At 6 years old my parents got my sister and I two adorable labradoodle puppies, Carly and Ellie. For the past 10 years Carly has been my baby and my best friend. We did everything together. When she was around seven she started having mild hip pain, but other than that she’s been in great health her entire life. We used to joke about how Carly was a wild dog. She loved being outside and just running around. She’s never happier than when she’s outside.
On January 23 we let Carly outside to go do her thing (in the winter she has a time limit because otherwise she’ll stay out there until she freezes). She came inside limping and was in a noticeable amount of pain. Our family vet however wasn’t open so we took Carly to the Diley Hill Animal Emergency Center. Seeing was she had been so healthy we went in thinking we’d come out in about an hour and she’d be in a cute little cast. Boy we were wrong. They took multiple sets of X-rays, which didn’t seem odd at the time. The vet probably spent about 20-30 minutes looking at her X-rays before coming to get my parents Again, i thought nothing of it when they had been gone for 20 minutes.
My mom was the first one to come back into the room and i knew something was wrong because my mom had clearly been crying. That was when they told me that Carly had broken her femur due to what looked like osteosarcoma and we would have to amputate. Her chest X-rays however looked clear, which could be a good sign of it having not spread. As some who doesn’t cry, i’ve done a lot of crying.
We got to take Carly home for the weekend and on January 25 we took her in for her amputation. The surgeon said she was doing great and she came home a day later. On her one week check up we received her biopsy results, she did in fact have osteosarcoma. And immediately the vet was pushing for chemo, something we weren’t and aren’t interested in doing. The research my parents had done said that osteosarcoma usually comes with a time limit so we didn’t want whatever time Carly had left to be spent doing treatment.
On February 9 we took Carly to our family vet to have her stitches removed. On her two week check up her surgeon wasn’t giving us straight answers, so we decided to get a second opinion from our well know and well loved family vet. He removed her stitches and told us we could do chemo but with osteosarcoma it would be borrowed time. However, having looked at her blood tests prior to her amputation he said that since her level were only slightly elevated he thinks we might have just caught a lucky break (pun intended) and gotten it early enough before it spread.
As of right now, we’re simply just taking it one day at a time. We’re not doing treatment simply because theres no guarantee it will work and we want her to have the best quality of life possible. So that means lots of love, treats, outside time (when warm enough)
Being the nervous nelly that I am when it comes to her, we’re making her wear a onesie so she stays warm until her fur grows back.
I was intently reading your post, feeling the emotions behind every word. I then I scrolled down to the ADORABLE picture of Carly and started laughing out loud at all that CUTENESS!!
OOOOMMMMDDD!! Carly is absolutely adorable!!!
I think I was more shocked by how much of my Happy Hannah’s fur they shaved than I was her actual incision site!
There are nomright or wrong decisions when it comes to chemo. Some do, some don’t. You clearly have Carly’s best interest at heart and clearly love her dearly! She knows that and that’s all that matters!
And there is nothing more fun than spoiling a tripawd!! What used to be a “no-no” in the past is now the cutest thing ever! Getting into the trash..adorable…taking food off your plate while you’re eating…precious!!
No dog has a timeframe in their butts. Carly doesn’t give a rip about any ole’ diagnosis or unreliable statistics. She’s just getting on with living life to the fullest enjoying loving and spoiling and getting to be outside as much as she wants!
Stay focused on the NOW, living in the present with no worries. That’s exactly what Carly is doing!
Cannot wait to see more pictures of Carly…and Elloe too!!
Hugs to all…and extra treats!
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!
Thank you so much!! She’s doing great!! I was for sure more surprised at her funny haircut than i was by the actual bruising itself. We’ve started calling it her little sweater!
Ohhh Carly you are soooooo pretty!
I’m so sorry you got the osteosarcoma diagnosis. We know you’re gonna kick cancer’s butt though! And we’re with your people on opting out of chemo, we did too, and we don’t regret it. Everyone is different, some people do, some people don’t, but for us it was the best choice and it sounds like it is for your pack too.
Whatever we can do to help just holler OK? Can’t wait for more pics!
I still go back and forth on if its the right decision but the more i hear about others deciding to not do it just helps reaffirm my choice. I think in the long run it’ll be better for Carly.
She is a doll! Osteosarcoma sucks doesn’t it?
My pup diagnosed in Oct. We did 2 rounds of chemo and he still ended up with mets so we stopped and have been living in the moment ever since.
It sounds like you have already figured out what it took me longer to get to. QUALITY over QUANTITY!
I’m so sorry for your diagnosis. There are so many of us on this crazy journey with us. Please keep us posted on how you guys are doing and of course we love pics!!
xoxo
Julie and Buddy
Carly looks like a wonderful pup I’m glad you made the choices you did , it’s always hard & believe I’ve done my share of second guessing too! Jackson went thru 2 rounds of chemo with very little side effects only to find out the cancer is now in his rt front leg. He’s losing muscle mass by the day bc he’s not putting hardly any weight on it so it’s really tough. We’ve begun a new treatment Zoldronate x2 which supposedly targets building bone back so taking it a day at a time & enjoying life to the fullest. Thanks for sharing your story & keep us posted with updates!