Flying Poodles

Chondrosarcoma

On June 7, 2007, I had a low-grade chondrosarcoma removed from the knee end of my left femur (thigh bone). The surgeon (Lyle Sorensen) (who seems to be more of a carpenter) used a chisel to scrape out the tumor, then packed in a bone graft (from a donor who wouldn’t be needing it any more), then screwed on a 12-inch-long steel plate, using five screws that run from one side of the femur to the other.

Needless to say, I haven’t been doing a lot of running since then. Mostly I’ve been healing. Physical therapy uses up a huge amount of my time. However, healing has gone smoothly and I expect I’ll be running with my dogs in another few months… at least, that’s the plan.

However, I have tried to maintain a steady level of training with the curly girls. Initially, all I did was slow walking and some distance work. My trainer, Cheryl, and I played a lot of “come games” to keep speed and enthusiasm up. Elly and Dancer have gotten much better at working at a distance as a result.