Coco came into my life and in her 12 ½ years helped me through some major life changes. She was my first black lab; I always wanted a lab. I got her while I was married and then she helped me get through my divorce. I had a very serious surgery in 2012 and she nursed me through that. She was my baby girl and was a daddy’s girl from the moment I met her. She always followed me around always wanted to snuggle and cuddle with me, always needing to be near me. If I had a bad day at work, she was there to make me feel better and make all of the stress to go away. She was my little angel, my little shadow.
In 2015 COCO had some swelling on her right front leg around the ankle. She had just finished recovering from TPLO surgery in one of her back legs. During the recover from that surgery because our house was a two story, I had her sleeping in the den on her bed and I was sleeping on the floor with her. So, she had not been going up and down stairs while she was recovering from that surgery. It wasn’t until she was finally able to start doing stairs after a few weeks of going back to normal that I noticed the right front leg around the ankle had some swelling. That is when I took her to the vet.
They initially said, oh it’s just arthritis and inflammation from starting to do stairs after not doing them for a while. After a day or two I called them back and had them do some imaging and they said it was either a bacterial infection or bone cancer (osteosarcoma). So, my vet at the VCA Bolingbrook, Illinois location referred me to the VCA Hospital in Aurora, Illinois to have them look and get second opinion. The Oncologist looked at the images and verified it was in fact cancer.
They gave us two options. One, was do nothing. The second option was to do the right leg amputation and then six rounds of chemo. We choose option 2 and she had to stay at the hospital for a few days post operation. Once she was done healing from the surgery, she started her chemo. Once we finished the chemo we did rechecks every 6 months.
The VCA in Aurora put us in touch with the University of Tennessee School of Veterinarian Medicine who create balanced home cooked recipes. They do telephone consultations, and work closely with you and your vets. There is a lot of paperwork to fill out and the best part is you get to pick from a list of ingredients you think your fur baby will like. The telephone consultations are covered by pet insurance. They do recipes based on health requirements so for us they did a cancer friendly diet which was high protein/low carbs. So, they made one recipe for breakfast and one for dinner and yes we had to add supplements/vitamins to her meals but since they were all items people use they were found everywhere and she loved it because she got to eat people food. For breakfast she got to have eggs cooked whatever way, plus can pumpkin along with supplements and vitamins. For dinner she would get cooked hamburger meat or cooked crumbled lamb along with cooked sweet potatoes minus the skin and then supplements/vitamins. For treats we switched her to fruitables and for dog chews we switched her to Sams yams. Plus, if you need recipes modified or need new ones, they can do that for you.
So on June 3 ,2020 when I came home from working overnight at the hospital I found her lying down in the den and not barking or being excited that I was home which is how she always would be. So right there I knew something was wrong. We called the vet and they got us in and put us in a private room. My vet came in and took vitals and felt her lymph nodes in her neck and said they felt enlarged and said from what she could tell the cancer was back and had spread. On that day, which was the worst day of my life and my family’s life, we made the very hard decision to say good bye to her. We had her cremated and have her ashes in a urn in the den and the pet cemetery also did a clay paw print for us. Chewy sent us flowers and my vets office staff sent us a condolence card with cards that had ink paw prints and ink nose imprint from our girl.
She always made me laugh and always kept me on my toes, as you know Labs can be a handful! COCO definitely beat the odds with this type of cancer. I believe that it was all that we did for her along with catching it early was the reason we got to have her for another 4 1/2 years post cancer diagnosis. She passed away in June 2020 at the age of 12 1/2 years old. COCO was a big part of our family and there is not a day that goes by where I do not miss or think about her. Almost every day I get signs from her in the form of blue jays and cardinals. She was the best fur baby anyone could ask for. I know she is in heaven with my first fur baby Ashley, a westie that passed away in 2005.
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