Gus’ Amazing Journey

I will continue to update this blog for now on…

I want to thank everyone who took time to read this. When I first heard of Gus’ diagnosis I didn’t know where to start. All I wanted to know was, how do I give my best friend the best chance of living.

My wife found this site. I asked her to look around for stories of hope. We all need those stories. I tell remind my wife, that the end of April 2019, is when Gus started limping. Could this be the first time he felt the cancer? If so then it will be 2 years. I am looking at July 2019 as our two years.

For those of you who are looking for hope. Look at my boy. Hes the same dog. When I walk around with him, I hear people say “Poor Puppy” I look at them and say “Don’t say Poor Puppy, Hes Very Happy.” I think to myself “Poor Us, If I lost a limb, how would I feel. Would I be able to recover like Gus?”

After Gus had his amputation I made these benchmarks.

• Lets get to chemo treatment #4
• Lets make it to through Chemo
• Lets make it to July 2018
• Lets make it to Christmas 2018
• Now it like Lets make it to July 2019!!

We still get X-Rays once every 3 months, only cause we do not want to be blindsided. Our Vet walked in after the last one and said “Gus is a Fucking Miracle”.

One of my biggest flaws is I am a person that has to or feel like I have control of all situations . It was very hard not to have control of this. In setting the benchmarks I had to keep in mind not to get lost when the next bench mark is but to enjoy the time between benchmarks.

I never really realized how many people loved our Gus. When we told friends and family he had cancer, I was shocked at the support from everyone we received. I know all of Gus’ vets and nurses first names now. I had people on Snapchat who want to see Gus. I will post videos when I figure out how to post them.

Its a ruff road and expensive but well worth it.

His brother Miggy is very protective. We went to a dog beach and a dog accidentally knocked over Gus playing fetch and Miggy ran after him barking like a mad man. When a dog runs up to Gus and sniffs where his leg used to be, Miggy runs up and gets in his face and barks at him like a Mad Man. Gus and Miggy still wrestle (I will post videos of it) everyday. Miggy first meets other dogs it takes a while for him to warm up to them. Now When Miggy sees another TriPawd he is very kind and gentle to them. It shows you other dogs understand and have a higher understanding than we give them credit.

You have to make adjustments. We cannot go on really long walks. If we go to the puppy park or beach we have to make sure he rest the next day. We had to get runners and a throw rug for our living room (Our home is all tile). Gus used to sleep by my side of the bed and let me pet him when I went to bed. He doesn’t do that anymore (Its probably a little difficult for him now) but when I am gone on a long trip he gets up out of his bed and lays next to me like he used to, I think it’s caused he missed me. There are times that I forget he only has three legs and when he get up it shocks me.

All of it is worth it cause I still have my guy around.

Gus’ bruising after his surgery… Our vet said its common. The body’s way of healing itself.

March 2019

 

We went to the Oncologist the following Friday. She recommended we do 4 or 6 rounds of Chemo. We would do these treatments once every 3 weeks and Gus would be finished up by December.

My wife is very smart, she is an educator. She has her masters and researches the shit out of everything.  When we found out Gus had Cancer she researched the shit out of it non-stop. That’s how we found out about this website. She knows that only 20% of dogs make it to a year and 5% of dogs make it to two years. She can also tell you that Gus’ chances aren’t good. Even though she knows all of this she knows and wants to give our dog a fighting chance.

I take a different approach. Tell me the exceptions cause WE or GUS will be one. FUCK what the statistics say.  As they say in sports “That’s why they play the game”.

In our first visit with the oncologist all I wanted to hear all the positives and what benchmarks we need to reach. I asked her “What are the chances we got all the cancer when we amputated his leg?” (Less than 5%) “How long have you been working here and what is the longest you seen a dog live after treatments and what kind of dog were they?” ( 20 years, a great dane, lived 4 years after treatments and died of hear failure)

She told us that if he is alive and chest x-rays are clear by Chemo Treatment number 4 we have a good chance at finishing them.

Miggy and I always accompanied Gus to his treatments. We waited in the lobby, the receptionists always let us know we could come back and pick him up. I told them No because Gus would wait for us.  The nurses always told us he was the most Stoic dog they had and he never minded having the IV in his arm. Gus got sick after the first the first couple of treatments.

Gus Graduated from treatments. We were able to have another Christmas with our Boy.

Gus’ Graduation from Chemo it was a long 4 months

Just our Happy Guy

This is one of my favorite pics of Gus.. Hes just so happy

When I first heard Gus had Cancer I started Crying. I cried non-stop for 5 days. I did not let him see me crying, I wanted him to know that I was going to be strong for him. I know that sounds stupid, but I also didn’t him want to think anything was wrong with him or I am going to give up on my Best Friend.

