Daisy was a large lab mix. She
weighed
136 lbs at her heaviest. Her favourite hobbies were eating,
sleeping
on the bed, and keeping an eye on her cats. We all miss her!
Daisy won the coveted Donald A. McCaughran
Award
for Best Costume at the 12th Annual IPHC Halloween Costume Party in
2001! She came dressed as a fairy princess.
Daisy had many vet visits over
the years. She had entropion
surgery on both eyes in 1998. Here she is wearing her Elizabethan
collar
3 days after surgery.
Daisy broke the accessory
carpal bone in her right front leg in 2000. She had her leg
splinted
for two months and got to wear her cone again (below left). That's her cone being used as a cat basket by Ragnar
in the photo on the right! In June 2004, Daisy had Gastric
Dilatation and Volvulus (GDV), commonly known as bloat with gastric
torsion. She had surgery to untwist her stomach and suture it into
place
(gastropexy). Her spleen was also removed since when the stomach
twists,
the spleen is often damaged as well. This is Daisy two days after surgery. The photo below is two weeks post-surgery, just
before
her staples were removed. Two months later, Daisy was diagnosed with bone
cancer
(osteosarcoma)
in the distal radius of her right front leg. The dark spot in the
upper circle in the xray is from bone lysis. The bone is weakened by
the
lysis and often fractures occur. In Daisy's case, both the radius and
ulna
were fractured (fractures are circled in x-ray below). Osteosarcoma is highly metastatic, so treatment is
aggressive and usually consists of amputation of the limb with the
tumor
followed by chemotherapy. By the time the bone tumors are found, the
cancer has already spread microscopically to the lungs in 95% of cases.
Daisy had her foreleg and scapula amputated
September
9th and began chemotherapy with Cisplatin two weeks later. Daisy got up and walked by herself only hours
after
the amputation! She was on morphine-like medications for pain for
several
days after the surgery. Here are some pictures
of Daisy after her amputation surgery.
Daisy did fairly well for about a year after her osteosarcoma diagnosis
and amputation surgery. In the fall of 2005, chest x-rays showed that
Daisy had cancer in her lungs. Her quality of life began to decline
rapidly in November and she was put to sleep on November 17.
