Sebastian slept fairly well last night, though I did wake up to him whimpering next to me. With a bit of encouragement he stood on his own. I wrapped the towel we are using to help support him around his torso, and we headed for the back door. In all honesty, this dog barely needed any help getting around, just a smidge with maintaining proper balance so as to not fall over. He drained a very full bladder in the yard, made it inside without incident and happily drank a pan of water. He took his pills (sandwiched in some pie, of course!), made it back to his “nest” in the bedroom and seems like he may be drifting back off to dreamland.

I’m amazed and inspired by his determination, adaptability and good attitude. I am hopeful this transition may be easier for him than we originally thought since he was very rarely using the leg that has been amputated anyway since the ugly cancer had pretty much taken over.

Cheers to another great day!

Our handsome guy made it safely through surgery and we are back home. He was able to stand and hop into our house with just a bit of assistance. Now we are resting together and hoping for a smooth night. The vet said the amputation went, “extremely well” which was obviously the best outcome we could’ve hoped for when we woke up this morning. His lungs looked clear on the x-ray and his blood test results didn’t reveal any issues. I know we still have a bumpy road ahead of us, but I appreciate the fact that it’s now a road to recovery. I’m feeling optimistic.

Our beautiful blue-eyed 12-year old Siberian Husky, Sebastian, is scheduled to undergo a full amputation of his front left leg (up through the shoulder) tomorrow.  He has been suffering from a large mass on his leg for the past number of months which has continually grown and gotten gnarlier and gnarlier over time.  Last Wednesday, he underwent a biopsy to determine what caused this issue and yesterday we received a diagnosis of Soft Tissue Sarcoma.  Our veterinarian believes that amputating the leg will “cure” the cancer as it’s not the type that usually metastasizes.  Since the biopsy, the incision site has literally ruptured open, through the sutures, into an ugly mess that looks like we took a handful of raw ground sausage and threw it on his leg – there’s exposed flesh, tendons, and a bunch of other “bits” that my non-veterinary-school-trained-eyes can’t really identify, but I can say with certainty that it doesn’t look like it’d ever heal left to it’s own devices as the necrotic tissue is overflowing from the wound site.  When presented with the difficult choice of either euthanasia or amputation, the decision became clear that amputation was by far the best option given what I’ve read about how well dogs do with amputation and how quickly they recover.  Surprisingly to me, this is being approached as an outpatient surgery and he is expected to be back home with us tomorrow afternoon.  I’m nervous, anxious and optimistic all at the same time.  Fingers crossed that the surgeon knows what he’s doing, that Sebastian pulls through the procedure without any issues with the anesthesia and that he returns very quickly to being the lovely, handsome Sebastian he’s always been… just with 3-legs instead of 4 as we’ve gotten used to seeing him.  During the research I did about canine amputees, I read a quote that I can’t quite track down right now to give credit to the proper person, but to summarize, the message was that dogs are incredibly adaptable and are actually, “3-legged creatures who happen to have an extra leg initially.”  I’m hoping there’s some serious truth to that statement and that he is hopping along, harassing his canine siblings, and chasing bunnies in no time.