I went in to the vet today to pick up some more of the magic canned food that gets Bo to eat and they told me that they received the test results from the University of Florida. This is my interpretation in layman’s terms: The cancerous mass has been diagnosed as osteosarcoma. All cancerous tumors inside the “capsule” were removed. One cancerous mass was in the fluid pocket of the capsule. The cancer has not metastasized. All in all, I think it is the best report we could have hoped for. We know he still has cancer, and we know his time is limited, but we are still hoping for the best!
Everyone at our vet is so nice. I showed off some of Bo’s tripawd pictures and it is sweet that they are so concerned about him. They have been great answering our many questions. We don’t have any ill feelings about our previous vet, but we are glad that we made a switch.
While at the vet, I asked them about how soon we can take him off of the meds. He is only taking Tramadol now, 1 pill in the morning and 2 pills at night. They said after a few days we could do 1 in the morning and 1 at night and ween him off that way. However, the vet said not to rush to get him off of the medicine. She said it was something that he could be on for life. I am a little concerned about this because we have attributed his lousy mood with the meds. I will say that since he’s down to 3 a day he has been a little happier…still not peppy though.
On a great note…Bo greeted me at the door again when I got home! Two days in a row!! Also, we have been putting a little bowl of water in front of him to drink so he doesn’t have to walk back to the laundry room to the big bowl. As I was settling in from getting home, he walked all the way back to the big bowl and helped himself to a drink!! That is the first time he has done that since surgery! The little things that were never very significant before are truly making my day now!
Great news. Our pups are amazing.
They sure are!
Tate was on Tramadol pre-surgery with no problems but then in week 2 post-surgery he started to get really flaky, panting and staying away from us every time I gave it to him. It would last for a few hours. I was really glad to get him off of it, even though everyone thought it was me that was flaky. We got him off of it about at two weeks but he stayed on Rimadyl (he was on both) for another week.
Glad to hear the diagnosis is promising. I nearly cried the first time Tate ran out to greet me, don’t you just love it?
we kicked the tramadol after 7 to 10 days…gayle did not tolerate it well either. glad you finally got answers about the diagnosis. knowledge is a tool.
charon & gayle
Little by little Bo, you’ll be yourself again.
Most dogs are on pain meds for about 7 to 10 days, but again, not all. It just depends on the dawg.
Glad you got a conclusive diagnosis. Even though it’s not the best thing to have, at least you know what you’re dealing with.
Ain’t it funny how cancer really makes us appreciate the everyday things in life? Yeah, there is a silver lining, for sure.
We’ve been enjoying the silver lining for the past few days. 🙂
Chili was on the Tramadol for about 14 days- we rationed it up the then because that was day he got his staples out, but by then he had 1 in the morning and 1 in the evening. Once he was off all the meds totally, his personality came back. It took another couple weeks before he started running again. Don’t worry, Bo will be his old self again in his own time.
Dakota had shoulder arthritis (at least it acts that way) but it didn’t bug him much; however, we put him on an NSAID before surgery. I figured that only having one front leg would be way more difficult with shoulder pain. And it was the right decision. I’ve taken him off a couple of times to experiment and he’s always much worse. So we do control that particular pain, but not with Tramadol (we use Deramaxx, and we are considering a switch to Rimadyl).
As for post-op pain, Dakota took a bigger dose of his Deramaxx and also Tramadol. We weaned the Tramadol and he was off of it after day 12, I think.
At about week 3, Dakota tanked hard. He would hardly move. I hauled him back to the vet, and they identified a tremendously sore knee. They xrayed it and found no reason for the pain, but it was there. They put D back on Tramadol for 2 weeks. I hated to do it, but I did. He’d only been off of it for a little over a week. After the 2 weeks on it, his knee pain was gone and he was a new dawg.
Bo should not need Tramadol after he’s healed well, and most dogs seem to be done with it by the end of week 2. If Bo has discomfort from something else, he will probably be prescribed something like Rimadyl or Deramaxx or another NSAID.
Sorry for the book I wrote; I wanted to let you know our experience with a post-op pain situation.
Shari
Thank you, Shari. That is really helpful. Bo was on Rimadyl for about 10 days before surgery and then 5 after. His liver enzymes were elevated when they tested before surgery and our vet said that it was likely caused from the Rimadyl. So, we stopped that as soon as we could. He is now completely off the Rimadyl and the Gabapentin. He’s taking 1 Tramadol in the morning and 2 at night. We have already seen a tremendous improvement in his mood since lowering the dose. I think we are going to try weening him off in the next week and see how he does. If he needs it, we are happy to give it to him…we don’t want him in pain. But, if he is already having liver issues from meds, we don’t want to continuing drugging him if it is not necessary. I guess the best thing to do is just experiment and observe to see what he truly needs.
Thanks, everyone for your input! Every day is getting better!