Before the big day arrives tomorrow…
Hi, we’re the Kovacich family! Our best buddy, Otto, will be undergoing amputation tomorrow and will be an official member of the Tripawd community. As we anxiously await for this big, life-altering day for Otto and our family, we wanted to get started on our blog to share our story. This is the start of Otto’s journey…
We rescued Otto in 2015 and he has become a HUGE part of our family! He means the world to us (especially to our 3 year old and 3-month old who is just noticing how cool he is) and we will do all we can to ensure Otto lives the best life he can!
Otto was diagnosed with soft-tissue sarcoma on August 15, 2020. Shortly after discovering a lump on his elbow, we took him to the vet to get it checked out and received the unfortunate news that the results came back positive for cancer. We decided to take Otto to an Oncologist to determine severity and next steps. After check-ups, testing and several discussions with the oncology and surgery team, the options were to just remove the tumor or to amputate. There were several risks with just removing the tumor because it was attached to the bone. With how locally aggressive soft-tissue sarcoma is, a large area of tissue surrounding the tumor needs to be removed to lessen the chance of it coming back. In Otto’s case, the lump is so close to the bone, therefore there is a high chance that not all the cancer could be removed and would most likely come back. The only true cure for Otto is amputation.
Back in 2015 (a few months before we adopted Otto), we lost our 3.5 year old Husky/German Shepard, Riley, to gastrointestinal lymphoma. This horrible cancer took her life in less than 2 weeks and this rocked our world. We didn’t have the opportunity to save Riley and that was a tough pill for us to swallow. After going through what we did with Riley, we wanted to give Otto every chance possible to kick cancer’s butt! We made the extremely tough decision to amputate and completely cure him. We know that Otto has a LONG life ahead of him and we wanted to give him the best chance at life, CANCER-FREE!
Otto’s surgery is tomorrow (10/23/2020) and we are nervously and anxiously awaiting this life-changing procedure. As prepared as we feel we are, we don’t truly know what to expect, how we will feel, how he will react, how our 3-year will react, and what recovery will look like for him-I’m sure all normal feelings, but still very scary!
We would like to THANK the Tripawds community for so much valuable information and hopeful stories. It feels so good to know we will have so much support and invaluable resources within this group.
As you wait for our post-op update, enjoy pictures of our beautiful Otto (and his best buddy Kade)!
