Sierra's FIGHT with Cancer - Part 1

Our girls were getting older and we knew that eventually there would come a time when our girls could no longer be with us. This is like one of those vague thoughts about our time on earth, but it never really seems concrete; that is until time comes one day and gives you a big slap on the face. Well, we were slapped hard the end of February.

We came home one day and let the dogs inside, just like everyday of the week. There was the normal clip clip of their toenails on the floor as they scrambled around us, the jumping up for kisses and the inevitable nose in the crotch from one of the labs. On this day, I noticed that something was not looking right with Sierra's mouth. She had her mouth open, tongue hanging out as always when she was excited, but there was something going on in front above her teeth. I calmed her down and called my husband into the room to take a look. As we pulled up her upper lip, we noticed this big red purple mass on her gums. I freaked out a little, but thought it was an abcess or something. I've never really worried about Sierra's health b/c of our three dogs, she always was the most youthful and healthy. So we made an appointment with the vet and weren't to worried.

We took her into the vets office and our Dr recommended a biopsy. She didn't really say what she thought it was, but said it didn't look like an abcess. So we waited for the results and were called in to discuss that the results came back showing that Sierra had osteosarcoma of the jaw. This didn't really mean anything to me until the Dr said cancer. We were devestated. How could my girl have cancer, why did she get it, she looks so healthy! Our vet recommended we do some research, but her outlook and opinion was not good.

So we went home and started looking stuff up on the internet. I was heartbroken, b/c there was not a lot of info about cancer in the jaw and nothing looked good. I found a wonderful resource on Yahoo Groups - Bone Cancer Dogs. The people on this forum had so much information that I was starting to feel a little better.