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The Story of my Leg

Healthy!

Dixie has now been cancer-free for over a year and recently celebrated her ninth birthday.

Prequel

Dixie was diagnosed with cancer last month and I wanted to keep a record of everything that has happened and will happen so that others who may be going through the same thing can get information about it first hand. I know that I have searched probably the entire internet for personal accounts and while there aren't a lot, the ones I have found have been very comforting to me. We have had a scary time the past few weeks but everything is going to be okay.

We first noticed that something was amiss about a month ago. After a long afternoon playing at the park with her much younger puppy friend Gretta, we noticed that she was limping and favoring her left front paw a bit. She did not appear to be in pain, just a little stiff in the ankle. Her ankle also looked a little swollen. We assumed that she was beginning to get arthritis because she isn't such a young dog anymore.

Over the following week, the swelling did not subside and a lump began to appear on Little Dee's leg. We made an appointment to take her to the vet. Her vet performed a fine needle aspirate on the lump. When we got the results back, it was exactly what I knew I would hear and didn't want to -- cancer.

Her vet said that the results showed a spindle cell tumor, though they couldn't be sure which kind. She recommended a biopsy, so we had that done a few days later. Finally she was diagnosed with a nerve sheath tumor.

I think the biopsy prepared us to deal with cancer treatment better than anything else could have--both the recovery and the expense! Dixie is a very active dog and also very sneaky -- within one day after her biopsy she had already pulled out one of her stitches. We had tried to put her in an e-collar (one of those large plastic collars that keeps the dog from licking the wound) but she hated it. She would just stand in the middle of the room making Chewbacca noises. So we left it off and sure enough when we returned from work she had pulled out a suture. So back to the vet we went to have her sewn up again and a bandage put on in the hope that it would keep her off the wound. The vet gave her the cutest pink bandage which matched her collar. At three the next morning she hopped up in the bed, sans bandage. Of course! So I got up and fashioned a new one out of paper towels and tape, buying some regular bandages the next day. Anyway we subsequently went through several bandages, she eventually learned to deal with the e-collar but not before she managed to get her wound infected. Back to the vet again, this time for antibiotics! I have now been to the vet at least once a week for the past three weeks. She is worth it though.

Two weeks later the biopsy wound has healed and we have seen both a veterinary oncologist and a surgeon.

While I was upset that my pup had been diagnosed with cancer, I found out that soft tissue sarcomas, of which nerve sheath tumors are one type, are relatively easy to treat. They are malignant but not in the way that we typically think of. Metastasis (spreading of the cancer to the lungs, liver, or other important body parts) is rare. However, these tumors are agressive locally. It will keep growing and destroying the healthy tissue of her leg, and will eventually rupture and cause infection.