Gus’ Amazing Journey

My wife flew in first thing in the morning.

She accompanied us to the vet.

Every year we get all of our pets teeth clean and quiescently the next day we had the surgery room all booked morning for our pets. Our vet looked at us and said “We will amputate Gus’ leg first thing in the morning.”

Talk about fate and the big guy looking out for us upstairs.

We went home and it was hard to watch our guy lay around on his broken leg.

We waited until morning…

Gus at the vet (the leg without the bandage is the broken leg)

Collage

October 11, 2016

I travel a lot for business and my wife and I just got home from a 7 day 3 city work trip.  My wife left that morning to go to California to get a procedure done.

I missed my boys so much so I decided after dinner I would take them to the little park in our community to play fetch. We walked to the park about a block away and played fetch. About 10 min into playing fetch I throw the ball far and Gus chased it like he always does. Gus can play fetch for HOURS and never get tired. After I threw the ball I turned around to pick up a piece of poop and I heard the loudest most horrific cry known to man. I thought a dog was hurt. So I looked around and I saw Gus just standing still.

I called his name and he wouldn’t move. I immediately knew something was wrong.  I sprinted to him and saw he couldn’t move. I called my wife in a panic (remember she was in Cali) and asked her what I should do. I didn’t have my truck with me and I didn’t know if I should pick him up and walk him to our house.

She told me to call our neighbor Michelle who watches our pups a lot and ask her to bring the truck. I called Michelle and she was home and brought the truck over. As soon as Gus saw her he was excited and started running to her. He did not care that he was only using 3 legs. He loves Michelle.

I have a ramp for the boys to help them get in the truck. Gus got up the ramp just fine and sat down in the extended crew cab. I rushed them to a local pet emergency room.  We pulled up and I must say it was the coolest thing I have ever seen. I checked in with Gus around 7:30 PM and the receptionist got on her walkie talkie and says “We need Triage we have a 6 year old Gold Retriever with a possible broken leg.

Gus went to the back and Miggy and I waited patiently. Miggy climbed up on the bench and sat next to me.

Around 8 PM they saw me and informed Gus had a broken leg and they needed to take X-rays. I told them that was okay.

Miggy and I went back into the waiting room and about 45 min later we went back into a room. The doctor came in and said “Gus Gus shoulder has deteriorated and it broke. But don’t worry his lungs are clean” and she reassured me again that Gus’ lungs are clean. I didn’t understand so I said to her calmly “That’s awesome about her lungs but How in the F**K do we fix his leg if his shoulder is deteriorated.” I wasn’t grasping what she was saying. She knew I wasn’t understanding so she sat me down and said “Mr. Hernandez we will not be able to fix his Leg, we will have to amputate it. I am saying his lungs are clean because Gus more than likely has cancer and it means that the cancer has not spread to the lungs.”

I felt my heart stop and started crying.

She told me she will be sending the X-Rays to a radiologist and we will hear back within an hour.

Miggy and I went back into the waiting room. I am sure my wife felt helpless. All she could do was listen to what the doctor was saying on speaker. In the spring of 2016  my wife just lost her father to colon cancer. Her father helped us get Gus.

The Doctor called us back in around 10 pm and told us Gus for sure had cancer and that we would need to schedule an appointment the next day at our vet to see Gus.

I took both my boys home and we waited until morning.

Christmas 2015

Christmas 2016

Christmas 2017

Christmas 2018

In April of 2017 we noticed a limp in Gus and I thought he had a rock in his paw so I bent over and checked. The was nothing. I scheduled an appointment with our vet so we could address it.

We took X-rays and ran a Valley Fever test (since that is common here in Az).  When the doctor looked at the X-Rays she saw something in the shoulder but thought it was Valley Fever since the blur wasn’t a “Sunburst”. She prescribed some fluconazole and we would come back in two weeks to see if the limping stopped.

We got a phone call a few days later saying the Valley Fever Test was negative and not to be alarmed but that sometimes happens. She said that we would keep him on the Fluconazole and proceed as “normal”.

So we went to appointment 2 weeks later and Gus stopped his limping!!! My wife and I were ecstatic!

3 months later that all stopped …..

 

March 4, 2017

 

 

 

May 3, 2017

 

May 7, 2017