Things have changed

As you probably already know, Fiona has had to have her back left leg amputated. This was due to the fact that a tumor was discovered in her tibia. The only way to completely remove the tumor was to remove the leg... but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to early November 2016:

Fiona and Triton were out playing in the yard before I had to leave for work, as they usually do. Triton was running around, being the goofball that he is, while Fiona was just demanding that I pet her. Triton kept running over and nipping at Fiona, trying to get her to to play and she eventually did. The next day I noticed that she was limping, and not putting a lot of weight on one leg. I dismissed it as this is not the first time this has happened, usually from playing too rough with Triton. After a couple days of her not getting better, I finally called the vet and scheduled an appointment. 

I'm old enough to drive now! 

I took her to an Italian vet who told me that she had luxating patellas (her knee caps shift) and that she just needed to rest. The vet also told me that Fiona needed to lose some weight so that this didn't keep happening. Sounds easy enough! We started limiting food and snacks and kept her resting, but she still wasn't getting better. In fact, she was getting worse. While my parents were visiting for Thanksgiving, Fiona wanted to play fetch and so we did. The next day, she wasn't bearing any weight on her leg. Chris called the base vet and scheduled an appointment for a second opinion. The base vet told us that because of the luxating patellas, Fiona most likely tore her ACL and would need surgery to repair it, as well as the knees so this didn't happen again.  

GREAT!!!! 

We were then referred to another Italian vet who did an x-ray of her leg. Good news: not a torn ACL. Bad news: she has a tumor. What's our next step? Take a biopsy of the bone to determine what the tumor is and do an ultrasound to make sure it has not spread to anywhere else. So we did that. Good news: The tumor is localized to her leg. Bad news: the biopsy was inconclusive so we need to do another, more invasive, procedure. 

NOPE!! No thanks, doc. We'll take our chances and just remove the tumor.... leg... ugh this is depressing! 

Such a champ through all her vet appointments. 

 Throughout the month of January, Fiona was limited to just three legs. I started doing research on "Tripawds" and what to expect after her amputation. All the while, she was still just as playful as ever. She still chased Triton around the yard, wanted to play fetch, demanded to pet and loved sitting in Chris's chair when he wasn't around. I wasn't worried about her recovering from surgery for a second. Then Chris scheduled the surgery. It would be the week after my birthday.


The day started like a normal day. Chris and I got up, went to the gym and then ran some errands. We came home and grabbed the dogs and took them both to the vet. The vet was really nice and explained the whole procedure. He then gave Fiona her anesthesia and we left after she was asleep. Since we were out and had Triton, we wanted to take him to the park or something, but the weather wasn't cooperating so we went home.

After the longest 6 hours of my life, we drove back to the vet to pick up Fiona. The vet wasn't ready for us so we had to wait a little longer. He then took us in to an office where he gave us her meds and talked to us about how to care for her over the next couple days. We were finally taken down to see her and I was NOT ready. Half of her butt was shaved and she had a huge bandage where her leg used to be. She was very excited to see us, but really unstable... most likely due to the anesthesia not having completely worn off. Chris carried her to the car and I sat in the back with her the whole way home. It was a rough ride because she wouldn't lay down, but wasn't stable enough to stand while the car was moving. 

That first night, we had planned to sleep in the guest room on the main floor to spare her having to go upstairs or us having to carry her. We brought her bed to the living room and watched as she struggled to get comfortable laying down. After about an hour or so she started walking again. She even managed to go to the bathroom on her own. At one point she just got up and started going upstairs. She slipped and we were so worried she was going to hurt herself so we tried to get her to come and lay back down but she was determined to sleep upstairs so we gave in and I carried her to our room. 

The next day she just wanted to lay around the house and rest, no doubt still loopy from surgery and all the meds. By that night was she back to her usual, happy self. On day 3 she had already managed to go up and down the stairs by herself (under careful supervision of course) and we let her outside to do her business by herself. 

 I know there are still some challenges ahead and we are still waiting on the results from the bone cell test to determine the cause of the tumor. Hopefully they will come back with good news. I'm just happy that my dog is still my dog, even with a piece of her body missing. I'm grateful the surgery went well and she has recovered so quickly.

Happy to be home!