1st round of Chemo and Mia’s story

Hello, I am Mia’s daddy. My fiancee and I are the proud parent’s of one 7yo and some change Staffie Mix breed named Mia. I hope to share more about Mia’s quadraped life in the future, but for now this is how Mia became a tripawd.

Mia started walking funny on her rear right leg sometime around early December, however we chalked it up to the multitude of things our active 70 lbs clutz, Mia does. As a result, we didn’t pay it much heed. She had previously had TPLO surgery in her left rear knee, due to a ruptured ACL and  possibly ruptured her right in the past. However, it seemed to do fine after the 1st surgery, so we just monitored it.

Mia’s mommy finally decided we should take her in for a checkup. On Christmas Eve,  we were told Mia likely had  soft tissue damage somewhere along her back or in her hip area. She was put on pain meds and anti-inflammatories to see how it goes. She got a little better for a few days, but then around New Years Even went downhill quickly.

By Jan 2, she was toe-touching and she started to not put weight on it at all. We took her in for X-rays on Jan 4th. The vet noticed a suspicious moth-eaten look in her right femur and told us,  “looks like it might be cancer and we should do a biopsy to be sure.”

I refused to believe anything was wrong, but her mommy made and appointment with the orthopedic surgeon at a nearby VCA. Unfortunately, Mia never made it to this appointment. Sometime that night she broke her femur. The next morning her mommy took her to the emergency vet, where it was determined they could not save her leg, and that it was likley osteosarcoma, so amputation was the best option.

To save Mia pain and having done a search for osteosarcoma we did not hesitate to perform the amputation. As the tripawd community says, “better to hop on three…”  Mia’s birth as a Tripawd fighter was on Thursday, Jan 6th. Luckily, her lungs were clear of any metatheses so she was a candidate for chemo. We had to wait until late Friday Jan 14th for the results of the biopsy. It was a nervous week, resulting in not much sleep. Mommy and I took turns with Mia Butters, camping out on the floor with her.

She only cried the first night, and then for a little  while as she went through withdrawals from her pain patch. Since then, she has become a little stronger every day.

We made our appointment with her new oncologist Dr. Greene for this afternoon. (I know there are other chicago tripawd figthers and angels. Dr. Greene specifically mentioned Ginger.) And not wanting to delay, we put Mia into chemo first thing.

After her treatment, Mia found a surge of energy and tried to bring smiles to all the other patients, mommies and daddies in the waiting room. She tried to say hi to everyone. As we took her to the car, she kept turning around and wanting to go back into the clinic! Even after all this, she still loves her Doctors!

Once we returned home, the adrenaline soon wore off and Mia has been alternating between resting, eating, and tearing squeakers out of her various toys. We hope she tolerates her chemo well and will keep the community updated.

Keep up the good fight all tripawd mommies, daddies and tripawds!.

-Mia’s Daddy (Mommy edited being an English teacher and all)