For the love of Tami

I got a call from the vet today with the results from the biopsy.  It was a confirmation of what we already knew, that the bone tumor was osteosarcoma.  The only new info was that the lymph nodes from the surrounding tissue showed no abnormal cells.  The pathologists are saying it is not an aggressive case but recommend chemo as they do with all dogs with this diagnosis.

I’m at a loss right now. I want to do everything I can for Tami because the idea of not having her in my life anymore is killing me but the uncertainty of whether this will extend her life or just cause her to be ill during the precious time we have left is impossible to know. I want to do whats right for her and I just don’t know what that is right now.

The stress of this decision coupled with the fact that Tami is having a low day today is causing me to be less optimistic and really sad.  Hearing things like the life expectancy of a dog with a limb removal and no chemo is 3 to 6 months is hard to bare.  However, Tami’s vet has a pooch whom had a front leg amp due to a tumor at 12 and no chemo is still alive 4 years after diagnosis.  She told me however that this is an anomaly and she has never heard of another dog making it this long.  But at least there is a glimmer of hope that Tami could beat the odds and be with me longer than 6 months.

People have said to me that its about quality of life over quantity but can’t I just have both….

I feel selfish even thinking that but like I said I’m just not ready to give up my best friend and the hardest part is I don’t think I ever will.

 

Last Wednesday Tami went in for her right front leg amputation.  I was on the edge of my seat all day waiting to hear how the surgery went.  Around 1pm I finally received a call from the vet saying that the surgery went as well as it could have and I was finally able to breath.  Her vet was very hopeful for a quick recovery. Not only was her limb removed but also her shoulder blade and fortunately not much muscle had to be cut, which usually means less pain.

Knowing that Tami was comfortably medicated and being cared for by professionals for the night allowed me to relax for the evening and mentally and physically prepare myself for the recovery process. My good friend and roommate took me out to a nice dinner to celebrate the small victory and I was able to get a good nights sleep which was much needed.

Thursday morning Tami’s vet called again with an update that she ate breakfast, took her meds, pooped and peed. Woohoo! She also informed me that I could come pick Tami up at noon.  I was so excited to have my best friend home again.  When the vet brought her out from the back, I could tell she was as happy to see me as I was her.  She came hoping out, smiling and tail wagging.  I opened the door to the truck, turned around to say something to the vet and before I knew it Tami had already hoped her remaining front leg into the truck and was waiting for help to get in the rest of the way.  Even her vet was impressed and said that she is “truly amazing”.

There have definitely been ups and downs but all and all Tami is doing great.  She’s been eating and going to the bathroom regularly, thanks to the canned pumpkin and green beans I’ve been adding to her food.  Our house looks like a rug shop but it has been very helpful for Tami in getting around and improving her confidence since shes not slipping around on the tile.

I hope I’m not speaking too soon but one week into recovery and things are going pretty smooth, the biggest challenge now is keeping Tami from being too active. She already climbed halfway up the stairs on her own while my friend was watching her (she was using the restroom and the stairs weren’t blocked off yet).

The next hurdle will be when we get the results from the biopsy and see if the cancer has spread to the surrounding tissues and lymph nodes. Then it will be decision time on chemo or no chemo.  Not really sure what to do there yet, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it hasn’t spread.

 

Tami-Bear is the most amazing furry companion I could have ever asked for.  About 11 years ago I rescued a litter of puppies from a women who neither wanted nor cared for these precious angels.  There were actually two litters with 14 puppies when I first saw them at one week old, by the time they were weened from their mothers and able to go new homes there were only 6 puppies left due to neglect and illness.  I was a 20 year old wildland firefighter living in northern California also going to college with limited means but I just couldn’t let any more puppies die so I took the lot of them and figured I would find them all homes.  I had my eye on the runt of the litter and figured I could find the remaining five puppies good families.  Turns out they all had parvo and worms and were very ill.  After having to put down one of the pups cause she was just too sick I committed to saving another of the puppies who was very sick and ended keeping her along with the runt I had my eye on.  Thus began my wonderful friendship with Tami-Bear and Piglet.

Tami and Piglet are a Walker hound/ Rottweiler mix. I believe the hound in them has led them to have very adventurous spirits.  My house is bordered by timber land on two sides and they took it upon themselves to explore at every opportunity, which I can imagine would be wonderful if you were a dog.  However this adventurous spirit has led Tami into some unfortunate situations.  At about a year old they decided to explore the forest and Tami came home with a bite wound on her neck that was determined to have come from a mountain lion, her saving grace was a leather collar with alternating metal spikes and domes on it.  One of the mountain lion’s teeth actually went through one of the metal domes and the leather, I believe this saved her life.

A few years later one of my neighbors was out of town and his two wolf dogs escaped from their yard, and after killing two of another neighbors goats found Tami and attacked her, leaving her with multiple bite wounds along her left side near her shoulder, neck and hip.  Regardless of these two incidents Tami remained to be a very friendly and outgoing dog.

When Tami was five years old we moved to a small island in Southeast Alaska for a permanent fire job, where Tami had an unfortunate encounter with a porcupine twice which eventually resulted in a quill migrating into her right eye.  After a month of trying everything we could, I had to make the tough decision to remove her eye because all it was doing was causing her pain and had very limited vision. But don’t worry this still didn’t slow her down.  She adjusted quickly and easily, I think it was harder on me than on her.  It wasn’t certain there was quill in her eye until it had been removed and therefore was a very tough decision for me to make to remove the eye. This change only made her sweeter.  About a year later she was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and started on a life long long regime of medication.

If all this wasn’t enough a couple years ago after we moved back to northern California my closest friends rescue pit bull got in a disagreement with with Tami and and gave her another bite wound on her neck, which had to have a drain inserted into in order to heal properly.  Again she remained to be the same very friendly, sweet, and zesty companion I have loved for so long.

So at this point I’m thinking she has had her fair share of sickness and injuries, more than any dog should have to go through.  She has endured it all and became a better dog because of it. I haven’t met anyone one yet who isn’t instantly warmed over by her shining personality.  So to find out last Wednesday after about a week of lameness in her front right leg that she has a bone tumor was almost too much to bare. After a clean chest x-ray and blood work that showed only slightly elevated levels of some indicator, I cant remember cause I was in shock, and a normal calcium test, I decided to make the agonizing decision to have her leg amputated.

I’m very hopeful that she will again pull through this.  In two days from now they will do another chest x-ray to make sure no mets have shown up and barring all looks good will go under the knife to have her leg and shoulder removed……