Becoming a Tripawd at 14

As some of you know, my 14-year-old Italian greyhound has been dealing with a very bad front leg for the last 6 months. If you haven’t seen my dogs, here’s a photo post full of their Halloween pics for the year (yuuuup). Donnie was first diagnosed with osteosarcoma in her humerus, but that ended up being incorrect. After an MRI, they found it is actually a problem with some nerve roots near her cervical spine and while they originally thought it might be autoimmune, they now believe it is probably a nerve sheath tumor based on the current progression. You can read more about that story here.

It has been a tricky road with her. Our priority has been to keep her quality of life good, which meant keeping her pain well managed and making sure she is functional and can get around okay. She was previously able to bear partial weight on her bad leg, but has since lost full function of the leg. This means she drags the leg while walking and she has absolutely no control over it. She cannot lift the leg and she cannot move it if it gets hooked on her other leg.

Donnie’s atrophied limb is seen here tucked underneath her body.

This inability to bear any weight has complicated things. It has made it impossible for us to do her rehabilitation exercises and the muscle atrophy in her leg just continues to get more severe. Her leg is essentially just skin and bone at this point. Donnie has a great rehabilitation veterinarian at Colorado State University who recently reevaluated her since we’ve been struggling with her exercises and noticing a decline. The evaluation confirmed what we had noticed — that she isn’t using that leg and it’s even getting in the way while she walks. They noticed that when she drags the leg, she’s also allowing it to slide underneath and across her body, which could lead to her tripping and potentially hurting herself (not to mention harming her paw from dragging it everywhere).

Because of this, they decided the best solution is to keep the leg out of the way. Donnie is already only using 3 legs to walk and she did well when they wrapped her leg up to her chest. We have since altered a t-shirt of hers so it has a small pocket for her leg and keeps it along the chest whenever she is active. She seems to get around better when the leg is up, so I think this was the right decision overall. We still bring her leg down when she’s resting or sleeping and we have a new set of stretches and massages to do for her as a “feel good” exercise routine — which is directed at minimizing the back and neck pain she is having from compensating for the loss of that leg and stretching out the bad leg.

We met with Donnie’s neurologist again in January and unfortunately, it just isn’t great news. Two days before that visit, we noticed that Donnie’s third eyelid in her right eye was staying out and visible all the time. The neurologist calls this Horner’s syndrome and says it happens when there’s a breakdown in communication between the brain and the eye, which is likely happening because of the nerve sheath tumor that is affecting the same side of her body. We are faced with deciding whether or not to proceed with a repeat MRI/CT radiation planning with the intention of doing high dose radiation.

We originally planned to do radiation for her. We felt she still acted so healthy and we wanted her to have the best chance of surviving. After her first MRI/CT for radiation planning, we chose SRT radiation, but were told they felt they didn’t have a good enough target to do radiation safely without harming her spine. They recommended repeating the MRI/CT down the road, so that’s the point we are at and we had planned to do the repeat imaging.

But then at our appointment, things just…shifted. The neurologist just said nerve sheath tumors do not tend to respond well to radiation. They don’t really have effective treatments for them in general, particularly if they are close to the spine. She said that if we do radiation, we’re talking a life expectancy of “month to months” (meaning one month to less than a year). If we do not do radiation, she has the exact same life expectancy. Radiation might help, but they don’t expect it will give her much more time than doing nothing and it’s possible it may do nothing at all. And I guess that’s where everything changed.

I don’t want to put Donnie through extra imaging and procedures if the benefit to her quality of life is not enough to justify it all. I deeply wanted to give her the chance to survive longer, but I don’t want to resort to radiation only because I can’t bear to lose her a month or two earlier. It just isn’t fair to her. My understanding is that she has no chance of surviving this unless we manage to get very lucky and the tumor grows down her leg instead of toward the spine. The tumor was only millimeters from her spine three months ago and while these tumors don’t commonly metastasize, they will eventually affect all other limbs and the diaphragm if they reach the spine. We will continue with supportive care to keep her comfortable and happy — she is on a good combination of medications that is keeping her pain well managed for the time being.

I appreciate everyone’s good thoughts for Donnie. We are focusing on enjoying each day — going on wagon walks as much as possible (which is a little difficult with it being winter), enjoying lots of freshly-baked treats and favorite foods, and soaking up as many memories, smells, and touches as possible. I know there will come a day when we will get no more of those things and we will have to make the compassionate choice for her. Until then, I hope we can love on her for a while longer and continue to give her the amazing life she deserves. For a dog originally found emaciated on a construction site, she has done pretty well for herself…but I’ve been the most lucky of all.