Ginger's Journey

We could not keep Ginger any longer. Watching her struggle with a broken leg and as the Vet said, in extreme pain, there was no way to cure her and if the leg was removed, her life would not be any longer.

We prepared AA best we could, she never did communicate if she wanted to be at the euthanizing, so we scheduled it while she was in school, 12/18/24. Ginger died at 10:25 a.m. I stayed and rubbed her ears and spoke to her while she was sedated. I left after she was comfortable, and Dr. Rouse came in. Ford took over until her last breath. The Vet was very kind, patient and let us call the shots/timing. It is so sad as Ginger was still mentally with us, still so alive. Seeing her slow down, stumble, less interest in eating while we were feeding her pain pills every 8 hours. Sad. Grief. She was a sweet puppy.

Facebook message and text messages from family:

Our sweet labradoodle Ginger has passed. 07/05/2016 - 12/18/2024. Ginger was diagnosed with aggressive osteosarcoma - a tumor on her left femur bone, which fractured from the cancer, and confirmed that it metastasized in her lungs. Such a heartbreak to deal with; Ginger has comforted Alyzabeth through three knee surgeries, always been her bedmate. We loved Ginger during her life; she gave us so many tail thrashings, nuzzles, greetings (she greeted us by running into us - she was perfect height to nail us in the crotch with her nose/muzzle every time!) and always draped herself over our laps (she was 50 lbs.). She was our "circus dog", our "energizer bunny" and our "kangaroo", our labradoodle never ran out of energy!  AA has lost her best friend/cuddly puppy dog. We are grieving, we miss Ginger.

We received the final report on Ginger, 12/16/24.

Master Problems: 

Lytic lesion (holes in bone) of bone aggressive, predominantly lytic lesion in the proximal left femur is most likely neoplastic (tumor), such as osteosarcoma.

Pulmonary nodules caudal pulmonary nodules are most consistent with metastatic neoplasia. Femoral fracture left sided- pathological through the tumor

The only way to treat the broken limb, with cancer in it, would be amputation. You will need to really think about this approach since Ginger also has metastatic disease to her lungs. Amputation will not add to her survival time. It will only palliate the pain associated with the cancer. This in turn will create a better quality of life for her, as she will be pain-free. With this said, the metastatic cancer will continue to progress and grow, and this will be what she succumbs to. Due to this, she will need to be on chemotherapy (IV carboplatin or oral Palladia with losartan) to slow down the spread of her cancer. In some patients that present with metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis, the survival time is only in the range of 1-4 months with amputation and chemotherapy.