How it all happened...

On January 21st, Torsten took Monty to dog agility class...one of her favorite things to do. This is where she gets to play: http://performancedogsinaction.com/index.htm. She gets to go whenever Torsten's schedule and the weather co-operate. Torsten and Monty had a great time at agility, but few days later, Monty had a slight limp.

January 28th rolled around and Monty still had a slight limp. Nola, her wonderful trainer, checked her out and agreed it was probably a strain or a sprain. Since Monty really wanted to do class, they did, and just took it a little bit easier than normal. Monty didn't seem to be getting any worse, but she wasn't getting better either.

So on Monday, February 16th, we took her to see her vet. They checked her out and agreed that it was most likely a sprain. They prescribed Rimadyl, twice daily and total bed rest for another week. Keeping Montana on bed rest is not easy an easy thing to do! On February 23rd, I took her back to the vet for a re-check...even with the medicine, she really hadn't improved. The vet looked her over again, and she thought she felt something in her shoulder, so they wanted to take x-rays. She said that it might be a bone chip or arthritis, but since it was in her front leg, they should do the x-rays. This was because dogs get bone cancer in their front legs and she wanted to make sure it wasn't that.

We scheduled x-rays for that Wednesday, February 24th, hoping to find our answer. On Wednesday, we did get our answer, and unfortunately it was the worst answer we could get...it was bone cancer. Torsten emailed me at work to call him. Since my student teacher was teaching that period, I hurried out to the staff room to give him a call. Halfway there, I panicked and started running, hoping it wasn't the cancer. When I called him, he told me right away, and I couldn't believe it. I had to go to my AGI Academy meeting at lunch and luckily, my friend Kristin, who also teaches in the Academy had an idea of where we should take her to get her help. After the meeting, I called Torsten with the information and he set up an appointment for the next day. It turns out that this is the same place where Banfield was going to refer us to as well: Sacramento Veterinary Referral Center (www.vcasvrc.com).

Our appointment was with Dr. Gabby, an oncologist. On Thursday, we took Monty and her x-rays to see Dr. Gabby. Dr. Gabby explained that for bone cancer to show up on x-rays, the bone had to be at least 50% compromised. She said that the cancer grows from inside the bone out, and she thought it would be best to take a sample from it and do an ultrasound of her major organs. She had x-rays of her entire leg and also her chest (which luckily was clear), but Dr. Gabby also wanted to check out her organs and make sure it hadn't spread there.

On Friday, February 26th, we got the results back from the biopsy, and it confirmed that it was indeed bone cancer. The good news was that her organs were also clear, so it looks as though we caught it pretty early. Dr. Gabby explained that we could treat this one of three ways:
1) just with pain killers
2) just amputation
3) amputation plus chemotherapy

Because option 3 gives us the most amount of time, that's what we're going to do. We have a consult scheduled for tomorrow with a surgeon, Dr. Valverde, and we'll go from there.