FitzpatrickLand!

Thanks from us to everyone who has been so nice in sending happy thoughts for our Romeo. We appreciate all the good wishes.

When he got home, Romeo was greeted by most of his four legged housemates. Cecilia the cat greeted him by winding around his legs, rubbing up against him after he came inside. (She was most likely visiting to see Trent and me, but since we were with Romeo, she said hi to him too.)

Dante was cautious when approaching Romeo and could obviously tell something was weird. Romeo didn’t want Dante to come near, so they kept their distance.

Julio initially jumped on Romeo like he normally does and Romeo was fine with that. Then Julio figured out something was strange and has given Romeo a wide berth the rest of the evening. Once we were all hanging out in the bedroom, Julio had a very hard time settling. For a while he curled up in a tiny ball at the foot of the bed, looking completely pathetic.

Eventually he wedged himself in the pillows between Trent and me.

June the kitty spent a while kneading on the bed next to Romeo while he slept.

She-Ra was the one who surprised me most. While we were all lounging in bed, She-Ra was in her traditional spot on Trent’s chest, making it hard for him to type on his computer. After a bit, she wandered down and cuddled Romeo, eventually settling on him for a nap.

Then I guess she decided he needed tending…

Now hopefully everyone sleeps through the night. We’ll see what they all think of each other in the morning.

We got to pick Romeo up this evening! It’s so nice to have him home. He and all the staff at the vet clinic agree.

When I got out of my car at the clinic I could faintly hear a dog barking. The bark sounded familiar. Sure enough, it was our boy. He was not a very good patient – very anxious and uncooperative.

But as soon as we got him to the car, he laid down and settled. At that point, he would finally allow the tech to actually love on him. She was great with him even though earlier he hadn’t appreciated her attention.

He's ready to go home

His bandaging includes about nine maxi pads, cast padding and lots and lots of vet wrap. The goal is to keep his shoulder cushioned so he doesn’t hurt it and to soak up all the ooze from his incision.

I won’t actually see the incision until we change the bandage in the morning. If anyone wants to bet on the number of staples he has, get your guesses in now :)

Once we got home we got to try walking Romeo ourselves. We took the idea from tripawds.com and used a canvas shopping bag that had been sliced open as a sling. With Trent holding one handle, me with the other, and Romeo using his back legs, we made it to the backyard for a potty break.

Romeo has always had an enormous bladder and can pee forever. Tonight is certainly seemed like forever since we had to hold his sling the whole time.

Then we came inside and got Romeo settled on the couch, which didn’t last long. He was restless, so we tried the bed. Apparently that’s what he wanted since he is now sleeping soundly, sprawled out and dreaming.

He can stand! This morning when the techs got to work, Romeo was standing up in his kennel. He isn’t standing up for long, but he can :)

The morning update also included:

• He is eating -the spoiled boy got canned food this morning. Not much puts this dog off of his food.
• He is oozy – his drain is working well and he has maxi pads absorbing all the yuck.
• He is nervous – not surprising but sad to think of my boy feeling out of sorts and not with people he is comfortable with. If this were Dante, he’d be fine with new people tending to him, but Romeo is our big baby.

As of yesterday the thought was that he would stay at the vet’s until Monday. That may still be the plan, but given how uncomfortable Romeo is there he might do better at home. If he’s doing well enough we may get to take him sooner. More on that this afternoon.

We were invited to visit Romeo today, but I’m not sure. I really want to hug him, but I don’t want to crush his soul by showing up and not taking him home.

So for now, good news for our big boy.

I had no idea how much presence Romeo has. He’s such a mellow dog that I don’t think of him having that much of an impact on the activity level of our house, but with him staying at the vet’s last night, his absence was very noticeable.

Not only was he not there to be demanding about getting covered in bed, or to give his big sigh when he is asked to get off the bed and onto (gasp) a dog bed when it’s time to sleep, but just his breathing was missed. Last night we still had two dogs in the bedroom, but it felt absolutely silent.

When we got home in last night Julio checked in with Trent and me, but he seemed to be waiting for that third body to come through the door. He had that look in his eye of “um, where’s my friend? It’s time for ear cleaning and eye licking.”

We all miss our big doofus and eagerly await an update on his progress when the vet calls this morning.

Romeo is hanging out at the vet tonight, recovering from today’s very long surgery. The surgery went well and he is now officially a tripod. I can’t wait to give him a hug.

The potentially sucky part of the day was the news that one of his back knees looks suspicious. Since a two legged Great Dane just isn’t going to work, this could put a serious damper on his prognosis. Nothing is confirmed at this point and we’re just focused on immediate surgery recovery at the moment. Needless to say, today was a bit of a roller-coaster.

We’ll get an update tomorrow on how he’s doing and see when he can come home. The house feels much emptier without him here, and the bed seems so much bigger.

To combat the dreariness of this post, here is a picture of Dante from this morning. Apparently he didn’t want Romeo to feel bad for being the only dog with three legs.

Fun facts

• Currently there are only 1/3 fewer dogs in the house but 2/3 fewer pounds of dog.
• Speaking of weight… Romeo’s leg weighed a whopping 9 pounds – almost twice what Julio weighs!

Today is Romeo’s last day as a quadruped. I took him outside this morning to try to capture one of his last romps on all four legs.

Apparently his leg wasn’t bothering him much this morning.

This week has been hard since I know his leg has been bothering him and I just wish it were gone already. But tomorrow’s almost here. And obviously the leg isn’t stopping him from a little frolic here and there.

The most difficult part of tomorrow morning will be explaining to Romeo why he is the only one who doesn’t get breakfast.

I don’t keep track of when it’s time to trim all the animals’ nails. I know it’s time when a cat lands on my lap and I feel punctured. On that day, it becomes nail trimming time for everyone. This sometimes stretches to become nail trimming week since I don’t always end up rounding up each and every animal on the same day.

This week She-Ra was the culprit who subjected all of her furry housemates to the horrors of nail trimming. (Actually most of them are pretty good, although Dante does run to the other end of the house as soon as he sees nail clippers.)

While I was trimming Romeo’s nails this week I had a disheartening realization. Romeo’s right foot, the one that will be gone on Thursday, has mostly white nails which are easy to trim since the quick is very visible. His left foot, the one he will be keeping, mostly has black nails. Ugh. Yet another reason cancer sucks. At the very least the cancer could have picked the left leg and left me with the foot with the easy to trim nails.

And yes, I did skip trimming the nails on his right foot this time because, really, what’s the point?

Since I was thinking about Romeo’s nails, I remembered this fun from a few summers ago…

As we are contemplating life with a three legged Great Dane, some adjustments to our house will be necessary.

For years our bedroom has been upstairs. But with the prospect of Romeo having to try to figure out how to maneuver on three legs, we thought upstairs wasn’t a good idea for a while.

We decided to move into the room downstairs that is usually reserved for my foster cats, which also serves as Julio’s room while we are gone at work for the day. The timing worked out since I only had one foster cat* at the time and he had just gotten over his cold and was ready to go back to the shelter for adoption. We figured Julio wouldn’t mind having a real bed in his room, so we tackled the swap.

We spent Saturday rearranging furniture and setting up our new bedroom. We left the bed frame upstairs since the mattress on the floor will be more convenient for Romeo – plus it was one less thing to move and set up. Romeo isn’t allowed to sleep in bed at night since this results in no sleep for us as we are pushed off the bed or pummeled when Romeo kicks in his sleep, but he does like to hang out on the bed at other times and we wanted it to be easy for him to get comfy.

When our room was upstairs, the bed only got sunlight in the early morning. Now it gets lots of afternoon sun and all of the animals are enjoying it. On Sunday afternoon while Trent was home with the dogs he caught this lounging going on.

I think the dogs approve of the move.

*Phat Boy is available for adoption got adopted!

Saturday January 22 – As we were getting ready for bed we noticed that Romeo was walking a little strangely.

