It's Doggie Cancer, and It's Bad

I hate when medical people lead you off with what sounds like good news, and then lower the boom.

When I was a freshman in high school, an aunt of mine wound up in the hospital due to an accident, and while she was recovering we got a call asking us to get to the hospital ASAP. I remember standing in a stairwell of the hospital with my mother (apparently all the consult or "family" rooms were occupied) while a doctor rambled on and on and. on. about her various health problems.

It sounded bad, but like there was still hope. Finally, I couldn't stand the sound of his voice anymore, and I just cut in and said "So you mean she's still alive, right?" And then he said, "No, she's gone. She died about an hour ago."

Everything went black, and he reached out to catch me as I collapsed. To this day, I still don't understand why he kept rambling incessantly when she was already gone.

This afternoon was a little like that.

We got to the vet's office, and the front desk told us the doctor was preparing the instructions. One of the vet techs handed us a couple of bottles of pills. She sounded so perky and happy, not like she was telling someone horrible news.

One of the bottles was a steroid. The vet had said if it was the best case scenario, steroids would be what the dog needs.

There were instructions to give him the pills for 8 days and then call to let them know how he's doing. "If it was cancer, they wouldn't want a report on whether he's improving," I thought.

Hope crept in.

"For once, we're not landing on the rare side of the odds," I thought. "Thank God."

Ha. When the vet finally came into the room, she seemed perky for a few moments, too. Then she told us it's bad. Very bad.

He has a rare nerve sheath cancer. It's big, and it's spreading.

If it was just in his leg, she would recommend "taking off" (they use that term, as if it's just a piece of clothing) his leg without a doubt. She says it isn't the kind of cancer that recurs in multiple places, so that usually cures it. And he's a strong, mentally tough but very happy-go-lucky dog, so she thinks he wouldn't be fazed much by losing the leg. I agree with that assessment of him.

But. But.

The tumor has spread, and it's now involving a couple of roots along the spinal cord and it's touching the spinal cord (I think at the beginning of the cord).

If it was in the cord, they would recommend palliative care until progression to the point that it was time to say goodbye.

However, from what they can tell, it's touching the cord but not within it yet.

So there is another option, which is take off the leg and remove as much of the tumor as possible. But they're not sure they can get all of the tumor cells where it's touching the cord, and if they don't, it will grow back. In that case, it likely will continue to grow down the cord, and then he will start to lose function of his hind left leg. (It's the front left one they would need to amputate.)

Chemo doesn't address this kind of cancer, and she said that the amount of radiation that would be needed to kill all the remaining cancer cells after surgery would damage the spinal cord.

The vet thinks he has 2-3 months without surgery, and maybe 6 months with surgery if they don't get all of it. If they do get all of it, he could have a normal lifespan (he's a cattle dog, they often live to 12-13 or longer).

The surgery would probably be at least $5,000. Maybe 6 months. But how do you put a price on time with a being you love, even if it's an animal? He has such personality. He's such a sweet, loving, happy dog. He just wants to play all the time - you'd never think he was 8 years old. We have 4 dogs, and he doesn't care what place he's in in the pack. Even with the limp and the pain he's been enduring, there have only been a couple of days when he hasn't been his normal, happy self.

If we don't do the surgery, our choices are put him down now or wait until he progresses further. I wouldn't want to keep him alive just for us if he isn't having a good quality of life.

On the other hand, how do you put down a dog who, when he is just sitting there looking up at you, you would think is 100% healthy?

We've had to make the tough call before, and we knew when it was time. But in that case, the dog went from being fine and us not knowing anything was wrong to suddenly being very not fine. Watching a dog progress slowly into "not fine" is a whole other thing.

I don't know what to do.

$5,000 is a lot of money. We're going to have big bills coming up for our next transfer. But on the other hand (and I realize this is my 4th or 5th hand at this point), would I be able to live with myself if we didn't try? It would feel like we were saying he isn't worth it.

Is it fair to do that to the dog? Is he better off if we just do palliative care until the time becomes obvious? Or is it better if we say goodbye now?

In some respects, it would have been easier if it had been the very worst case scenario, where the tumor was already growing down the spine and surgery wasn't an option.

This is a special kind of hell. I am so devastatingly sad.

Not to whine and fall into a pity party, but just how much more do we have to endure?

I understand that dogs die. They don't live as long as we do. I get that, I really do. But with the exception of one, it seems that ours don't even seem to have normal lifespans.