Barret's Story

Ok, so to take it from the top, this is how Barret (who I usually call “Bear” (unless he is in trouble), this confuses people.. so Barret and Bear are the same dog. Glad I cleared that up) and I got here. Fair Warning: This is a MOUTHFUL. There’s a lot I want to get off of my chest.

I found a lump on Bear’s armpit in the fall. I’m not going to tell that whole story because I already have here: A Lump In The Night: Should You See the Vet? Essentially, they couldn’t get any fluid during the needle aspiration, and I was told it was probably just a fatty lump and to ‘wait and see’.

Wait, I did. And now I’m kicking myself for this next part: Barret has very short hair and gets really cold over the winter. He pretty much lives all winter long in his hoodie. I didn’t do the “see” part of wait and see. The next time I did get a good look at his lump it had definitely grown, probably at least doubling in size. I’m still kicking myself for this part too: I still waited until his annual appointment a month later to have the vet check it out. After all, it’s a fatty lump and as long as it isn’t hindering him there’s no reason to remove it, right? Oh the things we can rationalize to ourselves.

Needless to say the vet was kind of shocked it was as big as it was. He still thought it was probably benign but said surgery needed to happen before it got too much bigger. I scheduled surgery for three weeks later.

By that time (though I couldn’t tell because I examined it daily) the gosh-darned lump had grown AGAIN. I was a mess on surgery day, but I tried to be strong for Barret. I went to work after dropping him off. I was scared it was cancer and this wouldn’t be the end of our journey. My husband and coworkers thought I was overreacting. After all, if it was cancer what would we do.. chemotherapy? I wrote about my struggle with those ideas here (I know so much more now): How much is too much – What is the real cost of extending our pets’ lives?

Ok, back to surgery day: I was fully expecting to hear by lunch that he was in recovery and doing great and I could get him at 5. I didn’t hear anything by 12:15 so I called in. He was still in surgery. At 2:30 my phone rings and it is my vet. His exact words to me were “Barret is just waking up now, but I’m worried.. Really worried”. My heart hit the floor. Talk about a crash landing! I had an embarrassing meltdown in the storage area at work. All I remember is really needing a tissue, but there weren’t any. I was too embarrassed to go back to my office.  I think I was in there for a good hour before I could sneak back to my desk.

Essentially, since the thing had grown so large and invaded so much tissue, surgery was really complex. A lot of the tissue itself was necrotic (apparently it was outgrowing its own blood supply and dying off). Barret had to spend the night because he had lots of leakage and swelling. The night he spent at the vet’s office was the night I bought “The Dog Cancer Survival Guide” on Amazon.

The next night I picked him up and my vet talked with me and unintentionally gave me some false hope, saying he still thought it looked like a fatty tumor gone bad. I really, really like my vet but I don’t want false hope.

Bear had a rough week of recovery. He had a pressure bandage and a huge, seeping stapled chunk of flesh in a place that is tough to heal.. the armpit. He was pretty miserable and it wasn’t just the Tramadol. On May 15^th my vet called me at the end of his shift. I missed the call. His message said he was just checking in, but my gut said he had bad news and didn’t want to leave on a message. I had to wait until noon on the 16^th to call back.

“It’s cancer”. That’s pretty much all I heard. I scribbled a couple of notes on an envelope and asked him to spell the type of cancer. Here is what I wrote down: Hemangiopericytoma, persistent, will come back, amputation 1-3 weeks, strongly recommended” I didn’t even write down “good prognosis”.

I was still calm at this point. I’d been steeling myself for this. I called my husband and relayed the news. “WHAT?!” he nearly screamed in my ear. I tried to calmly explain the same things the vet had just told me, though I had a better handle of how cancer worked because I had finished the first few chapters of the survival guide. Knowledge really is your best weapon.

I lost it when, not minutes later, the vet’s office popped up in my caller ID. The techs were calling to schedule Barret’s surgery for the following Wednesday, the 22^nd. His staples weren’t even out from the first surgery! Disbelievingly, I scheduled it.

First I researched everything I could on the type of cancer. Once my vet’s recommendations were confirmed, I found Tripawds and made my first post on the forums.

Let me say that this community has been my most valuable resource and my strongest support system. The couple people who’ve replied on my forum posts already know the rest, but for new readers here it goes:

The staples came out on Saturday May 19^th. My vet had an honest conversation with us and didn’t feel confident enough to perform the surgery the way it needed to be done: aggressively with wide margins. Surgery for Wednesday was cancelled and I was referred to a surgeon in the area.

As it stands today, the consultation AND the surgery are scheduled for June 11^th. I have a list of questions for the surgeon that I’m trying to get answered before the 11^th via a phone consult, and 1% of me is still holding on for hope that the surgeon will review his file and tell us to wait until it comes back or that my regular vet had wide enough margins during surgery #1.

Barret, as of this morning, is still having some discomfort as his surgery site, but if he’d just CALM DOWN and stop bouncing off the walls, the sofa, everything, he’d be fine. All he seems to know is that mom has her head stuck in a book/ebook and he is getting a lot of extra attention and treats and fetches. Oh and his brother and sister are very jealous.

And that’s where we are now.

 As marketing professional in the pet supplies trade for over 6 years and an pawrent of 3 dogs and 2 cats, I’ve gained a plethora of pet-related experience ripe for the picking, though I am new to tripawd pawrenting. My goal is to share my story and the knowledge I’ve gained with the pet pawrents everywhere. You can also find me on That Pet Blog or Google+.

~ by BarretsMomHeather on May 24, 2013 . Tagged: front leg amputation, hemangiopericytoma