Achilles is almost 5 yrs. old. A Great Pyrenees, weighing about 160 pounds.

He was diagnosed with osteosarcoma on July 1, 2010. We had noticed a very slight limp in rear left leg beginning of May. As we have 4 Great Pyrenees, we figured he had hurt it playing and just kept an eye on it for a couple weeks. Took him to the vet – xrayed his hips – they were all clear. Thought it must be strained. Four weeks later it was worse, so xrayed leg and saw cancer. Went to the oncologist who biopsied site then determined osteosarcoma.

July 1, 2010 “It is osteosarcoma. It’s very aggressive. He’ll have maybe 1 year with radiation and chemotherapy. Maybe 1 month not treated.”

We opted not to do radiation/chemo. Instead we started our own treatment with the help of our regular vet. We did vitamin injections, herbals, vitamin tablets as well as pain management – Tramadol, Gabapentin, Meloxicam.We used gastrogard and pepcid to help prevent ulcers. Achilles would not eat pills anymore – he didn’t trust anything we gave him as we had hidden pills in everything at some point by now, so we had to crush them and put them in solution(various things from kaopectate to Salmon Oil) and use a syringe to get it into his mouth. It was very messy and frustrating for him and for us.

He slept a lot. But was bright-eyed and happy, and when he heard our keys he was ready to go to the store. He lived to go to Petsmart to visit his friends, so we went once or twice when we could just to get him moving and change the scenery.

All this time we could see he was in pain and we tried to manage it with the meds. The tumor was now the size of a softball, it was in his way, painful, and we were afraid it would break. He was otherwise bright-eyed and healthy. He wanted to do things, but the leg was stopping him. The only option seemed to be amputation.

We decided it would be Oct 1, 2010 and a few days later he started hopping on the good leg and not using the cancerous one at all – as if to prepare.

We moved the day up to Thursday and we were ready. or so we thought.