Hopes for a prosthetic

Tomorrow will be 2 weeks since the diagnosis was biopsy confirmed (and 3 weeks since the first limp). In that time, I have:

– Learned about this wonderful website in preparation for Koda becoming a tripawd, and what supplements he should be on

– Done a lot of reading about 3 legged dogs and done a lot of soul searching with my husband about this. If I am honest, I know we should have amputated the leg the day we learned his diagnosis in order to give him the best/longest survival chance. But we have been so scared about how becoming a tripawd will affect his quality of life. You see it’s not just a weight/size thing (I’ve read lots of success stories on here about similar sized dogs), but Koda is a lumberer. He wanders throughout the halls and throughout life. He is a carefree guy, who likes to take his time to sniff the roses, swaying from side to side, and never goes anywhere in a hurry. So the thought of him having to hop around to get anywhere is just hard for us to imagine, since he is just a slow paced kind of guy. This is when we read about the possibility of doing a partial limb amputation, with the hopes of being able to receive a partial limb prosthetic which would eventually put him back on 4 legs.

Partial limb prosthetics:
3 companies that I learned about who offer this for front limbs:
1) OrthoPets
2) AOCPets
3) Bionic Pets

I spoke with both OrthoPets and Bionic Pets over the phone and both were extremely helpful and walked me through the general process. (I called AOC Pets too, just never heard back from them)
If the amputation is below the elbow (and they will give you a diagram which shows exactly how much limb they need to remain behind), then they are generally a candidate for a partial limb prosthesis. Time is: amputation, 3 weeks healing time, then you place the order for the prosthetic, they mail you a plaster mold kit to your house and send you instructions on how to make a cast of the limb (or you can ask your vet to help you), mail back the mold, and turn around time is 3 weeks for Bionic Pets, 6 weeks for orthopets due to some of their manufacturing supplies being diverted to making other things to help with COVID, so the timing may improve in the future.

All that sounded great so we have decided we want to give it a try. The problem being, finding a surgeon who is familiar with doing partial amputations. My fear is that we will cut too high up, and then not be a candidate for a prosthetic, and then will have this useless half leg that dangles and throws him off balance and that case we should have just amputated the entire limb. The other concern of course is that by choosing to spare part of the leg, that we have a surgeon who is confident they can get clean margins with the partial amputation based on x-ray location, because I don’t want part of the tumor left behind. So, having someone who has done this before is important.

COVID has created a lot of problems. Getting to see a specialty surgeon being one of them. With the help of our oncologist, we identified specialists at the Vet schools of FL, GA, and MI, VCA Animal Specialty Center of SC, Blue Pearl in Augusta GA, and the Animal Surgical Center in Flint, MI. I’m sure there are other places, but these are the ones we happened to come across that are near(ish) to us. Unfortunately with COVID, many places are only seeing emergencies (isn’t this kind of an emergency though??) or are booked up until July. Thankfully Blue Pearl of Augusta GA has been able to schedule us for this week. It’s been an anxiety provoking wait (what if we get there and he’s not even a candidate, and we should have amputated the entire leg two weeks ago??) but the wait will be over this week. Tomorrow is our consultation, and hopefully surgery later this week. Wish Koda bear luck!