Tess Has A Lump On Her Foot

[Snoopy21]

I'm so sorry the news wasn't what you hoped. Poor Tess.

Take some time and think it all through.

[TigerJack]

Results are back & it's not good news. Definitely sarcoma although results can't determine if it's in the cartilage or tissue. It doesn't appear aggressive or highly malignant thank goodness.

Options are to remove the tumour, however it's in a very difficult position and would more than likely result in amputation of the foot, radio/chemo which has horrific side affects and in my vet's experience these kind of tumours don't always respond to it anyway, or do nothing.

Given Tess is a giant breed and is 10 years old my instant reaction is I'm not going to put her through anything invasive, and am opting for the do nothing approach. I will be doing some pretty serious research over the next day or two, particularly around alternative therapies and natural healing stuff.

So here I am at work a blubbering mess. I have to do a couple of things, and then I'm going to go home and give my girl a very big cuddle

My old Dane Sam was a rescue who came to me age 8. He had not long had a sarcoma removed from his foot. They didn't take enough in the surgery, they only shelled out the lump. As a result a few years later it grew back. Sam was over 10 by that stage and had numerous other inoperable cancers so I was not going to do anything about it as it didn't bother him.

I had to change that plan when he was about 11 as the tumour grew so quickly that it outstripped its own blood supply and started to necrose. The open would was painful and was quickly going to get infected so he had to have surgery. The vet took the whole first toe (front foot) and big margins. He took a bit of a while to recover but was never bothered by the missing toe. He lasted till he was 14 years old and I eventually had to put him down as his multiple cancers were getting too much for him. He was never bothered by the toe sarcoma again though.

If they operate, don't let them take just the lump, make sure they take big margins. If it means a whole foot I don't know if I would have done it to Sam, the toe was easy to get along without.

good luck