Sunday, October 14, 2012

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:











15 comments:

  1. Kate I am so sorry to hear this. Going overboard is what makes you a great owner! Sending prayers for Cairo. Please keep us posted.
    PS
    I love the pictures!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am so sorry to hear this. I will keep Cairo in my thoughts, so please keep us all posted on her well being.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Big jingles and lotsa good karma going out to you and Cairo.

    ReplyDelete
  4. So sorry to hear this. Sending warm thoughts your way. Love the pictures. She looks like such a happy dog.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh Kate! I am so, so sorry. Best of luck Thursday.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm so sorry, I hope Thursday goes well and the margins are clean. She's a beautiful dog!

    ReplyDelete
  7. That us just horrible.

    My beautiful staffy had cancer last year. It was a very dark time and I had her put to sleep as we couldn't afford $10,000 plus for treatment and she was 13 years old anyway.

    But to have your young barely adult dog have cancer? Kate, I am so sorry to hear this. Hopefully because it was caught early and she is so young all will be well.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ugh, seems there is a strange thing happening this month, so much bad news all around. I know Cairo will bounce back from this and live a LONG and happy life!!! It's never easy hearing scary news like that.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh no, I'm so sorry to hear about Cairo.. cancer is never easy no matter if your dog is old or young. Do you know what type of cancer they think it is? Hopefully surgery goes well and they get good margins!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm so sorry to hear that. *Jingles* for a full extraction and a quick recovery.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Great, Great, Great pictures... Sending Jingles to your entire family - human, horse and pups!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hugs to you and yours. :( Best wishes for Cairo this week. She is such a beautiful, vibrant girl.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm glad you caught it quickly. And you're the ideal owner for this type of thing: you were aware to begin with, but your diligence is going to keep this at bay. Now you know: you'll check her regularly and if any other funny spots (which.. there may be some, or that growth may come back, or there may be nothing else ever again) show up, you'll get them taken care of.

    And don't let the "$10k for treatment" thing scare you. Vet med has come a long way and, while there are still clinics that specialize in oncology, regular DVMs are increasing their access to chemo and practicing radiation. It doesn't have to break the bank. It sounds like that's something far, far in the possible-but-hopefully-not-probable future, anyways. You're an awesome puppy mom, you caught it quickly and it'll be an easy surgery with some nice canned food afterwards (and she'll probably have some great drugs!).

    Keep us posted!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Positively breaks my heart to read any of this :(

    ReplyDelete
  15. Sending healing thoughts your way! So glad you had the lump checked out.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment!