Our Journey Through Osteosarcoma
We had just over 2 1/2 months with our sweet girl, once we found out about the osteosarcoma. From diagnosis, to amputation, to chemotherapy, to metronomic therapy, to last night: it was about 10 weeks that we would never regret because we knew we tried everything and we had that little extra precious time with her.
We will likely tell the story of her last night later when it is not so fresh. Thank you to this community for all of the support and love you gave us. We are very grateful.
In the spirit of “being more dog,” here is a short video of Molly swimming, taken a few weeks ago. We got her a life jacket (more for our peace of mind than her actual need) and she has been a total rockstar. The water has always been her favorite!
It’s been about 6 weeks since I’ve blogged about our journey, and that’s because I tried really hard to focus on the “now” and just enjoy time with Molly. I found myself becoming addicted to Googling her symptoms, estimating how much more time we’d have with her, imagining both the best and the worst… And I decided that I needed to “be more dog” and get out of that space in my head! There’s nothing wrong with being educated, of course, but when it becomes borderline obsession (and takes away from time with our Molly girl), I knew I needed a break. I’ve still been checking in here and there, reading forums and blogs, but I think it was important for us to be together as a family and not think about the “what ifs.”
That said, bad news has driven me back to a need to write it all out. We started Molly on carboplatin, her chemotherapy, two weeks after the amputation. She had one treatment on 6/18 and the second on 7/13. Both went without major complications — the first one made her throw up so we administered anti-nausea medication prior to the second, which helped a lot; and in the weeks following the treatment her platelet count was a bit low, but not enough to adjust the carbo dosage. Our third treatment, alongside a chest scan to see how the lung mets were behaving, was scheduled for this morning. We were really antsy to get this set of x-rays done, especially since over the past week Molly’s breathing had become more labored at night . I would wake up at 1 or 2am and hear Molly wheezing and ‘huffing’ as she slept on her side. I went back to Google (ugh) and found a slew of possibilities… I even read about famous Tripawd Jerry’s situation, where they found that the mets were pressing his windpipe while he slept on the affected side. I tried to convince myself that it could be allergies or the summer heat and just waited as patiently as I could for today’s appointment.
Unfortunately, the scans showed that the nodules we knew about had grown, and that additional ones have appeared. The carboplatin has not been effective for Molly’s cancer. We immediately stopped the carboplatin and moved to Cytoxan, which is an oral chemo medication. Pending her full blood work, she’ll start that this afternoon. We also found some fluid in her chest and some indications of pneumonia; we have antiobiotics to help with the latter. The fluid is currently not enough to aspirate so we will have to keep a close eye on her breathing… If things get worse, we’ll head back to get her chest tapped. In a month, assuming all is “well,” we’ll get another chest scan to see if there’s any update (paws crossed!).
When I logged into Tripawds this morning after receiving the news from CSU, I read a few updates about dogs with osteosarcoma who recently came back with clean chest scans. I can’t tell you how incredibly happy I am for those pups and their parents because I know how badly we hoped for better news than what we got today. I (and Jordan) am also really angry that the carbo didn’t work for Molly. Do we regret moving forward with the treatment we chose? Of course not, because we would have never known if it would have worked or not. But, it is the hardest thing to feel like you have no control over a problem that you ache so badly to fix.
We’re not going to take our eyes off the goal of giving Molly the best possible quality of life over the coming months (hopeful for at least that amount of time, and our oncologist today said that “months are a conservative estimate”). Per usual, we are really grateful to have this forum — even if we abandoned it for a bit — to share our story and be encouraged by others.
XO,
Kirby, Jordan, & Molly
Howdy!
I definitely eased off on the blogging once we hit the one-week mark — which wasn’t a conscious choice, but probably a good one! We spent a lot of time loving on Molly over the past few days and it has been really nice to start to adjust to our new “normal.”
