You can’t help but laugh when you see the smile on this five year old golden’s face. She is one happy girl. But as with many goldens that we take in, her story did not start out that way.
We got a call from a vet's office about a family was going to have their golden put down. She had a tumor on her front leg and they had no money for surgery. Shelby was only four years old and that seemed like a hard situation to fathom. We immediately went to see her. Despite a huge, painful, scabby sore on her front leg that made it difficult to get up or walk, Shelby was smiling ear to ear and loving any attention that came her way.
We agreed to take her into the program. Our vet made a diagnosis of a soft tissue sarcoma (another ugly word for cancer). It seemed as if the tumor was pretty localized and Shelby was in quite a bit of pain. Surgery to remove the tumor was in order. She could keep all four legs and run and play like any other golden. Shelby had the surgery and her spirit was as happy as ever. But the location of the tumor made it impossible to remove it entirely and keep the sutures closed. After surgery, she was constantly moving and re-opening the wound.
Would amputation be the right solution for Shelby? Many times these cancerous tumors spread to other parts of the body so that removing the leg does not help the overall prognosis. Not so with Shelby! Her tumor was very localizied since the lymph nodes around it showed no signs of the cancer and lung xrays show no signs of metastisis either. Shelby was a prime candidate for amputation. We took her to our specialist on the West coast, Dr. Kimberly Cox of Tampa Bay Veterinary Specialists.
