March 2022: My husband and I noticed some swelling on the lower part of Ludo’s front right leg. At first I brushed it off, thinking this could simply be a bee sting or some minor inflammation. After a few days, the swelling never went down, so we went to his vet.
The vet examined him, and remarked that she suspected it was some minor inflammation, but since he had another bump on his bum, she decided to take aspirates of both masses to check the cells. When she came back, she handed me a packet of information and explained that Ludo had two Mast Cell Tumors (MCT), one on his bum and the one on his leg. She explained that the smaller one that was located close to his rectum could be easily removed with a very small chance of regrowth, whereas the tumor on his leg was going to be very difficult to remove completely. Without knowing much about removing the tumor on his leg, I okayed him for surgery to remove them both.
Now looking back on this decision, I wish I hadn’t given permission for them to attempt to remove the tumor on his leg. In the moment all I could think was “take it off!”, now I realize I should have sat down and done some more research early on.
We did the surgery and they removed the smaller tumor with no issues but left a large scar. As expected they could not remove all of the tumor on his leg but they did manage to remove some of the mass, so they gave me a referral to the local oncologist that might be able to give Ludo more options.
August 2022: At this point I’ve done a decent amount of research on the different options available. Amputation was of course the oncologists first choice of treatment, however I did want to explore any other options before I resorted to amputating.
I came across the option of a very new treatment called Stelfonta. Ludo was the ideal case for the Stelfonta treatment as it was a tumor that was in a bad location for surgery. The reviews for this drug were mostly positive, however my oncologist had only done this treatment once before and it didn’t yield the best results. In fact he seemed reluctant to try it at all, but agreed to treat Ludo with the drug.
September 2022: I was hopeful that the treatment would work better for Ludo than the vet’s previous patient and at first everything was working as it should. The tumor went necrotic and fell off, and his wound healed perfectly. I documented the entire process with daily emails to my vet and pictures. I was very pleased with the way everything was working, and Ludo was acting just the same as always, sometimes I swore he was acting even more like a puppy than he had in a while.
May 2023: One Sunday afternoon, after a day working in the yard I looked over at Ludo and noticed that his tumor had returned to almost the exact size it had before the Stelfonta treatment. This came out of nowhere. I made another vet appointment and we spoke again about his options. I decided I would get a second opinion from another oncologist and I’m so glad that I did. She gave me about 5 options we could try, and also told me that she believed Ludo would do awesome with an amputation. She directed me to this website and suggested I look into other owner’s stories.
Now I am here to make the decision to schedule Ludo for amputation. He just turned 8 years old in April. He is a large dog (about 55 lbs) and will need to lose a few pounds if we do go through with the surgery. He’s always been what I call “top heavy” meaning he carries most of his weight on his front legs, which is the main reason why I’ve hesitated this long about scheduling him for this procedure. Finance is also another factor of course, Ludo is not insured and I would be paying for the entire procedure with Care Credit, which I know has quite a high interest rate. I am not the type of person that can ask for help for things. I’m very proud to be able to provide the best care for my pets but recently I have considered a gofundme or equivalent to help cover some of the expenses.
Amputation was never something I thought I would have to consider when I held Ludo for the first time at 8 weeks old. Not when I went through my dog training courses with him as my example, or when he came to work with me everyday at doggie daycare.
He’s the dog I always wanted and we’re in sync with everything. My soul dog. Every time I look at him now, I just wish he could speak to me and tell me what he would want.