Everything has been progressing well with Molly’s recovery. The amputation site looks great for 11 days post-op, she’s walking comfortably (and quickly!) on her own, appetite is normal, consequently BMs are normal too, still sleeping a lot but most of the grogginess is gone, and the swelling in her ears has gone down! She’s on quite a cocktail of pills, especially since we had the allergy issue, so I’ll be excited when she doesn’t need Rimadyl, Tramadol, Gabapentin, Benadryl, and Glucosamine. Whew! As a person who hardly ever has Advil, this many meds makes me twitchy but I know they are making Molls much more comfortable. And as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we nailed her pain pill schedule so that she is never hurting (as far as we can tell) but she isn’t a complete zombie either. For any others who are struggling with that challenge, here’s where we are at and have been for the past 4-5 days:
Prescribed: 75mg Rimadyl twice a day, 100mg Tramadol 2-3 times a day, 100mg Gabapentin every 8 hours.
Current dosage schedule: Rimadyl and Tramadol with breakfast, Gabapentin around 1-2pm when we come home for our lunch and her potty break, Rimadyl and Tramadol with dinner, Gabapentin at 10pm before we go to bed.
She’s also on 50mg of Benadryl twice a day for her allergies/swollen ears, which she gets at breakfast and dinner; and we’re back to her regular pre-amp glucosamine, which is one chew each at breakfast and dinner.
Every dog is obviously different (temperament, recovery, weight, etc.) and we made sure to clear our plan with our vet. Happy to have figured out something that works so well!
We’re looking forward to her appointment on Monday for suture removal and the first round of chemo. I’m slightly nervous about how she will react to the treatment but overall, just ready to start slowing the growth of the nodules in her lungs and trachea. She’s not showing any signs of discomfort but it still nags at me to know it’s just sitting there, so unwelcome in our sweet girl’s body.
The other thing we’re ready for: planning our road trip to the beach! We will be taking Molly to the west coast at the end of the summer so she can experience the ocean. She’s such a water dog that we know she’ll go bananas over the beach, so we’re really excited to get those plans on the books for late August.
Time for a beer and bedtime for our pack. Night!
Love,
Kirby, Jordan, & Molly
We made it!
I have to agree with those who said week one would be really hard. It was, both physically and mentally, both on Molly and on us. I have had lots of confidence about our choice, and then doubt, and then confidence again. Molly has been a ghost of herself because of the procedure and the pain meds, and then we’ve taken her outside for a short walk and we see her personality perk right back up. We sent six emails to our surgeon and made one phone call to our local vet “just to be safe” — overprotective parent alert! Molly has had lots of successes and accomplishments, and a few days when she was conked out so hard we were afraid she wasn’t breathing. It truly has been a roller coaster.
But GOODNESS, I am glad we are at this seven day mark! We are still working on balancing out her meds (she’s not showing any signs of pain at all but we’re trying to manage her grogginess) and her allergies are an unwelcome part of recovery. Her ears are swollen but it’s the opinion of both our surgeon and our primary care vet that the cause is not hematomas — just more severe symptoms of her allergies because her body is working so hard to heal up from her amp. We have her on Benadryl and while the swelling hasn’t gone away yet, it also hasn’t gotten any bigger. It’s funny what you start to count as a real “win” during this recovery phase.
It’s also been a growing time for our little family. I’m grateful to be married to someone who is equal in his willingness to do whatever it takes for Molly, including spending significant amounts of money, sleeping very little, missing out on time with our friends and family. We have all strengthened our relationships with each other (and as we speak, Molly is having some “alone time” out on the deck, as I think she’s sick of so much family bonding :)).
We’re on to week two and after that, suture removal and the first round of chemo. We knocked out the first set of milestones and we’re excited to see what’s next! I say it a lot, but thank you all for your words of encouragement and wisdom. This community has helped us so much and I can’t tell you how appreciative we are.
Love,
Kirby, Jordan, & Molly
