery and that they were using all heart-safe medications.

They surgery took about 4 hours, but everything went as they expected. They even convinced her to eat hospital food (she is a very picky eater)! She spent the night at the clinic and was given 24/7 care. Since the clinic was open all hours of the night, I was able to call every couple of hours to check on her status. I was able to pick her up the following morning at 11 am.