all things cruel and unusual

Our sweet, young, vibrant 2yo Ridgeback was diagnosed with cancer yesterday. Every time I say that or type it, I think, "no, that can't be right." She looks incredible, she has energy to burn even after a long hike or trail ride, she is a happy dog with a shiny coat and a huge personality.

Life is truly NOT fair.

I really can't believe I am having to deal with my young dog having cancer at the same time as my 16 year old Golden Retriever is dying of advanced lung cancer. My Golden, Cassie, has had a good long life and we caught it too late to treat it, but we are all at peace with that because the treatment would have been brutal at this stage in her life. Cairo is just two years old! We are lucky (ugh, if I can even use that word) that her cancer is external - she developed a small bump under her chin about two weeks ago that quickly grew to a pea-sized growth. She had an appointment at the vet yesterday for her annual shots and I asked them to look at the growth. I thought it was a skin tag, but the vet was immediately concerned because dogs this young don't typically develop skin tags. They did a quick in-office needle biopsy and before she left to look at it under a microscope, she warned us that she's not a pathologist and can only tell if the cells were "really, really bad" or "nothing to worry about".

About ten minutes later she came back, gave us a sad look, and told us that Cairo had cancer and we needed to have the growth removed in the very near future. It's the type of growth that looks very innocent but it likes to send little tentacles into the body that metastasize to the other organs or her bones. We agreed to have the growth removed so on Thursday, she will be going into surgery. The whole thing will be sent out to a pathologist, who will make slides of it and check to make sure they got all of it and the margins are clean. If the surgeon gets nice clean margins, Cairo will most likely be good to go without having to endure any additional treatment. 

Kenny and I left the vets office in tears yesterday. Poor Cairo didn't understand why we were so upset. I know she will receive the best care on Thursday and I am glad I caught this growth so early and got it looked at. I am very much the wait-and-see type with myself, but when it comes to Lucy and Cairo, I tend to go overboard. This was one instance where "overboard" could have saved the dog's life.

We took Cairo to the beach a couple of weeks ago. Here are some photos from that day: