Sunday Feb 6th 3AM I’m still awake and 8 more hours to go till her appointment. More to come later today. The did tell us not to give Bellona food or drink after 8PM in case they can perform the amputation today.
That’s good… And when can we pick her up?
Saturday Feb 5th 6:30AM
The phone rang my husband answered and spoke to the vet. I hear the conversation one sided and hear, “That’s good news.” And, “When can we pick her up?” The radiology report said lungs were clear and yes it’s cancer. We picked up Big B and make an appointment with our normal vet for Sunday to go step-by-step over our game plan.
The fall and the news – Friday Feb 4th
Friday Feb 4th 6:30-ish PM – I got home from work went to our bedroom to get our 2 Cane Corso babies down to head outside for potty time and for dinner. Bellona LOVESto bound down the flight of 11 steps with glee. My husband and I have to walk ahead of the dogs to prevent accidents in the decent downstairs as Bellona loves to run. I got to the bottom of the steps with our 2 fur-babies on my heels. I stepped aside for Bellona and Caesar to finish the trek to the landing and to go outside.
Bellona found her new found glory and flew over the rug at the bottom of the steps and crash landed on the hard wood floor. The crash was devastating and Bellona was crying and it seemed like and excerpt from the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercials. Bellona stood up and hobbled on 3 legs about 4 steps and down a couple more stairs to our family room. At that point we didn’t know what specifically was hurt. Paw, Leg, Muscle or Bone – we weren’t sure.
Bellona wasn’t bearing weight on her left front leg and we loaded her up and went to the ER vet. Sedation, X-rays and plenty of waiting. The Vet came in with the news. Her leg was broken. The words didn’t have enough time to sink in before he said the two words that hit me like a semi-truck. OSTEOSARCOMA and AMPUTATION.
Only seconds pass and many things are whirling in my brain. Huh… what? She fell and broke her leg and now you think she has cancer? Are you kidding me? How can my dog have cancer? We feed her great food, she sleeps on our bed… we don’t own her, Bellona owns us. My dog doesn’t have cancer, that happens to other people not us. Amputation, are you kidding me? Are we being Punk’d and where are the video cameras… Seriously?
So my instantaneous thoughts were incorrect, I understand that now. It was the shock of the looming bad news. More X-rays were done to check the lungs and a lot more waiting was in store for us. The Vet wanted to send the films to a Radiologist to get the final verdict just to be on the safe side. Bellona stayed the night at the hospital and my husband and I went home without our oldest child.
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Tagged 11 steps, accidents, Amputation, Bellona, bone, broken, Caesar, Cancer, Cane Corso, crash, dinner, dog, dogs, fur-babies, home, hospital, hurt, leg, loves, lungs, Osteosarcoma, paw, run, sedation, stairs, vet, waiting, X-rays
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Bellona’s Story
Who is Bellona you may ask. Bellona is a 9-1/2 year old Cane Coso with Osteosarcoma. Two days ago we never thought there would be a support system for pet parents of 3-Legged dogs. I am creating this to be a diary of Bellona’s story and to help others in similar situations. I am not an author and don’t claim to be. I promise my writings will improve over the progression of Bellona’s story even if I have to buy a “Blogging for Dummies” book or not.
Let me take you back a couple of days to fill you in on how we got here.
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Tagged 3-Legged, Bellona, book, Cane Corso, diary, dog, Osteosarcoma, pet parents, progression, support system
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