Precious Gracie is an adorable, 7 year old, Black, Great Dane who recently escaped her life at a puppy mill and has spent the past 3 months kenneled at a vet clinic. When BDHPI got word about this sweet senior gal in need we immediately stepped up to bring her into rescue! We were told that she had a "swollen foot" but was on antibiotics and it was doing better. Needless to say, when she arrived we were not exactly prepared for the extent of the problem. Her back foot looked like a cartoon foot and her toes were spread out and her leg was swollen all the way up to her knee!
We made a vet appointment for the following day and Gracie saw Dr. Mary at the Pet Wellness Clinic. They took x-rays and cultured her foot and unfortunately the findings were not good. Her bones in that foot are completely lytic and her joints have been eaten away. Essentially, her toes are unatteched in that foot and the tissue has become necrotic. She is affected from her foot up to the knee and beyond her lymph nodes. Her veins and artery are 3 times the normal size. Dr. Mike reviewed the x-rays and they are both in agreement that Gracie has cancer. It is likely a soft tissue type of cancer and has clearly spread, making amputation not an option at this stage.
The next step is doing some bloodwork to see how her liver and kidneys are functioning. We are also hoping we can get her to start eating because she really hasn't had much of an appetite since she arrived. She is now on Rimadyl and Tramadol for pain and we will be evaluating her quality of life to determine how much time she has left. We hope that we can get her comfortable enough that we can make her a permanent foster and spoil her and pamper her for a little while, but we won't let her suffer and we will unfortunately have to consider euthanasia as well. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers as we are forced to make some tough decisions over the next couple of days!
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