Several things went through my mind. Will he be the same dog? Will he still love life? How will he adapt? Will he be depressed? He already peed like a female dog so surprisingly I was not worried about that.

We went to the doctor and waited for the Big Guy (Which is what we call Gus, after all he was a 108 lb Golden Retriever) .

All the nurses came out to say how much they loved him.

Gus came out bolted out the door dragging the 100 lb nurse behind him. He was shaking his body happy to see his family. We quickly went outside so he could go pee. We went outside and walked around for a bit.

We made an appt to come back a week later to check how he was healing.

We took our boy home.

One thing we where concerned about is he kept on having to pee a lot. They did not tell us that so we got worried and after 24 hrs of him peeing and sometimes not making it outside we took him to the ER. We wanted to make sure he did not have an infection. Well after being significantly in debt with the surgery and all the ER visits we made them run a couple of test and come to find out he just had discharge.

A week later past and I took Gus back to his surgeon and she thought he looked good. I asked her whats next and did we get all the cancer. She confirmed Gus did have osteosarcoma and without treatment he only had 3-6 months. I blacked out and I didn’t remember anything else the doctor said. I replied “I thought we beat it!! You mean there is more!!” I felt so defeated. My whole body went numb. All I could do is look at Gus who was just happy as can be looking right back at me.

We scheduled an appointment with an Oncologist in Gilbert.

The Day we came Home

The Monday after Gus had his bandages removed. They recommended we put tee shirts on him to keep him from licking his wounds. My wife broke out her sowing machine my grandma gave her a few years back and learned how to sow real quick, anything for her big guy. She sowed all of the arms shut from his missing leg.

Gus’ first time outside in awhile. You could see how tired and how much pain he was in.

January 2018

We loaded up in my wife’s Jeep Cherokee and headed to North Scottsdale to one of the best surgeons in the valley.

We did not know what to expect. We did not know if we would just be doing a consultation or going right into surgery.

We were driving in rush hour and I had to slam on the breaks. When I slammed on the breaks Gus went forward and let out the loudest cry. At that moment my wife and I looked at each other and said “We are making sure he is getting operated on today.”

We got there and meet with the doctor. She told us Gus would have to stay overnight and they would run a blood test to make sure his liver enzymes were okay.

We said our goodbyes and left our future TriPawd there.

After 4-5 hours we heard from the doctor and everything went well. No complications.

My wife called every couple of hours that night to make sure Gus was okay. The nurses loved him. She made the last call around 12:30 am and went to bed.

We couldn’t sleep and wait to get our boy. We loaded up again and we off to go pick him up.

Gus walking into the doctors office the day before with his broken leg… it pains me to watch this to this day.

On the way to Scottsdale

2018 Halloween (He really is SuperPup)

 

Remember how I said our Vet thought that Gus had Valley Fever… (Spoiler Alert that’s about to come into play)

We drop Gus off first thing in the morning. The Doctor and Nurse walk us through everything.

My wife is in tears kissing Gus. My wife told our doctor  “I don’t want Gus thinking we amputated his leg because he was a bad dog”. Our vet was tearing up and looked at her and replied “Gus would never think that, he is going to be so relieved not to be in pain anymore that he will be happy. I think of Gus as if he is my own and I will take care of him.”

We say our goodbyes and wait.

We get a phone call about an hour later. Its the nurse they ran a blood test and Gus’ liver enzymes are elevated. You remember how we thought he had valley fever. Well because he was limping the vet put him on rimadyl and guess what a side effect of rimadyl is… that’s right may cause liver damage. So they said they were going to feed him and wait a couple of hours and do another blood test.

We waited and we get a call from our Vet. The vet told my wife that with his liver enzymes slightly elevated that she didn’t feel comfortable doing the surgery, at least not with her anesthesiologist.   She was afraid that they would not be able to wake Gus up.

My wife was crying and asked the doctor “Why would this happen to a great dog like Gus” and our vet said without missing a beat ‘Because if it happened to a “bad” dog no one would care”.

The Vet said she called down to the same Emergency Room we went to and said they can operate on him tonight. We just have to get him down there.

We pick up Gus and Rush him down there. We arrived around 4:00 pm and all of the doctors already went home for the day. They apparently got the message mixed up. So we scheduled an appointment with one of the best surgeons in Arizona for the next day.

Poor Gus is now going on 3 days with a broken leg 🙁

Dr. Moleander explaining why they cannot operate on Gus there.. (look at his poor leg)

 

June 8, 2017

July 2018 Beach Day