- Joined
- May 27, 2009
- Messages
- 389
- Points
- 58
It pours! What a week, and it's only just starting 
Ment to post this yesteray, but one of my furbabies needs your prayers again, my service dog, Hannah, had to have surgery to remove her entire tail today. Wednesday I noticed her holding her tail out funny when she was walking around, so I looked at it closer and found a break in her tail. Assuming that was the problem I carefully wrapped it in cast padding, splinted it with popsicle sticks, and vet wrapped it thinking that'd be the end. Well, for a couple of days it seemed to be helping, but then things got ugly. Saturday morning I noticed the end of her tail was turning black. Naturally I'd assumed I'd accidentally wrapped to tight so I removed the bandages only to discover there was dying skin and tissue under the bandage as well. Of course, I rushed her to the vet to figure out what was going on. The vet I took her to didn't seem to concerned and said to watch it and see how far the neorcrotic tissue goes and bring her back in a week. So I left it unwrapped, and kept an eye on it. But Sunday evening it was much much much worse, if anything bumped it at all she'd loose a big patch of skin and hair and it'd start bleeding. By this point I was pretty freaked out, but when I called my regular vet he said to just keep her on pain meds and antibiotics for the night and bring her in first thing in the morning. Well, Monday morning when I got up I could easily see a good 6" of her tail was now dead tissue, and was at the clinic as soon as it opened. My vet took one look at it and immediatly cleared his schedule so he could take care of Hannah. Originally when he saw her we thought we where going to try to save at least part of her tail, but sadly, when he got the tail shaved and got a good look he found the culprit - A lession near the base of her tail was pressing on that main artery going into the tail and cutting off blood supply. Most likely we're dealing with osteosarcoma Sent off some biopsy samples to comfirm. This dog has been through ALOT with me, she as a gift from my fiance before he died of cancer 6 years ago. She's been through several moves with me, and many hard times. She's been there with me through my "couch surfing" days when I really had nowhere to stay, She's my service dog, my constant companion, and my very best friend in the entire world. Right now I'm devistated, and praying that either my vet is wrong about the cancer, or that by amputating her tail we got it all and they'll be no more problems. My heart is breaking right now! I just have to do my best to stay positive and keep thinking good thoughts, Hannah's a tough customer! She's got nothing but a very tiny nub left, the vet had to remove as much as he dared in an attempt to get the entire tumor removed, but he did have to leave behind some "questionable" tissue, and we're both worried that by the looks of the skin on th ebottom of her tail we may have only delayed the problem and not solved it, there's a very real chance ths kin could sluff off and we'd loose the stitches, and there's very little tissue left there to work with Please pray for my Hannah, I'm praying so hard that this is just a temporary set back and that she'll be back to her normal self in no time, they'll be no complications, no cancer, and I'll get to enjoy many more years with my girl!
Ment to post this yesteray, but one of my furbabies needs your prayers again, my service dog, Hannah, had to have surgery to remove her entire tail today. Wednesday I noticed her holding her tail out funny when she was walking around, so I looked at it closer and found a break in her tail. Assuming that was the problem I carefully wrapped it in cast padding, splinted it with popsicle sticks, and vet wrapped it thinking that'd be the end. Well, for a couple of days it seemed to be helping, but then things got ugly. Saturday morning I noticed the end of her tail was turning black. Naturally I'd assumed I'd accidentally wrapped to tight so I removed the bandages only to discover there was dying skin and tissue under the bandage as well. Of course, I rushed her to the vet to figure out what was going on. The vet I took her to didn't seem to concerned and said to watch it and see how far the neorcrotic tissue goes and bring her back in a week. So I left it unwrapped, and kept an eye on it. But Sunday evening it was much much much worse, if anything bumped it at all she'd loose a big patch of skin and hair and it'd start bleeding. By this point I was pretty freaked out, but when I called my regular vet he said to just keep her on pain meds and antibiotics for the night and bring her in first thing in the morning. Well, Monday morning when I got up I could easily see a good 6" of her tail was now dead tissue, and was at the clinic as soon as it opened. My vet took one look at it and immediatly cleared his schedule so he could take care of Hannah. Originally when he saw her we thought we where going to try to save at least part of her tail, but sadly, when he got the tail shaved and got a good look he found the culprit - A lession near the base of her tail was pressing on that main artery going into the tail and cutting off blood supply. Most likely we're dealing with osteosarcoma Sent off some biopsy samples to comfirm. This dog has been through ALOT with me, she as a gift from my fiance before he died of cancer 6 years ago. She's been through several moves with me, and many hard times. She's been there with me through my "couch surfing" days when I really had nowhere to stay, She's my service dog, my constant companion, and my very best friend in the entire world. Right now I'm devistated, and praying that either my vet is wrong about the cancer, or that by amputating her tail we got it all and they'll be no more problems. My heart is breaking right now! I just have to do my best to stay positive and keep thinking good thoughts, Hannah's a tough customer! She's got nothing but a very tiny nub left, the vet had to remove as much as he dared in an attempt to get the entire tumor removed, but he did have to leave behind some "questionable" tissue, and we're both worried that by the looks of the skin on th ebottom of her tail we may have only delayed the problem and not solved it, there's a very real chance ths kin could sluff off and we'd loose the stitches, and there's very little tissue left there to work with Please pray for my Hannah, I'm praying so hard that this is just a temporary set back and that she'll be back to her normal self in no time, they'll be no complications, no cancer, and I'll get to enjoy many more years with my girl!