Sunday January 23 – In the morning we saw the lump on Romeo’s front right leg and that he was reluctant to put weight on it. We kept an eye on him for the day and decided to head to the vet the next day if he didn’t seem to be getting better.

Monday January 24 – In the morning Romeo’s leg looked the same. I called the vet when they opened and they got us in right away. So I took the morning off work and Romeo and I headed to Corvallis to visit our vet. We saw Dr Porter who happened to be one of my sister’s classmates. She was great with Romeo and got us xrays and pain meds.

The xrays were inconclusive. This could either be an injury, which knowing my klutz of a dog was entirely possible, or could be osteosarcoma. The plan was to give Romeo a few days on pain meds and see if he improved. If not we’d pursue other diagnostics.

Romeo spent the day at work with me. In the afternoon I had a meeting with the two vets and the certified vet tech who work for the shelter. Romeo joined us for the meeting and all three of them looked at his leg with the look of “I hope that’s not what it looks like.”

Friday January 28 – Dr Porter called to check on Romeo. When I told her that unfortunately his leg looked the same she referred us to Oregon State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital for a consult with an oncologist. OSU saw Romeo that day and he spent the afternoon with them. We had a great experience there but unfortunately did confirm that Romeo has osteosarcoma.

First the test results –

Romeo’s bloodwork was great: CBC & chemistry “entirely within normal limits”

• PCV 50%      TP 6.9 g/dl      Neutrophils 4538/ul     Platelets 246,000/ul

Fine needle aspirate of bony lesion: too few cells for a definitive diagnosis but cells present are suggestive of sarcoma

Chest xrays: no evidence of metastic disease

• With osteosarcoma it is pretty much guaranteed that by the time symptoms are present the cancer has metastasized to the lungs. Since Romeo has no visible metastases that doesn’t mean it hasn’t spread, just that he has longer before that cancer becomes a problem.

Leg xrays: aggressive lesion of the distal radius and possibly the distal ulna

So really, this wasn’t a 100% diagnosis of osteosarcoma (just 99.9%), but everyone is convinced that’s what it is, so that’s how we’re treating it. Treatment for osteosarcoma just helps quality and length of life since it isn’t really curable. So while Romeo is terminally ill we do have a variety of choices that can significantly increase his life expectancy while giving a good quality of life.

We ended up with a full sheet of paper – smallish font, single spaced, narrow margins – of detailed treatment information from OSU. Here are the highlights…

Left untreated and managed only with pain meds, he could have anywhere from days to 2 months left before the pain is unmanageable. Amputation alone gives a life expectancy of 4-6 months. Adding chemotherapy can extend to 12-14 months.

I wasn’t convinced that Romeo would do well as an amputee but the vets said his other three legs were in great shape, overall he was in good physical condition, and he would be a good surgical candidate. The nice thing about amputation is that it takes away the pain since it’s the bone that hurts. No leg, no hurting.

Another surgical option is a limb spare surgery where they remove the painful section of the bone and fill it in with a plate or bone graft. Since Romeo’s ulna may also be affected, he isn’t a great candidate for this surgery. Plus the recovery time for this surgery takes months. Oh, and it could cost anywhere from $6000 to $8000. (We took this option off the list.)

After that we have the option of chemotherapy. Surprisingly, chemo for dogs has very very few side effects and they tend to tolerate it well. Chemo (Carboplatin) would be given at OSU IV every three weeks for five doses.

They also gave us information about a newer chemo drug, Palladia, which is given orally every other day. This is nice because it can be given at home, but it is a more expensive treatment and isn’t proven to increase life expectancy in osteosarcoma cases.

In case we weren’t opting for amputation, they gave us information about radiation to reduce bone pain and other drugs to help strengthen bone.

Saturday January 29 – I called our vet to schedule an amputation. The prospect of surgical recovery for a dog who is already beyond clumsy on four legs is a bit daunting, but amputation is the obvious first step for Romeo. His surgery is scheduled at our vet for this Thursday. We are still considering chemotherapy options.

Now the countdown to amputation begins. We already have the nickname ready – Sir Romeo Hopalong.