My worst fear is happening. My Dog has cancer?

I am so distraught and cant stop crying. My fur baby (9 y/o) has a big hard mass on her wrist which feels like bone. I am not entirely sure, but I think I may have noticed this a few weeks or more ago, and thought nothing of it because it was a relatively small bump then, and I just assumed she had one wrist bigger than the other or had knocked it. A few days ago, this lump grew rapidly and is now much more predominant. This happened shortly after a very long walk at a nature park. I searched online and it points to it most likely being osteosarcoma, which is a form of bone cancer. The pictures of the bone cancer are identical to what I see on my dog. She went to the vets today, and is going back for an xray tomorrow to confirm.

Does anyone have any advice on what I can do for my dog? And what can I expect? I want to prepare myself for the worst and yet, I want to make the last of her days the best she has ever had. So any advice or creative ideas to keep her happy and occupied, would be most welcome. Thank you.

Hi Ray,Welcome to Dogsey.
Can totally understand your fears,worries and how upset you must be,I would be too Sorry I can't advise on the condition,just wanted to say,hang in there,things may not be as bad as you think.All the information you are reading could be worse case sceniaro and its possible you've caught this early enough to be successfully treated.Best advice I can give is to try to keep everything normal around your dog( they pick up on everything)try to stay positive Untill you know for sure and then take it from there.Hopefully whatever the outcome,there'll be treatment options and everything will be ok.
Fingers crossed(( hugs))

Hi Lacey 10, Thank you for your kind words, they mean a lot. I have been trying to keep positive, but something deep down tells me it is infact cancer. I really do hope you are right. My fingers are crossed. x

Hello Ray
I can understand how worried you must be and how hard it will be for you to be patient until your vet can give you more definite information. Hopefully, as Lacey says, the situation may not be as bad as you think and your vet will be able to suggest treatment options. In the meantime, I would try to keep things as normal as possible for your girl. Do keep us posted on what the vet says when the x-ray results are in. Thinking of you and your girl (what is her name by the way?) and wishing her well xx

Firstly you need a diagnosis , u till then there is no point in worrying.

I lost my boy to bone cancer a few years back so I can relate to this totally.

IF the diagnosis is as you fear, then you will have a few options depending on the severity of the disease , if it's spread, depending on the age of the dog .

The options you are generally given is amputation ( if it is viable, ie not spread to organs) But you have to take the dogs age and wellbeing into account, followed by chemo.

This is something you need to discuss with your vet.

Osteosarcoma , is a very painful and fast growing cancer, and unfortunately generally has only one outcome, and even if you went fir amputation it only buys you a bit of time, as it generally spreads.

The condition can be helped by medication to control the pain, but that is only short term.

I've given you a little insight of what to expect IF it turns out to be the worse.

Hopefully it will be something else, but if not you have to think hard on the next step, you may have a few weeks or a little longer, ( it is usually no longer than a few months at best) so if the news is bad, make every day special for what ever time you have left.

Let us know the outcome, if the worse I will answer any questions you have.

So sorry to hear of your distress. As others have said things may not be as bad as you fear

Thinking of you x

You might want to read this, my experience of a fit and well dog with bone cancer, if it is, your options are very limited, you can't cure it at best with amputation and chemo you might buy 9 months. I personally thought my dog deserved a dignified end and didn't put him through it.

Suspected bone cancer

I agree, I took the same decision as you did, my story is also here somewhere if the poster wishes to read it.

My boy had a rock hard tumor that turned out to be cancer, too. It was a malignant squamous mast cell tumor buried in his face. Very sad stuff. Vet was 95% sure what it was as soon as he saw it, and upon further inspection was 99% sure.

As my boy was 15 at the time and beginning to suffer in all kinds of ways, I didn't even bother with a biopsy etc. and I just had my poor guy euthanized. He was no longer acting himself and his symptoms pretty much said the cancer was spreading probably to his brain and everywhere else at that point.

If it's aggressive bone cancer such as osteosarcoma, I'd certainly not put my dog through the surgery and chemo. At nine years old, the dog is semi old and there's really no point IMO. Of course you will do what you think is best, and I hope it's not cancer.

Here's my thread...
Brownie is sick...(update@ post 42)