"That can't be....he's only 7!"

Hi. This is Arlie. Actually, his full name is Arlington Bear Hayken but most of you know him as Arlie or Arlie Bear or even Arlie Barley....you get the gist...he has a lot of names.

His story begins the day after Thanksgiving on Nov 23, 2012. He had been limping for a week and Greg and I thought Arlie had sprained or pulled something jumping off the bed or chasing squirrels (his favorite past time). When we walked into the vets office, his limp miraculously disappeared and I thought we were golden. Dr. Bruzzese (our wonderful vet...I'm letting you know his name as I think I will be talking about him a lot on here) did an exam and ordered an xray.

As we waited for the results, I still assumed that the vet would say it was a pulled muscle. When he walked in the room, his face told a different story.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news", he said, "Arlie has bone cancer." I just sat there...stunned...and when I asked what that meant Dr. B explained that the life expectancy of a dog with osteosarcoma is about 4-5 months. At that moment, I completely lost it. How could MY active 7 year old mixed breed get this??? Can it be cured??? What will I tell the kids??? Is he in pain??? Did Dr. B make a mistake???

It was then that Dr. B said, "Andrea, I'm not telling you there is a slight chance that Arlie has bone cancer. I'm telling you there's a high chance he has bone cancer." 

I took Arlie home that night and Greg and I spent the rest of the Thanksgiving weekend, hugging Arlie and crying. Everything that we read said that this bone disease is a death sentence and we would be lucky to have him in our lives much longer.

 I had looked up the stages of grief:
1) Denial
2) Anger
3) Bargaining
4) Depression
5) Acceptance

This seems about par as I spent the whole weekend saying, "No no...they messed up the xrays. It was a different dog. Arlie's so young, he just turned 7 last weekend. He's a mixed breed. It's an infection....not cancer." I guess you can say I'm in the denial phase.

After a horrible weekend of waiting for the oncologist to open, we got an appointment this morning. Again, I expected her to say that this was in fact NOT a malignant tumor but a benign tumor. This was all a big mistake. Unfortunately she told us the tumor is quite large and has done quite a bit of damage to Arlie's bone. We decided to do a CT scan to see exactly how far the cancer has invaded our little schnoodle and so we can get options.

Options:
1) It is in his lungs already in which case we make him as comfortable and happy as we can and shower him with even more love until we don't see the Arlie bear in the big brown eyes that we know.

2) It is not in his lungs and we amputate the arm which will take his pain away. Dogs are able to recover quickly from this major surgery and we have no doubt that OUR Arlie is such a fighter and will do just fine.

3) We amputate and do chemo. You are probably thinking chemo on a dog is the same as chemo on a human. It's not. It's such a low dose that it does not kill the cancer. Instead, it slows the rate of the spread to hopefully get us another year with our puppy. Again, it will not cure Arlie. It will just prolong his life and maintain his quality of life that we know he has. It won't make him sick. It will just maintain the same quality of life for a bit longer and we will have our Arlie what we hope a few months more.

Second stage....Anger....I'm SO angry. WHY my dog???? Why a dog that is so good and so kind and loves his family SO much??????

I know you are probably thinking...why are they doing this to themselves. Why do chemo for just a year. The answer is simple...he is our first child. He was there for us through moves, having children, loss of grandparents, first days of school, kissing the tears and boo boos away and never has asked for anything in return. He puts his paw on us, looks us in the eye, and makes us feel better. He's our Arlie.

Once we hear from the doctor with the CT results I will post again. In the meantime, thank you for your support and Arlie says, "Woof".

Love and paws,
Andrea, Greg, and Arlie